Given Modi’s determination to crack down and eliminate underworld dons and international crime syndicates who had deeply embedded links in the Congre… - Madhu Purnima Kishwar

The first phase of violence that began on February 28, 2002 and lasted until March 3, 2002 was characterised by anti-social politicians of all hues exploiting mass outrage against the Muslim community for the Godhra train burning. However, the worst was over in 72 hours due to a swift deployment of the army. By mid-March, the situation started cooling down.

I am well aware that many will dismiss this book as a hagiographical account of Modi’s term as CM. To them I can only say, for 12 long years you have swallowed uncritically poisonous propaganda against him based on statements and testimonies which are being proven motivated, cooked-up, and plain false by courts and the SIT team. Let this come as a necessary antidote to that malicious smear campaign. I assure you that, unlike most of Teesta Setalvad’s witnesses, none of the people who spoke to me used tutored language. All of them spoke spontaneously on video. Unlike Teesta’s many witnesses, none of these people are likely to disown what they told me.

One of the early charges against Modi was that when post-Godhra riots broke out, he justified and legitimised violence against Muslims thus proving his complicity. This mischief started with an incomplete statement telecast on Zee TV based on an interview conducted by Zee correspondent Sudhir Chaudhary. Modi’s exact words were: “Kriya pratikriya ki chain chal rahi hai. Hum chahte hain ki na kriya ho aur na pratikriya.” (A chain of action-reaction is going on. We want that there should be neither ‘action’ nor ‘reaction’). But Zee TV deliberately left out the second sentence and presented the mischievously clipped first half of the statement to build a case that Modi had justified the post-Godhra riots as a legitimate reaction of Hindus against the killings of karsevaks at Godhra.... When Chaudhary questioned the CM about the Gulberg Society massacre in which the former Congress MP, Ehsan Jafri, was killed along with more than 50 others, the chief minister in his reply referred to the reports that Jafri had first fired at the violent mob, which apparently infuriated the crowd further. Thereafter, the mob stormed the Gulberg Society and set it on fire. According to Chaudhary, Narendra Modi referred to Jafri’s firing as “action” and the massacre that followed as “reaction”.... However, he could not provide a satisfactory explanation why in the Zee TV telecast, the last line—“Hum chahte hai ki na kriya ho aur na pratikriya”—was deliberately omitted. ...But this admission, coming years later, was not telecast and propagated the way the mischievous half-statement had been. What is worse, Sudhir Chaudhary continues to reiterate even today that Modi had justified the 2002 riots.