Vanzara's accusations: It's time for Modi to speak to voters

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has kept mum on the allegations flying around him. That was expected, even sensible – the chief minister hardly needs to respond to unsubstantiated accusations from a suspended IPS officer. Even the Congressmen demanding Modi’s resignation on the basis of these accusations know that this is little more that political chatter.

But as a chief minister who has taken pride in Gujarat’s law-and-order machinery that is closely linked to his vision of a model Gujarat and a Gujarat model, some questions arise.

Even if Vanzara does not detail how the killings for which he is cooling his heels in jail actually happened, his description of a police force that executed a “zero tolerance to terrorism” policy under the close monitoring of a state government merits further scrutiny. If police officers have been arrested for alleged fake encounters, the government should be arrested too since it was “inspiring, guiding and monitoring our actions from very close quarters”.

As an editorial in The Indian Express points out that it is disturbing how Vanzara views the State the police establishment as “twined together”. According to the editorial, “When senior police officers lose sight of their institutional mandate, and become missionaries of a “cause”, if they internalise a political impulse to the extent of subverting rule of law, the state government has something to answer for.”

Also, the fact that Vanzara and his fellow accused officers were expecting political patronage – whether it was promised to them or otherwise – is a comment on the nature of the law enforcement establishment’s relationship with the political class. From encounter cops to bureaucrats arrested in the Adarsh case, that political will was involved in their actions is amply clear. When the political class is expected to step in and protect the officers, it raises serious questions on both, the nature of the bureaucracy and the way politicians use or abuse their talents.

An editorial in The Hindu agrees with the view that Vanzara’s plea that the killings were conducted on the orders of the government cannot get him off the hook. “But it does leave Mr. Modi and his government with much to answer for,” it says.

On the same line of thought, the Hindustan Times calls for a policy change in the working of the police and bureaucracy. “…the use of the police and bureaucracy or attempts to coerce them into doing things which are outside the law is nothing new. Those officers who have insisted on upholding the rules and regulations have often been made to suffer,” it says.

Modi, who picked up Obama’s ‘Yes, we can’ slogan recently, would now do well to replicate the candour and depth with which candidates in the US speak to their electorate.