Chidambrum blows new spirit of national unity

It has been ages since we have had a home minister who is unfettered by either communalism or bias. This augurs well for a new approach and also a renewed commitment to national unity.

In the conference of chief ministers of states and governors of central territories on February 7, 2010 PC Chidambrum remarked that the home department had no ideology except national unity and security. This is welcome sign of self assertion as he has now made it necessary for all investigation and security agencies including National Security Advisor to report to him every day. That too together, so that they can all sort out with mutual consultation and cross questioning matters that relate to our country.

Erstwhile, it was the prerogative of the NSA to directly brief the Prime Minister who may or may not hold the home portfolio. No one could cross check him on his report and inputs. In the new dispensation the whole set up of the home ministry will have to verify and cross check the sources of information and the basis of it.

This was in the offing as the home minister used his mental lancet to pry open the basis of the report on the 50 paragliders that Lashkar-e-taiba had acquired. The place and number was deliberately changed to create phobia in the country at the time of the Republic day. What was truly alarming was that for the first time in nineteen years the tricolour was not unfurled at the Lal chowk in Srinager. It was given a space on the third page while the print media as well as the electronic media upfronted the doctored paraglider news. That hardly served our national interest except creating 'obfuscation upon obfuscation' ala IB's fond bedfellows, FBI.

Chidambrum also pulled up the chief minister of Maharashtrta on the carpet. There were laws already available to govern the state in the face of unruly and very communal and divisive stand of the Shiv Sena and MNS during the showdown over the issue of north Indians in Mumbai. The police failed to register any case against them. Bal Thackeray's front page abusive and violent language of retaliation against the Muslims led to the bloodbath in Bombay in 1992-93. He as at it again when Rahul Gandhi visited Mumbai on February 5, 2010. He remarked, and what saamna fronpaged, "'Lokmut'" chya vatvaghdhacha landa dhanda." The derogative word landa refers to Muslims. Seventeen years after 1992-93 he has not changed nor will he change as he knows that the police are in his pocket. He is above the law of the land. Seventeen years after that turbulent time the police can arrest another accused of Muslim community involved in the serial bomb blasts. But they have not taken any action against Thackeray. Nor have the courts been that fair in trying him.

Chidambrum marks a change. By asserting that his home department is more sensitive and responsive to human rights violation he is instilling a sense of accountability that would be surely tested in the days to come.

The gimmicks of Narendra Modi also did not cut any ice. By repeatedly telling the nation that four times his state assembly passed the bill on organized crimes (GUJCOC), he failed to oblige the home minister to give his consent. Modi not only applied POTA most discriminately against the Muslims, but he also registered under POTA all the sundry crimes which Muslims had allegedly committed. No one, not even Babu Bajrangi, has been booked under POTA!

This flop of Modi has to be understood in the context of the wind of change that is blowing from the home department. Chidambrum has surely equated communalism with terrorism as a threat to the country. It is not enough that Gujarat has filled up all the police vacancies unlike UP (2,04,021 vacancies to be filled up)or Maharashtra. What the nation would and should test in the coming days is whether the police in Gujarat book the criminal thugs let loose by Modi and whether the principle of chain of command does lead to him. That he is brought to book for the pogrom of 2002. The day it happens it would be a litmus test. It would also be the "last expression of the mind of the parliament."