Gujarat, Narendra Modi is (again) chief minister. He encouraged the Godhra massacres
Mumbai (AsiaNews)
- For the third consecutive time, Narendra Modi has been elected chief minister
of Gujarat. The
candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP, the Hindu nationalist party) won in 118 seats out of 182, against the 59
won by the Congress Party of Sonia
Gandhi. A
"predictable" victory, according to Fr. Cedric
Prakash, director of the Ahmedabad based Jesuit human rights, justice and peace
center Prashant, always great
dissenter of the BJP leader. In fact, Modi is a
controversial figure. Considered
to be the man of the economic reforms, which in recent years have made Gujarat
one of the richest states in the country, over him hangs the 2002 massacres between
Hindus and Muslims, for which he has always been held accountable and investigated.
And
for which he has never apologized to the victims.
According to Fr. Cedric
Prakash, "now he will seek to become prime minister of India, but it will
be the end of the BJP. His policies are based on exclusion and the division,
and it was by focusing on this that he won again. Yet India is an inclusive
country. Modi will not be the Prime Minister of India. "
On
27 February 2002 the carnage of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra took place,
when a group of Muslims attacked and set fire to the train, on which Hindus
returning from Ayodhya, the site of an ancient mosque taken over years ago by
Hindus, were travelling . The
attack - which killed 58 people - also sparked violent inter-religious riots
across Gujarat, where the Islamic community paid the highest price, with nearly
2 thousand victims. Modi
is accused of conspiring in the fighting, for not taking any action to stop it
and never having established any investigation.
This
very attitude has led to the polarization of Gujarati society, where several
times in the past, Muslims have complained of being "second-class
citizens."
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19/03/2019 09:59
