{"id":1073,"date":"2023-12-26T05:26:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T05:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2025-01-30T18:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T18:36:15","slug":"narendra-modi-never-expressed-sadness-for-the-post-godhra-riots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/2023\/12\/26\/narendra-modi-never-expressed-sadness-for-the-post-godhra-riots\/","title":{"rendered":"Narendra Modi never expressed sadness for the post-Godhra riots"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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FACT: <\/strong>The claim that Narendra Modi never expressed sadness at the Gujarat riots until December 2013 is factually totally incorrect.<\/p>

Narendra Modi has expressed regret for the riots and termed the riots as \u2018unfortunate\u2019 . <\/strong>In an interview to Aaj Tak<\/em>\u2018s Prabhu Chawla on its program Seedhi Baat<\/em>, the excerpts of which were published in India Today<\/em> weekly dated 4 Nov 2002<\/a>, Narendra Modi was asked:<\/p>

\u201cPrime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister Advani have said that whatever happened in Gujarat was wrong\u201d to which he said,<\/span> \u201cI say the same thing. The communal riots in Gujarat were unfortunate and we are sad they took place.<\/span>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>

See link: https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190402045942\/https:\/\/www.indiatoday.in\/magazine\/seedhi-baat\/story\/20021104-communal-riots-in-gujarat-were-unfortunate-narendra-modi-794400-2002-11-04<\/a><\/p>

\u00a0 After the 2002 Gujarat riots Narendra Modi made a statement in the State Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) in March 2002. One paragraph from that statement is: \u201cAre we not supposed to soul-search ourselves? Whether it is Godhra incident or post-Godhra it does not enhance the prestige of any decent society. The riots are a stigma on humanity<\/strong> and do not help anyone to hold his head high. Then why is there a difference of opinion\u201d.<\/span><\/p>

When Narendra Modi went on his \u201cSadbhavana fast\u201d in Gujarat in 2011, some newspapers said, <\/a><\/p>

\u201cIn a statement interpreted as his first sign of regret over the 2002 post-Godhra violence<\/strong>, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Friday (16 Sept 2011)<\/span> said the pain of anyone in the state is \u201cmy pain\u201d and he had a duty to do justice for everyone.\u201dConstitution of India is supreme for us. As a Chief Minister of the state, pain of anybody in the state is my pain. (Delivering) Justice to everyone is the duty of the state,\u201d Modi said on the eve of his three-day fast.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 This was a report of news agency PTI (Press Trust of India), and this government-owned agenct made this incorrect claim. Almost the entire media said the same thing. It was and is a ridiculous interpretation, factually absolutely incorrect!<\/strong> The 2011 statement was not the \u2018first sign of regret\u2019<\/strong>, he had directly expressed sadness and condemned riots many times before, right from 2002.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 Wha<\/strong>t is correct is that Narendra Modi has not apologized for the Gujarat riots, and rightly so. <\/strong>Apology is given when someone does something wrong, makes a mistake and asks for forgiveness for a mistake. What wrong has Narendra Modi done? He actually has done an excellent work in controlling the 2002 riots.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 The riots were controlled in 3 days while weeklies like India Today<\/em> and Outlook<\/em> predicted weeks of violence on 28 Feb 2002, he frantically called<\/a> the Army to Ahmedabad on 28 Feb 2002, ordered preventive arrests of 827 people on 27 Feb itself, and 21,000 people later, gave \u2018shoot-at-sight\u2019 orders in Godhra on 27 Feb itself (primarily aimed at Hindus who could have retaliated in Godhra), and took various other steps to prevent and control the violence, details of which we have seen earlier, and was given a ‘thorough clean chit’ by the Supreme Court-appointed and monitored SIT, under the UPA rule, and the SIT’s clean chit was upheld by all courts- trial court in Dec 2013, later by the Gujarat High Court and finally by the Supreme Court of India in June 2022.<\/p>

An argument is often made: \u201cThe Congress has apologized for the 1984 riots. Will the BJP apologize for the 2002 Gujarat riots?\u201d<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 Congres<\/strong>s <\/strong>apologizin<\/strong>g for the riots is not an action of credit. <\/strong>Apologizing means accepting culpability in the 1984 riots in which 3,000 Sikhs were killed. Is the sin of killing 3,000 people forgivable by merely issuing an apology? 3,000 murders cannot be pardoned and condoned by an apology.<\/strong> The concerned people deserve severe punishment.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 The Congress leader and former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh reportedly said in 1999 before the Lok Sabha polls in Delhi (where he contested and lost from South Delhi to BJP\u2019s Vijay Kumar Malhotra) that \u201c1984 riots were done by RSS\u201d and he has not yet apologized to RSS or to anyone for this ridiculous statement. It is this strange charge which was a big reason for his defeat in South Delhi. http:\/\/www.rediff.com\/election\/1999\/sep\/02man.htm<\/a><\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 There is absolutely no need to equate the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots. Firstly there is not a single parallel between them. We have seen the contrasts between these two riots<\/a>. The then Congress Government took no action against the rioters, hardly any arrests were made and hardly 30 people in 12 cases have been convicted as claimed by CNN-IBN in 28 years, till August 2012, while there have been a world record 488 convictions for the 2002 violence in Gujarat- 374 Hindus and 114 Muslims (34 for Godhra and 80 for post-Godhra attacks on Hindus). The Narendra Modi-led BJP Government controlled violence in Gujarat in record time even after a shocking massacre like Godhra, while it took previous Congress Governments\u00a0 several months to stop riots in 1985 and 1969 even without any cause like Godhra.<\/p>

\u00a0\u00a0 It should be remembered that not a single English newspaper actually accused the Chief Minister Narendra Modi of any wrongdoing on the actual days of the riots, i.e. 28 Feb 2002 (Thursday), 1st March 2002 (Friday) and 2nd March 2002.\u00a0 All English newspapers, like The Hindu<\/em>, The Tribune<\/em> etc reported that the violence was out of control, the police were overwhelmingly outnumbered, the fire brigade ran out of water, and still the police did its best, arrested 700 people on 28 Feb, shot dead at least 10 people in police firing, the Chief Minister Narendra Modi frantically called the Army units to Ahmedabad, etc.<\/p>

See the report of The Hindu<\/a> and The Telegraph<\/a> dated 1st March 2002 covering events of 28 Feb.\u00a0 None of them accuse Narendra Modi or the police of any deliberate culpability.<\/p>

\u00a0 All accusations on Narendra Modi and demands for his resignation, dismissal started AFTER the riots.<\/strong> This was because, the media wanted some scapegoat to be made for the riots. It wanted Modi to sack a few police officers,\u00a0 drop a minister or two. But Modi did nothing of the sort. He did not blame anyone, did not make anyone a scapegoat.<\/p>

To read the full chapter, read the book \u201cGujarat Riots: The True Story\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>

https:\/\/www.amazon.in\/Gujarat-Riots-True-Story-Truth\/dp\/1482841649\/<\/a><\/p>

Copyright \u00a9 Gujaratriots.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>

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FACT: The claim that Narendra Modi never expressed sadness at the Gujarat riots until December 2013 is factually totally incorrect. Narendra Modi has expressed regret for the riots and termed the riots as \u2018unfortunate\u2019 . In an interview to Aaj Tak\u2018s Prabhu Chawla on its program Seedhi Baat, the excerpts of which were published in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-myth-18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3428,"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gujaratriots.com\/gujaratriots\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}