First, a small history behind this article. Feel free to skip to the main article here.

A week ago, I wrote on my personal blog, a rather incendiary article according to some, on Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The article was titled “When a mass murderer can become India’s Prime Minister”.And about four days back I wrote another article on this website again criticizing Mr. Modi’s human rights record. Of course the article did cause us some degree of trouble. No doubt the website page visits went up for a few hours but apparently so did the anger of a few of our readers.

Now we all know Mr. Modi is quite a revered figure in many parts of Gujarat and in India. So it was only obvious the article would cause an uproar among a few. So after a few hours we took down the page silently. But people started emailing us and left comments telling us the page was no longer available and it should be made available. We debated among ourselves and decided it was important to protect the freedom of speech and expression. But we also realized we should try and give a balanced view instead of presenting just one side of the story… that is his commendable economic feats or his terrible human rights record.

So we beg our readers’ forgiveness for taking down the article. The article that you now see is an amalgamation of two articles. We hope our readers will appreciate our effort in trying to present a neutral point of view. After reading the article, the reader is welcome to form his or her own opinion on Mr. Modi. We also welcome comments from the public (especially since this article has generated so much controversy for our website) and you you may post your comments in the comment section or email us.

Main article

My whole point of argument is how are we going to judge Mr. Modi? Will we judge him because of the spectacular growth and business development Gujarat has seen in recent years? Will we judge him from the numerous accolades he has received from the top businessment of the country? Or are we going to judge this man because of his past actions as Chief Minister of Gujarat, especially the year 2002?Mr. Modi has been accused by almost all Human Rights watchgroups (including the Human Rights Commission of India) for having flared the communal riots in Gujarat (2002) and there is ample proof of it. He has taken part in “ethnic cleansing” resulting in the displacement of thousands of Muslim families in Gujarat.

What Mr. Modi reminds me is of Hitler. Yes, another mass murder who got away with genocide and still remained in awe of his soldiers and countrymen for quite a few years. There is no doubt that Mr. Modi receives widespread support in Gujarat and in other states. And that is the sad irony of the country. That we are willing to forget the crimes against humanity he committed and are so forgiving that we are letting him write his political career on a fresh leaf. How forgiving are we to the thousands of petty thieves and one time murderers languishing in our sordid jails?

Mr. Modi has the blood of innocent people on his hands. And he cannot wash them away by redeeming himself and performing as an “efficient Chief Minister”. What is even more disturbing is educated, worldy businessmen like Mr. Mittal and Mr. Ambani have vehemently supported Mr. Modi. The simple fact is endorsing Mr. Modi endorses that man’s past actions and thus callously accepting that it is all right for men, women and children to be persecuted because they belong to a different faith. I expected better of our business elites.

So praise him as much as you may but he remains a mass murderer at large and that our system (both political and legal) has failed to do anything about it. Our governance has also failed us Indians and the trust that our Muslim brothers and sisters keep in us that as Indians we are all protected. If true enterprise and business can be built on even a single aota of goodness and morality, then I assure you that Mr. Modi and his businessmen can never be successful in the long run.