Chapter
one
Muzzafarnager:
the replication of pogroms of 2002
Mustafa
Khan
Hindus
and Muslims have lived cheek by bowl down the centuries in the subcontinent.
There had been no preplanned and organized riots or pogroms until the conscious
politicizing communalism in the form of Hindutva came on the scene. Those who
avoid the Muslim rule in India and look at the rest of the ages as continuous
and harmonious Hindustan including the British rule harbor the same illusion as
the characters in “Aanand Matth”to whom the Muslim rulers are cruel and impure
and the British as enlightened and good. Because of this skewed vision they
take upon themselves the imaginary task of purifying the land of the impurity
that came with the Muslims. In modern nomenclature it is ethnic cleansing. The
Jats hunting and killing Muslims in rural areas in the environs of Muzaffanager
did just that since August 27, 2013. This schizophrenic setting of the mind has
been going on for sometimes in Gujarat and now in UP and Bihar in the
recrudescence of communal violence. They killed the reporter of and chased and
then lynched the photo journalist Israr who had made recording of the Jat
meeting. It reflects Gujarat where Haren Pandya had made an audio recording of
Chief Minister Narendra Modi at his residence on February 27, 2002 instructing
his police to not stop Hindu mobs taking revenge against the Muslims in the
next three days of protest.
Despite
the ruling party not unsympathetic to secularism in UP, the riots in
Muzaffarnager have continued. What is worse they have spread to villages. The
local administration rather than the mindset of the members of the ruling party
is weak. The déjà vue pogroms were in the offing thanks to Narendra Modi assuming
charge of the head of the Hindu party BJP campaign for election in 2014 and his
lieutenant Amit Shah as in charge of UP. Many people felt premonition which
came true later that Shah’s praying at Ayodhya’s temporarily set up temple
reconstructed on demolished Babri mosque at the onset of election campaigning
is an ominous signal. Although the BJP could not reap electoral gains on
proposed construction of the temple in the second decade of the 21st
century it stood to gain from the fall out of the communal clashes.
An
air of amazement was there in a mammoth meeting allowed by the government of
the ruling party even in the face of the government ban on such gatherings. It
was a conclave of the Jats. Why should the SP government which has avowed to put
down communal violence which is deadly to Muslims for they lose in life and
property more than anyone else let such a caucus meet. As Shahid Manzoor
explained to his party: "We try to explain that the real cause is Narendra
Modi and Amit Shah who are now concentrating on UP." The duo knows from
their experience in the pogroms in their own state of Gujarat that the people
of UP are easy to turn susceptible to communal appeal in the name of temple and
religion. Or else what was there when a Valmiki parked his dirt cart before the
shop of a Muslim who objected it and in the resultant clash a Hindu was killed
and then two Muslims lost their life and the violence erupted like a wildfire.
The Hindutva groups are in the wont of using lower castes like the Valmiki to
ignite riots in which they reap rich harvest at the polls. Moreover the turn of
events followed the pattern of the pogroms in 2002 Gujarat. Modi and Shah’s
strategy resulted in what Manzoor said in his remark: “Ultimately, the
responsibility [of ruling in UP] is ours. Obviously our image has taken a
serious drubbing.” (1)
As
in Gujarat 2002 so in UP on September 9th 2013 five more bodies of
Muslims were recovered from a farm then ten more on September 10th.
These were hapless members of the minority fleeing from their villages in
search of shelter from the roaming marauding members of the Jat Hindu community
out to kill them.
Where
did the fracas and brawl on hygienic source of context turn to full blown
pogroms? Why did the Jats take over from the Valmiki dirt cart driver? That
critical fault lies in the words of the American writer Alex D Pate in Losing Absalom :“Critical weakness [is]
that other men could identify with swift precision. It could be a core of
coldness in warm peaceful exterior, a fear, a streak of terror carefully woven
into the fabric of bravado, or, worst of all, a dark cynicism carefully tucked
away in a hopeful body.”(2) That ‘dark cynicism’
and ‘streak of terror’ is easily discernible in the face of the most mentioned
of all actors in the gruesome murder and mayhem: Hukum Singh. That face
resembles the cold stare of Narendra Modi when the wide spread eyes of the
Chief Minister in the sockets stare into the face of others and the gnashing
teeth when he was ‘dehydrated’ and called for water in the interview with Kiran
Thapar.
