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Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit was upset over the manner in which her own partymen treated her in their internecine political wrangling, not uncommon in any political party. She said that at least the office of the chief minister, whoever holds that portfolio, deserves to be respected. Look at the irony. More or less around the same time, Congress alliance partner and RJD chief was calling the Gujrat chief minister “that rat” and that “chuvah” unleashed “dogs on him”. Next day, he continued the attack calling Modi a criminal leading a party of criminals. Perhaps, Lalu sees his and his men’s mirror image in his political rivals! It is a different matter that the national media tried to ignore this uncivilized conduct of a union minister in public that too at the site of a train accident where people were more worried about the fate of their kith and kin. Though full complement of the media was present both at the accident site and at the hospital at Vadodara, there was not a single eye-witness account as to what really happened. Is it because such reports would not have supported the cause of “secularism”?

Let’s look at the chronology of events at the Samalay village near Vadodara, as narrated by senior journalists covering the accident, where the Sabarmati Express collided with a stationary goods train killing 20 people and injuring more than one hundred. The accident took place around 3.30 am and within hours the disaster management team of the state government, which acquired the requisite skills during the Gujrat earthquake, reached the spot and started the rescue operations. Their efforts were supplemented with the help of locals that included RSS workers. Four Gujrat ministers were also on the spot monitoring the rescue operations. By the time the Union Minister for Railways arrived at the accident site around noon, most of the rescue operations were over and the RSS workers did raise slogans against the Union minister. The railway minister was escorted by the local BJP MP Jaya Ben Thakkar who flew from Delhi along with the minister. Minister of state for railways hailing from Vadodara district was also present in the team. From the accident site the minister went to the SSG hospital where more than 100 passengers were admitted for serious injuries. One can imagine that palpable tension and anxiety of the kith and kin of the passengers at the hospital. According to the Police, cordoning of the hospital for the minister’s visit was not possible as emotions were running high among the victims and their relatives. After all, the minister was not going to address a public meeting for the police to “sanitise” the venue.

As against the allegations of Lalu that there was a conspiracy to “eliminate” him, what indeed happened, according to reports, was that ice bars and water pouches were hurled from the terrace of the hospital and none of them injured anyone among the crowd leave alone Lalu. Perhaps these are the ‘missiles’ that the miscreants could lay their hands on which only goes to prove that the incident was not pre-meditated. How is it that the electronic media that revels in going into silly details has not caught the damaged car? How is it that Lalu, known for enacting drama before the media, did not display the damaged car to the media present in full strength at the site?

Is Vadodara incident an isolated one in the history of independent India for the CCPA to meet midnight and order an enquiry by the Home Ministry besides asking for a report from the Governor? May be, this is again part of coalition compulsions! Is public protest, whether orchestrated or spontaneous, something new in a democracy? Congressmen who condemned the attack must ask their comrades in arms. They will tell them as to how they mastered the protests as a fine art to express their anger and how it has become an important tool to communicate the people’s anger to the powers-that-be. Admittedly, such protests have to be within limits of law and should not pose a threat to peace. But, as mass psychology would have it, things go out of control at times and there are innumerable incidents for such aberrations in recent history.

Do you remember the “nose cut” inflicted by an angry mob to Indira Gandhi in Orissa? Morarji bhai faced many hostile crowds. Immediately after Emergency, Karunanidhi’s party chased and attacked Indira Gandhi in Madurai. Jayalalitha was almost stripped right on the floor of the Tamil Nadu assembly. She paid Karunanidhi with the same coin is another matter. Lalu says if there is no security for a union minister who else will be safe in a state. He forgets that another union minister and his cabinet colleague Mani Shankar Iyer was recently turned back twice from Mumbai by Sena activists in protest against his remark against Vir Savarkar. Does it reflect on the law and order maintained by Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra? To be fair to secular fundamentalist Iyer, he did not blow up the issue and he took the protests in his stride. AP chief minister, Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy faced a very hostile crowd when he visited Guntur district where Maoists ambushed a police stationed and massacred police officials. Not surprisingly, the protest was from serving police officials. Reddy did not dismiss them for their “unruly” behaviour. A leader in a democracy has to learn to accept both bouquets and brickbats with the same spirit.

Even when Narendra Modi visited the Godhra carnage site in 2002, there was a howl of protest against him from the victims. George Fernandes also faced a similar hostility in Gujrat for not coming to the defense of Modi when Vajpayee was on the horns of a dilemma to sack or not to sack Modi. A national daily in its editorial tried to portray the striking difference between Lalu’s incident and the one that took place when Modi visited Kolkatta where the state Police handled the situation quite effectively when protesters tried to prevent his entry. What the daily has lost sight of was the difference in the two situations. One at Vadodara was a spot where people’s mood was highly volatile in view of the grim tragedy when any stern action by the Police to control the mob will boomerang whereas Kolkatta airport scene was a politically controlled one making it easier for the law enforcing authorities to handle the situation.

There seems to be something wrong with the priorities of the railway minister. When there was a similar accident in Punjab just before Bihar assembly elections, Lalu made a customary visit to the site and proceeded to Bihar to oversee a political rally which raised a furor in Parliament. Now, in Gujrat he tries to focus the attention on “chuvah” and its elimination rather than on the real task of ensuring rail safety. Probably this is the price we have to pay for “secularism” to flourish in this country.

S R Ramanujan

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