The melodrama was diverting. Indian television’s favourite bahu, scheduled to pull the trigger on her own son in a much-hyped episode of Kyunki saas. later in the month, fired at another intimate enemy off-screen on Sunday — and spectacularly missed. In Surat, Smriti Irani, actor and member of BJP’s national executive, demanded Narendra Modi’s resignation or else, only to withdraw the threat a few hours later in Mumbai. The visuals are distracting enough, but look underneath the star dust, and a larger point has been made. It is this: the BJP has still not dealt with Gujarat 2002. And unresolved issues of this enormity don’t just go away. There may be many intrigues, many explanations behind Irani’s sudden rush of belated indignation against Modi’s role in the post-Godhra massacres. Was it an extension of the proxy war between leaders of the party’s now-infamous second rung? Or, having vaulted into the BJP’s national league on the strength of her histrionics, was she only attempting to drive home her USP, even ride it farther for more political gain? People will wonder. But, in the end, it is not the upstart politician’s calculations that will leave an impression. The image that will return to hang in the days to come features the old veteran: after Irani’s repeated invocation of his name in her tirade against Modi, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee felt compelled to speak up in public defence of the man he had squarely blamed for the people’s loss of faith in his government just a few months ago in June. It’s a very poignant image.Ever since the electoral rout, first at the Centre and then in Maharashtra, the BJP has been openly convulsed by the struggle to regain its balance. L.K. Advani’s comeback as party president was part of the exercise to calm the inner storm. But the BJP will not find its new equilibrium, nor regain an older one, until it shows the courage and the maturity to confront the ghosts of Gujarat 2002. Smriti Irani is certainly not the central protagonist of the drama she tried to gatecrash into on Sunday. This is the story of a party and a grave crime no one is taking responsibility for.
