The Bharatiya Janata Party has been governing Gujarat continuously for almost 30 years now. Notionally, Gujarat is a two-party state, but the Congress has not won either a Vidhan Sabha or a Lok Sabha election since the demolition of the Babri masjid. During this period the BJP has had the full scope and freedom to develop a structure of governance and law. Some 20 years back, after the 2002 pogrom, there came into currency the phrase ‘Gujarat Model’. We will take a look at what this model is and what it can reveal about ‘new India’.

The first element of this model is the political exclusion of Muslims. There has been no Muslim BJP legislator or minister in Gujarat for decades and the party no longer even gives them tickets. Absolute exclusion for the sake of exclusion. This has been replicated in ‘new India’, where the BJP in the last three Lok Sabhas has won two majorities and a substantial plurality but with zero Muslims. Today the BJP has around 90 Rajya Sabha MPs, none of them Muslims.

The second element is through laws that are aimed at minority persecution. Illegal cattle slaughter is ostensibly an economic crime (Article 48 of the Constitution is about animal husbandry and improving breeds). But no white collar crime attracts life in prison, as Gujarat’s laws on cows do. Duping banks and investors of thousands of crores of rupees does not attract life term. The reason........

© National Herald