For Sonia in Gujarat, 2002 riots issue is a dead horse

Listening to Sonia Gandhi’s speech in Rajkot on Wednesday, which effectively kicked off the Congress election campaign in the State, one thing becomes glaringly obvious. For the party and its president, the riots of 2002 are no longer a ‘campaign issue’ to be milked for electoral gain in the way they have sought to do in the past. Instead, the discourse this time is all about ‘development’ and economic inequalities and such other high-minded themes. The ‘S’ word – “secularism” – which the party claims to swear by at the national level - has evidently gone past its use-by date in Gujarat, which is perhaps why Sonia Gandhi is for now soft-pedalling the theme. The contrast between Sonia Gandhi’s speech on Wednesday and her own campaign themes in the 2002 and 2007 Assembly elections in the State couldn’t have been more stark. In the 2002 Assembly elections, for instance, which were held barely months after the Godhra train burning and the riots in the State, the Congress campaign was centred around a ‘soft Hindutva appeal’ intended to outflank the BJP. Evidently on the advice of her political associates from the State, who sensed the sharply polarised political mood in the State, Sonia Gandhi herself launched the Congress election campaign from the Ambaji temple in Hadod. She met sadhus and sants on several occasions – and, more significantly, made a show of being seen with them. As journalist MJ Akbar noted at that time, “The Congress strategy of ‘soft-Hindutva’ reeks of cynicism and contempt: Cynicism about its ideology and contempt for the voter. The cynicism is evident everywhere. Sonia, as president of the party, has permitted her candidates to treat Muslims as lepers.” Congress candidates and leaders, he noted, shy away from being seen with Muslims in localities that are predominantly or totally Hindu. “In many places Muslims have been told to keep away from Congress offices,” he added. But then, that strategy of peddling a ‘soft Hindutva’ line bombed spectacularly in Gujarat. Subsequently, after the UPA came to power in the Centre on the strength of a ‘secular’ coalition, the Congress’ campaign theme in Gujarat pivoted 180 degrees. [caption id=“attachment_478145” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sonia Gandhi in this file photo. PTI[/caption] In 2007, when the next elections came up, the Congress swung to the other extreme: of projecting itself as the secular saviour of Muslims, and of painting Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the maut ka saudagar. That too reeked of cynicism. And the excessively shrill and personal attack on Modi had backfired, allowing him to project any attack on him as an attack on Gujarati asmita. Yet again, the Congress lost badly in Gujarat. Which is why earlier this year, the Congress devised a strategy of maintaining radio silence on the 2002 riots in the context of the Gujarat elections. In the interim period, between 2002 and now, the Gujarat model of development has won critical acclaim in the international media, with Modi in particular coming in for much glowing commentary. True, the trial of the 2002 riots cases proceed parallelly, but the Congress has been particularly muted in its attempts to harvest them for political gain. Party spokesperson Rashid Alvi said in so many words that his party would not make the 2002 riots an election issue. “We don’t want to make such issues the basis of our politics,” he said. ( More here.) Instead, the Congress’ focus has been on stripping Modi of his developmental halo and focussing on allegations of corruption in his administration. It has sought to chisel away at his “achievements” and embellish its own credentials as a party that stands by the poor. That accounts for Sonia Gandhi’s pointed reluctance, in her speech on Wednesday, to target Modi and tie him to the 2002 riots, and instead focus on development as a campaign theme. It’s the surest sign that the 2002 riots issue is a dead horse that the Congress has come to realise can no longer be flogged for electoral gain. After a decade of tilting at windmills, it has finally awoken to the issue that matters to most voters in Gujarat: development. But the decade gone also by has also glaringly exposed the manner in which the party has cynically exploited the issue of ‘secularism’ in the context of the 2002 riots. It may yet resort to reflexive milking of that sentiment, but for this election at any rate, the riots issue may cease to be a campaign theme in the way that it was in 2002 and 2007.