Violence in Gujarat in 2002 can be described as the most commented upon and analysed period of communal violence in recent times. It resulted in citizens groups aided by media attention launching a sustained and emphatic campaign for those affected by the violence that invoked constitutional provisions for protection of all citizens and employed the language of human rights to produce a significant body of independent and media reportage on the violence. It is not uncommon for groups such as minorities, refugees, stateless persons or aboriginals who feel their rights are not guaranteed by the dominant majoritarian vision of the nation-state to make rights claims in the language of human rights (Isin and Turner, 2002, pp. 6–7). This is because despite the historic dovetailing of rights with the nation-state and the entrenched international regime of sovereign nation-states, the intrepid vision of human rights is of the existence of rights that are universal across nation-states i.e., international and, therefore, a sphere above them. However, in a world of sovereign nation-states, howsoever globalized, it is the journey of these claims at the national level that is of much relevance. How did these campaigns for rights of displaced and for justice, reconstruction and reparation for victims of violence that sought to employ the human rights paradigm play out in the larger political universe of the state of Gujarat and at the national level in India?

While it is the democratic tradition of an active civil society, a free press, statutory institutions and the Supreme Court that took these campaigns on board and took the Narendra Modi-led government to task by holding up the plumb line of secularism and human rights, it was that same democratic set up that elevated him to the post of chief minister and prime minister through repeated electoral triumphs in elections in the state and at the national level. This chapter examines this puzzle by examining the journey of these rights claims through the courts and in the larger political universe. Since 2003, allegations of state excesses and human rights violations have been countered by that of economic growth and good governance.