FACING THE FUTURE: Kalam (left) and Modi at Sabarmati Ashram

On August 12 and 13, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam travelled to Gujarat on his first trip outside Delhi as President of India. He was the second important constitutional authority to visit the troubled western state that week. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) J.M. Lyngdoh had preceded Kalam.

The CEC's visit was politically more relevant-it would influence the timing of the assembly elections. The President's visit was largely symbolic. Even so Kalam's engagement with the people whose republic he heads was not without lessons. It revealed yet again that Gujarat is an intensely polarised society, one that perceives reality in black and white-with no quarter given for greyness.

It was at Mahatma Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad that schoolchildren jostled to get autographs of Kalam and Chief Minister Narendra Modi. One is a scientist-celebrity; the other a mere politician. "Have you seen people seeking autographs of chief ministers these days?" gushed an onlooker.

Nation

The divide over when the state assembly polls should be held is Gujarat's latest political faultline Nay Sayers # Lyngdoh says a discredited Government cannot dictate poll timing, cites 11,000 refugees. # Congress wants election delayed till state is "less disturbed" and Vaghela can consolidate. # Social activists, "secular" groups want to wait, prefer a short spell of President's rule. "Let the wounds first heal. Then polls should be thought of." Mrinalini Sarabhai, dancer Aye Sayers # BJP points to more displaced voters in Jammu and Kashmir, where polls are taking place. # Modi wants immediate polls because he perceives his popularity is at its peak. # VHP is ready with a raucous campaign. Modi backers complain of EC in effect imposing Article 356. "By Lyngdoh's yardstick no election can be held anywhere in India." Hemant Shah, Ahmedabad teacher

When the President visited a relief camp, the Muslims gathered duly welcomed Modi. That this was no more than official prompting at work became clear a few minutes later. A Muslim social worker told Kalam in the presence of the chief minister, "Sir, I don't have any good words to welcome Modi sahib, nor any feelings. I wish I did."

The man who has emerged as the poster boy of Hindutva must have been happier in Naroda Patia, site of the single biggest Muslim massacre in the recent Gujarat riots. As Modi arrived with Kalam, thousands of Hindus assembled shouted, "Vande Mataram." The equally strong Muslim crowd was anything but comfortable. A palpable tension, a polarisation, was evident.

The mood in Naroda Patia was reflective of the rest of Gujarat. Almost six months-since the February 27 Godhra train massacre-of strong support for or antagonism towards Modi has crystallised into a division on whether elections should be held immediately.

Lyngdoh (see box) seems in no mood to oblige the BJP with an early poll. Nannumiya Malek, a riot victim who now lives in a camp in Ahmedabad, agrees, "How can polls be held before a sense of security prevails among the minority community?" The chief anti-election argument is that Gujarat is still a disturbed region.

In terms of numbers, what does this translate into? Religious violence was at its worst in the three days after February 27. About half the state's 182 assembly constituencies saw major or minor riots. These displaced 1.37 lakh people, most of them Muslim. Today, the number of refugees is down to 11,000. A majority of these are residents of Ahmedabad, with 2,000 staying in the now well-known Shah Alam relief camp.

LYNGDOH VS THE BJP

THE 356 FIX Politics and pamphlets have long gone together but seldom as bizarrely as in Gujarat. BJP workers in the state are distributing the alleged text of a speech CEC J.M. Lyngdoh gave to trainee IAS officers at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Mussoorie. The speech-apparently dating back to mid-1999, shortly after the Hindu-Christian violence in the Dangs district-refers to the "Gujarat model". It describes this as "a nexus of business, politics and bureaucracy that operated as a joint venture in which everything was negotiable". STORM TROOPER: Lyngdoh's (centre) Gujarat visit only worsened relations with the BJP As BJP leaders see it, the speech is evidence of Lyngdoh's antipathy to their party. "At no point of time," scoffs one, "has the system in Gujarat been worse than Bihar." The comparison is pointed. Bihar was Lyngdoh's cadre state when he served in the IAS. The Vajpayee Government-more specifically, one officer in the PMO- may have appointed Lyngdoh to the Election Commission but the CEC and the ruling party just don't get along. There have been angry private meetings between him and BJP representatives. Party MPs Arun Jaitley and V.K. Malhotra have questioned his propriety in not following the state Government's advice and calling early elections in Gujarat. Lyngdoh led a fact-finding EC mission to Gujarat recently. In Vadodara, he publicly accused the district administration of lying to him, calling District Collector Bhagyesh Jha and his team "a bunch of jokers". While Muslims and anti-Modi groups have been gladdened by Lyngdoh's disapproval of how the state is being run, the BJP is hopping mad. Says Dhansukh Bosamia, a cloth merchant at Ahmedabad's Maskati market: "The direct beneficiary of Lyngdoh's visit is Modi. We see Modi as Chhote Sardar (Junior Sardar Patel). He is the ultimate political he-man." Strong words those, but unlikely to move a certain Mr Lyngdoh. A piquant, unprecedented constitutional situation is now set to unravel. The dissolved state Assembly had its last sitting on April 5. The new Assembly is bound to meet within six months of the date, by October 5. Since the CEC is looking to stretch the election to late winter, the six-month constitutional provision will not be fulfilled. Modi's caretaker ministry-ruling by virtue of the fact that it had the confidence of the old Assembly-will lose the right to stay in office after October 5. The imposition of Article 356 and a period of President's rule will result-effected not by a breakdown of constitutional authority but simply by a constitutional authority.