Soon after the above murders
the Jats went into a huddle a massive meeting in which more than a lakh people
from adjoining states and Delhi travelled to Muzaffarnager. Hukum Singh
addressed the irate mobs. The words used by the BJP leader are cat’s paw of
taunt of the hateful ideology. He spoke tongue in cheek: “Instead of
penalising me for my so called provocative speech, the district administration
should first explain how a gathering of over 1.5 lakh people was allowed
at Nagla Mandaur, 20 km from Muzaffarnagar, despite the prohibitory orders in force in the entire
district. Why did the district administration allow thousands of vehicles and
tractor trolleys from Haryana, Delhi and the neighbouring districts of UP to
enter Muzaffarnagar and reach the venue of the mahapanchayat?” (3)
There is no dearth of such
gatherings of mammoth crowds and they were the order of the day in 2002 in
Naroda Patia, Sardarpura, Gulberg Society and a host of other places in
Gujarat.
The
mahapanchayat was apparently for respect for daughters and daughter in laws in
Jat community 'Bahu Beti Sammaan Bachao Mahapanchayat' but it veered to a new
line of saving daughters and daughter in laws from being lured by Muslims into
love and marriage. Although a dalit woman had affairs with a Muslim the Jats
reacted in unison to support the dalit against the Muslims. This indicates how
the BJP must have been hard at work in working up the Jats and the dalits
against the Muslims. As the author RK Ohri observed that the Jats usually do
not empathize with the Scheduled Castes but their unanimous condemnation of the
inter caste affairs is tip of the ice berg that how much deep is the social
unrest that Muslims and the rest have developed in their relationship thanks to
BJP insinuation.(4) Hukum Singh with his
platitudes uttered in the aftermath of the mahapanshcyat could not hide the
facts that the crowds wanted him to talk of Narendra Modi alone. This would
extend into of course how Modi taught a lesson to the Muslims in his state.
This is proof of where the wind blows from in Muzaffarnager. But in the process
of politicizing the issue the result is “a never before religions divided”
between the Hindus and Muslims. (5)This is sure proof of the machination
of the BJP and especially it emanates from the design of Amit Shah and Modi
working from behind the curtain.
Hukum Singhss’ insidiously
remarking that the crowds wanted him to speak of Modi at the Mahapanchayat is
fraught with danger. (6) This
is grafting of the policy that Modi and Shah had played in Gujarat. The Sahar
Mufti of Muzaffarnager Zulkicar Ali pointed his finger at this when he said:
“It was a well planned riot, facilitated by the district administration and
engineered with the aim of ensuring polarization among the voters on communal
lines.”(7)
There is also a disturbing pattern
of what happened on August 27 was kept on animation and sustained by the
‘oxygen’ that keeps the BJP alive: communalism. The party through its leaders
circulated a video showing the event of August 27 in such a way to inflame the
passion of Hindus against Muslims. This is what Noam Chomsky called “inducement
to violence” where he blames the drone bombing in the Middle East and Pakistan
that produces violence as in the Boston bombing. The fake video made by BJP MLA
Sangeet Som of Meerut also fits in that. The footage was made in Pakistan. (8)He is absconding from law and wants
to secure anticipatory bail and then invite Modi to Muzaffarnager and sit with
him on the dais. So what Hukum Singh said would imply that he wants to repeat
for electoral gain the Gujarat model. Not to be left behind Varun Gandhi of the
notoriety of Muslim bashing in his own election in Haryana now wants to sit
with LK Advani in their planned swamibhan rally, self pride rally in Agra on
September 15. It also confirms the growing concern that BJP is outsourcing 2002
into Muzaffarnager 2014 election as Amit Shah has opened his purse to bear the
legal cost for whatever happens when BJP workers take on the UP SP government.(9)
The result is already there for
anyone to see as toddlers with their deadly injuries are appearing in hospitals
and their parents hacked to death by the Hindu mobs make headlines in the
media. This is fuelling minority community’s feeling of insecurity and fear as
it did in Gujarat 2002. Once again their fate is in the lurch. The children
were innocent as were their parents as they were fleeing the marauding mobs of
Jats. If even the children have to bear the brunt of the mobs what is left for
the minority in India then!
