Congress leader Sonia Gandhi encountered a “most wrenching moment” in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots when a father held up the slumped figure of his young daughter, who had been sexually assaulted and cried to her for help, leaving her shattered and gripped with horror.
Ms. Twelve years later, they would all felicitate him when he became Prime Minister of India.” Gandhi also notes that international governments felicitated Modi 12 years later even when they had declared never to grant him a visa. “There was an international outcry and the governments of the U.S., U.K., and some European countries declared in 2005 that they would not grant the Gujarat Chief Minister a visa.
She adds that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was widely expected to dismiss Chief Minister Modi, but “it’s said that pressure from within his party compelled him to desist”.
“The atmosphere was still chilling. Groups of young men could be seen on the streets shouting anti-Muslim slogans. Our delegation met with the administration, which presented a report devoid of any feeling – only to be expected. The rakshasas (demons) raped her again and again. He burst into sobs, pleading, ‘Main kya karun, kya karun? Kuch karo, kuch karo.’ (What am I to do? What can I do? Do something, help us),” Ms. Gandhi recalls. “The cause of the fire remains disputed, but the turmoil that followed spread to many parts of the state, and the victims were overwhelmingly Muslims. We watched the live reports in horror, and tried to get help to our colleagues in Gujarat who were calling us in desperation, but the administration failed to respond. The chief minister of the state at the time was Narendra Modi,” Ms. Gandhi writes in the book.
“His voice broke as he said, ‘Here, this is my child, take a look at her, take a good look. The Congress leader says she found herself “shattered, in a state of stupor, gripped by horror, and unable to speak or react beyond a few mumbled words of sympathy”. “The riots were said to have been fuelled by a fanatical fringe of the BJP and RSS, the Bajrang Dal.
