The communal divide in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat is at once a realisation of Jinnah’s two-nation theory and the RSS dream of a Hindu Rashtra. Muslim colonies are derisively nicknamed after prominent Pakistani cities. Any road dividing the residential quarters of the two communities is invariably called Indo-Pak border. In the eye of a storm for his failure to contain the post-Godhra conflagration, Modi defends himself. Excerpts from an interview: The February 27 massacre at Godhra was despicable. But even the PM has termed retaliatory carnage in other parts of the State as a blot on India’s face. Home Minister L K Advani also felt the pogrom sullied the NDA’s record of governance. Your comments?
Godhra was deeply painful. Yet, it does not mean that in reaction, anybody can take the law in his hands. Regardless of the intensity of emotions, there are ways to ventilate them in a democratic manner. There has to be the rule of law. There is no place in a civil society for what happened (in the aftermath of the Sabarmati Express killings).