Muslims in Muzaffarnager had been
nurtured on the Ganga Jammuna culture as is the case with their compatriots
from Hindu community. A part of the calculated idea in the escalating violence
against Muslims is to target the composite culture in favour of a monolithic
culture of Hindutva or Hindu fundamentalism. It is here that the hate ideology
of the RSS comes to fore in fomenting trouble. It could not brook LK Advani’s
discovering Mohammad Ali Jinnah as a secular person. Bal Thackeray was upset
when Modi started his sadhbhana rallies or rallies for harmony. He mistakenly
thought that Modi was going soft on the Muslims. VHP also was disturbed when
unauthorized temples were being demolished. Similarly Modi also changed his
decision on appealing for harsher sentence against Maya Kodnani accused in the
Naroda Patia pogroms because Shiv Sena was adamantly opposed that a Hindu
should be punished for the massacre of Muslims. Will the RSS then allow anyone
to come in the way of its avowed commitment to destroy the syncretic culture
that prevailed in western UP particularly in Muzaffarnager”?
So
snatching children from fleeing mothers and fathers and killing or mauling them
so barbarously is motivated by the hate ideology. No amount of rope walking by
the SP or Congress on this will do. When Narendra Dabholkar was killed Sanathan
Sansthan celebrated it because he died quickly instead of a long prolonged
illness and bedridden life. To the RSS a good Muslim is a dead Muslim. We are
back to square one on Muzaffanager pogroms.
What
is unfolding in western UP is hate ideology that is intolerant of even innocent
children and women as in Gujarat. Mahatma Gandhi would have gone to fast
unto death to stop the pogroms. But even conjecturing Modi to go on another
even token or farcical Sadhbhauna on the killings in Muzaffernager like the one
in September 2011would amount to crocodile’s tears. Because India First is his
ideology of secularism where Muslims don’t figure. (10)
-------
(1)
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/azam-khan-blames-local-administration-and-akhilesh-govt/1166992/0
(2)
Losing Absalom. Minneapolice:
Coffee House, 1994. P.35) See in “Education and the Novel” by Mustafa Khan
University News November 18, 1996.
(4)
(5)
(6)
Crowds
wanted me to talk only about Modi, says BJP leader – Ndtv Septermber
10,,2013
(8) Playing with fire. The Hindu
September 10, 2013.
(9) BJP mulls Modi rally
in Muzaffarnagar Hindustan times Lucknow, September 10 2013.
(10) http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/muzaffarnagar-riots-narendra-modi-indefinite-fast/1/309362.html
Chapter
two
Once
their neighbours, they held them captive and raped them for days
Mustafa
Khan
It
is all over the same as in Gujarat 2002. Women suffered the most. They were
raped, were forced to see their daughter or daughters raped in their full view
of the ignominy. This is most disturbingly true within a week of the death
sentence passed on four of the six who raped a girl in the night of December
16, 2012 in Delhi-Noida. As in Gujarat so in Muzaffarnager the glaring
discrimination is there for all to see. Even more brutal was the rape in the
pogroms than the bus. Still the conscience of the people did not smite majority
of the people as it did in the case of December 2012. Wasn’t it the same in
2002?
