Your Excellency, the Governor of Gujarat, are you the same person who lorded over Raj Bhavan in Patna from 27 April 1998 to 15 March 1999, recommending President's rule to end "jungle raj" in Bihar twice?

I am confused for I had occasion to meet you, Mr Sunder Singh Bhandari, at Raj Bhavan and observe how concerned you were about the "spate" of massacres in Bihar during your tenure in the state. You looked like you were going to have a breakdown over the massacre of 31 Dalits at Shankarbigha and Narayanpur in 1999 when I met you.

"As a Governor of the state I have to ensure the safety and security of the people," you told me with grief writ large over your face. I was also moved by your gesture, your sensitivity and your concern at the loss of lives in Bihar. I felt obliged to you as Your Excellency deigned to meet me without a formal appointment. Your private secretary, Anil Baluni, guided me to the room where you were seated, looking grim.

"How can I look happy when massacres take place with alarming regularity?" you told me when I asked you why you were looking so melancholic. Bihar has witnessed how concerned you were over the "anarchy" unleashed by the Laloo Prasad Yadav-Rabri Devi regime and how eager you were to liberate the state from the "jungle raj". Hardly a week passed by without the Union home ministry and Rashtrapati Bhavan receiving reports from you about the "bad law and order" situation in Bihar.

"As a Governor, it's my constitutional obligation to apprise the Centre of the law and order condition in the state, for I am the President's representative in the state," you rightly told me. I had no reason to find fault with what you said.

The Statesman reported in detail what you were doing to restore the "rule of law" in Bihar. But what has confused others and me in Bihar is your studied silence in the face of all that is happening in Gujarat where you are presiding as Governor.

Your Excellency, you are aware that more than 900 people have so far been killed in the pogrom that has overtaken Gujarat. The killing of 31 Dalits at Shankarbigha and Narayanpur in Bihar's Jehanabad district became a reason for you to recommend the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government and imposition of President's rule in the state on 12 February 1999. It was your second recommendation for President's rule in the state which President KR Narayanan approved, invoking Article 356 of the Constitution. It was a different matter that the Centre could not extend Central rule beyond 25 days as the proclamation did not get the majority to be ratified in the Rajya Sabha.

Finding Bihar a "fit case" for imposition of President's rule and Mrs Rabri Devi "unfit" to be in power, you recommended President's rule in September 1998, for the first time. But the President did not agree with you, turning down the Union Cabinet's recommendation to invoke Article 356. Still, you had done your "constitutional duty" of apprising the President of the state of affairs in Bihar.

But Your Excellency, at least 900 people have so far been killed in Gujarat. And nobody knows how many more lives will perish in the conflagration that has engulfed your state. The flare-up refuses to peter out. The worst victim of the unabated carnage in Gujarat has been the Muslim community. Many of them have been burnt alive. And hundreds of thousands of people have been rendered homeless, according to reports.

You found Rabri Devi unfit to rule Bihar. Reports say some ministerial colleagues of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi "guided" the rioters to kill Muslims and torch their houses. Are Mr Modi and his men "fit" to continue in power? If they are fit, then what was wrong with Rabri Devi and Mr Yadav?

Your Excellency, have you become immune to the loss of lives? You were so good at sending reports on law and order in Bihar to the Centre. Have you given up a good habit? Or do you approve of Mr Modi's quotation of Newton's third law of motion that says every action has "equal and opposite reaction" and what is happening in Gujarat is a "natural reaction" of the killing of 58 kar sevaks in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra? During that meeting, you also told me that you were proud of being a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man. "My association with the RSS does not clash with my position as the Governor," you said. But your silence over the Gujarat mayhem is in full consonance with the Sangh Parivar's call to teach Muslims a lesson. "Muslims have to be taught a lesson once and for all," Vishwa Hindu Parishad's international general secretary Pravin Togadia said recently.

And the RSS has announced that all those who oppose Hindutva are desh drohi (anti-nationals). Your silence seems to justify the Sangh Parivar's utterances. And what about the clashes in philosophy between the Sangh Parivar and the Constitution that you are bound to on oath of office. Who knows better than you that the RSS abhors secularism, which is at the heart of our Constitution?

This is to inform you that Mr Yadav is now mocking us (media men) for highlighting your description of the Rabri Devi rule as a "jungle raj". He asked us the other day: "If there is jungle raj in Bihar, what raj is there in Gujarat? What is Mr Bhandari doing in the Gujarat Raj Bhavan now? Why is he not sending a report on Gujarat's law and order situation to the Centre?"

The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief also says: "Mr Bhandari was hardly interested in the safety and security of the people of Bihar. He was only interested in pushing the BJP to power in the state from the backdoor by keeping the state under a spell of President's rule."

This is not to suggest that the law and order situation in Bihar is better and all your actions during your tenure as Bihar Governor were wholly wrong. But your recommendations of President's rule in Bihar would have been justified had you adopted the same yardstick to deal with the failure of the Narendra Modi government in controlling the genocide in your state. The killing of 31 Dalits in Narayanpur and Shankarbigha moved all people in their right mind in Bihar. It moved you so much that you recommended Central rule for the second time.

The President was in turn moved to accept your recommendation and went on to invoke Article 356. Why has the killing of 900 people not moved you so far? Are you abetting the Sangh Parivar's objectives to "teach Muslims a lesson once and for all."

Will you prove your critics and Mr Yadav wrong by sending a report on the bloodletting in your state to the Centre and the President? I wish you can prove your critics wrong.