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'Post-Godhra situation, a challenge to India'

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE Feb. 13. The developments in Gujarat, post-Godhra, are a challenge to the idea of India, as envisaged at the time of Independence and later in our Constitution, the Editor of Frontline, N. Ram, has said.

Speaking at a seminar on "Gujarat, governance, and the media'', organised by Voices here today, Mr. Ram said many developments leading to the electoral victory of the BJP were disturbing. The pogroms against a minority community, the allegations against the national media, and turning the local regional media into "kar sevaks'' were the orchestration and articulation of the right-wing groups' dreams of a Hindu nation, Mr. Ram added.

``We should be quite proud of the media, which did better than most institutions, barring the Election Commission, for keeping up the pressure," and the wins registered by the BJP did not necessarily prove that it was a vote for the party's brand of nationalism, Mr. Ram said.

It was a sign of the times that the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's musings in Goa recently were little more than an exercise in futility, as the bridge-building initiatives that he spoke of were an impossible task in the prevailing situation.

The Gandhian and former High Commissioner to South Africa, L.C. Jain, said Godhra, the events before, and the thumping electoral victory of the BJP in Gujarat were not about Hindutva or any other religion. The former IAS officer, Harsh Mander, said the Gujarat poll results were a mirror to the Indian society and its polity. "Ordinary people have been transformed from peace-loving, law-abiding citizens into a violent society, where peace was uneasy, a compromise, and never a dignified one,'' he said.

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