‘Excessive police force’ led to Gujarat violence

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD, August 30

If “police inaction” had caused widespread violence during communal riots in Gujarat in 2002, as was the charge leveled against the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, it was “police’s excessive force” that plunged the state back into violence 13 years later.

The alleged “police-sponsored violence” following mishandling of the “Patidars” (Patel) rally demanding reservation on the lines of the Other Backward Classes in Ahmedabad this week has exposed the chinks in the Anandiben Patel government.

Her apparent lack of control on the police and conflicting decisions taken in the days preceding the August 25 congregation has provided an opportunity to the Opposition not only to demand her resignation but also to raise questions whether the state administration was being run by Delhi through “remote control”.

The alleged “miscalculations” by the police in arresting the young Patel leader and lathicharging his supporters not only triggered violence in the state, but also helped infuse life in the seemingly dead agitation that at the end of the rally looked to be fizzling out with most of the million-odd “Patidars,” who had gathered at the GMDC ground, turning a deaf ear to his plea for re-assembling at the venue in the evening for him to launch an indefinite fast to keep the agitation alive.

Only a handful of people had returned to the venue after joining a procession to the district collector’s office. The huge turnout having gone to his head, the 22-year-old convener of the “Patidar Anamat (Reservation) Andolan Samiti,” Hardik Patel, suddenly announced his decision to go on an indefinite fast and served an ultimatum to the CM “to come to the venue” to accept their memorandum within 48 hours or face an intensified agitation.

The move not only created a rift within the Samiti leadership with the Sardar Patel Group disassociating itself from the movement protesting against Hardik’s “personal decision” to launch fast, his supporters also found it difficult to sustain the momentum indefinitely. The state government’s initial decision to “ignore” the ultimatum and adopt a wait-and-watch policy sent a message to the agitators that their show of strength could not browbeat the administration and the agitation looked all but fizzled out till, however, the police swung into action to breathe a new life into the event.

Orders to arrest Hardik and lathicharge his supporters triggered a statewide violence and imposition of curfew at many places. Both CM and her Minister of State for Home denied having issued any such orders and the higher-ups in the police are tightlipped. In response to a plea, the Gujarat High Court issued notices to the government to submit a report on the “police atrocities” on people.

Though technically Hardik was on the wrong side of the law in launching the indefinite fast at the same venue where the police permission for the rally expired at 5pm, there was hardly any need to put him under arrest within two hours and instigate the “Patidars” to take to streets. The police were forced to release him within an hour but by then Gujarat was already on fire. Senior police officials believe that nothing would have happened if Hardik was picked up in a midnight swoop as was the usual practice in such situations. The claims of the police later that they were only trying to “shift” Hardik to a “safe place” and not arrest him, failed to convince people.