Morarji Desai resigned as Godhra deputy collector in 1930 after being held guilty of going soft on Hindus in 1927-28 riots.
Godhra is roadblock for Chief minister Narendra Modi’s prime ministerial dreams. But there was a Gujarati who found himself in the PM’s chair after being accused of helping Hindus in a communal riot in Godhra.
The first non-Congress PM, Morarji Desai resigned as deputy collector of Godhra in May 1930 after being found guilty of going soft on Hindus during riots of 1927-28. Desai then joined national freedom struggle under Mahatma Gandhi. Morarji Desai wrote about this incident in his autobiography The story of My Life in a chapter named ‘End of government service‘. He wrote, “I had received a notice from the commissioner saying that the collector of Panchmahals had asked for an inquiry into my part in the riots. The burden of the issue framed by the commissioner was that I was a communalist and that I supported the Hindus against the Muslims.”
In spite of Morarji’s detailed reply and personal hearing by commissioner, “He sent an altogether different report to government. I received government’s decision in April 1930. I was held guilty of acting in a partisan way on account of communal bias. No reason were given for this conclusion, But government also said that it did not think it necessary to take any action against me in view of my good record of 12-year service. I was degraded by four places in the list of seniority.”
Morarji declared this act as one, “to maintain the prestige of the white officer; government deliberately took this unjust decision.”
A chain of events attracted him towards Mahatma Gandhi’s movement. Morarji said, “After getting the arbitrary and unjust decision of the government, I made up my mind to resign from service. I was worried only about what I should do after I resigned. The hesitation lasted for a month. Then I decided that even if I was not able to do any other work, I had to get out of government service in any case.”
After that, Morarji joined national freedom movement. He became one of the tallest leaders of congress and became chief minister of Bruhad Maharastra (bilingual state of Gujarat and Maharashtra). Then he also became first non-Congress prime minister in 1977.
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