Skip to main content

When Modi held a “midnight meeting” and told his top officials to lay off when rioting began…

By Manu Joseph*
This is the origin of the perception that on the night of February 27, 2002, Narendra Modi held a “midnight meeting” during which he told his top officials to lay off when rioting began…
In May, 2002, a few weeks after the burning of the train in Godhra, I was in the office of a human rights activist. There, by chance, I got to know that Haren Pandya, a minister in Modi’s cabinet, had deposed before a people’s tribunal, which included retired judges.
The minister had said that about twelve hours after the burning of the train, Modi held a meeting in his house. Some of the most senior bureaucrats and cops in the state were present at the meeting. Modi asked them, according to Pandya, to let Hindus vent their anger.
I went to meet Pandya and told him that I have stumbled on this sketchy story, did he have anything to say. He did not want the news of his deposition to be made public, so we had an arrangement. He would give me all the details of his deposition, more than what I know already, and I would conceal his name. (Weird arrangement because the moment the story was released everybody in Gujarat guessed it was Pandya because his dislike for Modi was widely known.)
Pandya told me he was not present at the meeting himself but he was briefed by more than one person who attended the meeting. And Pandya gave me the details of the meeting and a list of officials who were present. (Intelligence Bureau officers would tell me that on the morning of February 28 goons first created minor trouble just to check if the police did in fact look the other way. When that was confirmed the slaughter began, according to the IB officers.)
I tried to reach the officials mentioned by Pandya to confirm if they were present at the meeting but none would speak to me. The meeting did take place, it is what transpired at the meeting that is disputed.
I filed my story and thus came to the mainstream the theory that Modi had held a ‘midnight meeting’ during which he asked his top officials to fall in line. Pandya’s name was revealed by Outlook only after his murder.
An uncorrected sentence in my story suggested that the deposition of Pandya was a confirmation of a fact. His deposition was, in reality, an allegation. Some of the officials Pandya had claimed were present at the meeting, it turned out, were not. "Outlook" later ran a clarification.
In Pandya’s list though there was no mention of Sanjiv Bhatt, the police officer who would claim, many years later, that he was present at the infamous ‘midnight meeting’. I had not heard of him at the time in 2002 or in the months that followed when I tried to obtain eyewitness accounts of the meeting. In my view it is very highly unlikely that he was indeed present as he claims.
I remember calling the former DGP K Chakravarthy, who was among the officials present at the meeting. Pandya had told me that he was the only official who had protested. So I told him something about conscience but Chakravarthy chuckled and disconnected the phone. Several reporters have since tried to find out what exactly occurred during the meeting. There have been official probes, too, of course. I gather we don’t know yet. 
---
*Journalist, novelist. Author of "Serious Men" and "The Illicit Happiness of Other People". Source: https://www.facebook.com/manu.joseph.56614

Comments

TRENDING

Junk food push causing severe public health crisis of obesity, diabetes in India: Report

By Rajiv Shah  A new report , “The Junk Push: Rising Consumption of Ultra-processed foods in India- Policy, Politics and Reality”, public health experts, consumers groups, lawyers, youth and patient groups, has called upon the Government of India to check the soaring consumption of High Fat Sugar or Salt (HFSS) foods or ultra-processed foods (UPF), popularly called junk food.

Avoidable Narmada floods: Modi birthday fete caused long wait for release of dam waters

Counterview Desk  Top advocacy group, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP), has accused the Sardar Sarovar dam operators for once again acting in an "unaccountable" manner, bringing "avoidable floods in downstream Gujarat."  In a detailed analysis, SANDRP has said that the water level at the Golden Bridge in Bharuch approached the highest flood level on September 17, 2023, but these "could have been significantly lower and much less disastrous" both for the upstream and downstream areas of the dam, if the authorities had taken action earlier based on available actionable information.

From 'Naatu-Naatu' to 'Nipah-Nipah': Dancing to the tune of western pipers?

By Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD*  Some critics have commented that the ecstatic response of most Indians to the Oscar for the racy Indian song, “Naatu-Naatu” from the film, “RRR” reeks of sheer racism, insulting visuals and a colonial hangover. It was perhaps these ingredients that impressed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, one critic says.

Astonishing? Violating its own policy, Barclays 'refinanced' Adani Group's $8 billion bonds

By Rajiv Shah  A new report released by two global NGOs, BankTrack and the Toxic Bonds Network, has claimed to have come up with “a disquieting truth”: that Barclays, a financial heavyweight with a “controversial” track record, is deeply entrenched in a “disturbing” alliance with “the Indian conglomerate and coal miner Adani Group.”

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

Asset managers hold '2.8 times more equity' in fossil fuel cos than in green investments

By Deepanwita Gita Niyogi*  The world’s largest asset managers are far off track to meet the  2050 net zero commitments , a new study  released by InfluenceMap , a London-based think tank working on climate change and sustainability, says. Released on August 1, the Asset Managers and Climate Change 2023 report by FinanceMap, a work stream of InfluenceMap, finds that the world’s largest asset managers have not improved on their climate performance in the past two years.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.