It is two months since the last bloodletting in Gujarat, but try saying that to the textile market of Dhalgarwad, Ahmedabad. The merchants here are predominantly Muslim, their clients primarily Hindu. For the past few months, the turnover has rarely crossed 40 per cent of normal. Hindu is boycotting Muslim. In the land of enterprise, passion has killed profit.

It's not just urban areas that tell tragic stories. In about a dozen villages of Vadodara, Godhra and Dahod districts, Hindus are simply not allowing Muslim families to return home. The displaced have found shelter in temporary camps on the outskirts of their villages. In the tribal belt from Dahod to Chotta Udepur, in contrast, the scars are psychological rather than physical. People have returned home and there is no apparent law and order problem-but the sense of trust between communities is missing.

When former Punjab director-general of police K.P.S. Gill left Gujarat after a short stint as security adviser to the state Government, he recommended early polls. As Gill explained, the voting process allows people to sublimate their emotions and make a fresh start. Modi's backers concur.

However, as the poll campaign builds up, there is little to suggest Gujarat will roll back acrimony. Part of the fault lies with Modi. He accuses the Congress and his "secular" critics of sympathising with the Godhra killers. When Lyngdoh made cutting remarks about the situation in Gujarat, Modi turned it around by asking why the CEC wasn't equally perturbed by life and strife in Jammu and Kashmir, in Bihar, in the Northeast. As one observer put it, "The more Modi becomes unpopular in the rest of the country, the more he gains in Gujarat."

That this logic, perverse or otherwise, has its takers was there for all to see in Kalol, north Gujarat. A week ago, Modi's public meeting there drew the sort of enthusiastic response usually reserved for filmstars. Not that Shankersinh Vaghela, the state Congress president, is doing any better or worse. A good 70,000 farmers attended his rally in Deesa, north Gujarat, and a matching number turned up in Surat, considered a BJP stronghold. Modi's chief rival is not short of extreme views either. In Ahmedabad on August 14 he wondered aloud if the BJP was behind the Godhra massacre, a remark calculated to raise a lot of hackles.

CAMP PAIN: Muslim refugees in relief centres are not yet ready for elections

The loose cannon is the VHP, which has units in 10,000 of Gujarat's 18,000 villages and is a genuine mass movement in the state. International General Secretary Praveen Togadia convened three regional meetings of the VHP a week ago and readied to canvass for Modi. In Limbdi, Saurashtra, he addressed a huge crowd, saying, "A thousand years ago, we fought one Ghazni. Today, we are fighting three Ghaznis. Our verdict should mean hanging the jehadi Ghazni (Islamists), boycotting the secular Ghazni (NGO activists) and banishing the political Ghazni (the Congress)."

BEST FRIEND, WORST ENEMY: Modi ally Togadia (left) and Vaghela are equally biting

As Togadia spoke of the "menace of madarsas" and disparaged the Congress as the new version of Jinnah's Muslim League, the crowd cheered. Nationally and locally, the VHP and the BJP had drifted apart in the past five years. In Gujarat at least the Hindutva joint venture is now back in business. Aside from Togadia, the VHP plans to use the fiery oratory of Sadhvi Rithambara and Acharya Dharmendra to win voters for the BJP.

Gujarat's year of religio-fervour is far from over.