SV on Modi's 'action-reaction' quote

Riots often occur in reaction to a perceived grievance or out of dissent. Godhra was the ghastly incident which triggered off Gujarat riots. The secular, left lib, intellectuals have gone to great extent to mis-represent the riots and misinterpret Modi's statements.

Reality, one bite at a time: Modi's 'action-reaction' quote

‘Kriya pratikriya ki chain chal rahi hai. Hum chahate hain ki na kriya ho aur na pratikriya. (What is happening is a chain of action and reaction. What I want is that there should be no action and no reaction).’ Asked about the violence which erupted throughout Gujarat on the day of the VHP-sponsored bandh, he said:

Godhra mein jo parson hua, jahan par chalees mahilaon aur bacchon ko zinda jala diya, is mein desh mein aur videsh mein sadma pahunchna swabhavik tha. Godhra ke is ilake ke logon ki criminal tendencies rahi hain. In logon ne pahele mahila teachers ka khoon kiya. Aur ab yeh jaghanya apraadh kiya hai jiski pratikria ho rahi hai. (It is natural that what happened in Godhra day before yesterday, where forty women and children were burnt alive, has shocked the country and the world. The people in that part of Godhra have had criminal tendencies. Earlier, these people had murdered women teachers. And now they have done this terrible crime for which a reaction is going on).

Modi's statements are given above, along with the translation. Whether taken within the context or without, there is no call for violence in Modi's remarks. Unlike Rajiv Gandhi's infamous statement (“Some riots took place in the country following the murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little.”), there is no classification of violence into bad and good in Modi's statements. But the media has taken excessive liberties with truth. Here is the interpretation by our 'secular' journalists.

Apart from being a crude attempt to deflect criticism of his failures as chief minister, Modi’s ‘action-reaction’ theory is also morally repugnant. As Vir Sanghvi has argued, ‘What Mr Modi and his ilk are really saying is this: Because the riots were a response to a horrific and immoral act at Godhra, they are somehow less morally reprehensible . . . But cause-and-effect cannot be a moral philosophy. You cannot whitewash an event, wipe away somebody’s guilt or provide moral justification by pointing to the cause of their behaviour.

On an ending note, here is Siddharth Varadarajan again:

But though Modi did not himself invoke Newton’s name when he spoke of action and reaction, his reference to the law was obvious.

Even Newton might find it hard to deduce the reference to his law from Modi's statements. There is no talk of "equal and opposite" reaction but a cyclical action-reaction chain of escalating events (which is a characteristic of riots). SV is trying to put words into Modi's mouth.