If
it wasn’t the same then how could the 2002 be Modi’s “exceptionalism”? (1) Or, Hukam Singh’s exceptionalism now, he who
under the guise of saving daughters and daughters in law of his own community
exhorted the mobs to go for the women from another community. The same common
strain runs through the suffering of the women with no let up.
In
the case of a woman woebegone with sorrow she was forced to see three of her
daughters raped, gang raped and held captive for days. In her own words she has woven the
saga of her personal tragedy for the rest of her life to torment her.
"Four
women of my family, including my three daughters (age 17, 18 and 21 years),
were held captive by 10-13 rioters and gang-raped in front of me. I was forced
to see the shameful and brutal act. Two of my daughters have been released and
the other two are still missing.”
(2)
Lisarh,
Lank, Bahawadi, Hasanpur, Mohammadpur, Baghpat in Muzaffarnager and Panipat and
also other districts like Shamli bore the brunt of the assault and rape on
women, girls and minors. Communal riots in the yore had had few and far in
between recurrence of rape or gang rape that lasted few hours and not for week
as now; and, in Gujarat, for weeks together and even for months. In sheer
brutality and inhumanity Muzaffarnager has matched Gujarat 2002.
Lactating
and suckling mothers holding their babies in their arms received head injuries
as did their new-born. With no succor in sight and fear and terror desiccating
their vitals of the body and minds traumatized in a daze had their babes on
them. What hope of sustenance and nurture did the camera could catch in their
plight as in such a case!?
Fleeing
from Dhanupura in Muzaffarnager Saira (23) was in advance stage of pregnancy
and expected her child in less than a month. She got shelter in Loni where 30
other women in their advance pregnancy were also sheltered with their families.
Their plight was untold but equally horrendous. The much maligned madrasas in
the eyes of the outside world were now the only place they could rest and
breathe a sigh of relief from burgeoning pain and angst of life.(3) there are other madrasas in Ghaziabad and 18 relief camps
including the ones in Budhana and Sahapur where 30,000 refugees are housed.
Such is the magnitude of the human disaster that has visited upon the minority
who till it struck them had no inkling of what would happen and how swiftly it
would change their life forever to come. One such is Noorjahan (25) of Nagla
perplexed in agony where her ten year old daughter and husband would be. Laank
is another village which has emptied out of Muslim population. Basheeran
correctly gauges life in the empty villages when she says "I would prefer
to die here than to go back. Nobody is waiting for us there." (4)
Most
of the assailants and rapist were the neghbours of the Muslim women and the
victims of mass rape could easily name them as did the16 year old. She named
Rajendra son of Hari Kishan who is leader of the Khap panchayat in the village.
She survived to tell the depth of horror implied in perverted choice of what
her rapist remarked: “Soni
soni ladkiyon ke sindur bhar denge, aur bakiyon ko kaat denge (we will marry the beautiful ones and cut into pieces the
others).”
Another
victim of 25 years also named her rapists, Subhash, son of Ilamnd and Ankit,
son of Daria
of
her village Lisarh who raped her for five hours. She went further and told
about Ajit the head of the village who had organized this violation of her
chastity. He assured her safety and told her not to leave the village but
betrayed her and others like her in the night. As if this ordeal was not enough
when they reported the matter after the nightmarish events had happened the
police man had this to tell the unfortunate victims: Police thane wale ne kaha ki hum to
apne ki sahayta karenge, tum Musalmano ki nahi (“We will only save and help our people (Jat and Hindus),
not you Muslims)." This many would recall is like what senior police
officer KK Mysorewala had told Muslim women and children in Naroda Patiya,
Gujarat on February 28, 2002, when they begged for mercy from him as the
marauding mobs were in hot pursuit. (5)
it would be many months when the
saga of suffering of the 1.25 lakh
refugees would be mapped.
This
time around the rapes of Muslims women and girls is calculated to yield more
votes and seats in the parliament for the Hindu party BJP. The Communist Party of India spokesman
stated: "The RSS had deployed its resources towards creating a communal
polarisation which would benefit the BJP in the Lok Sabha election." (6)This need not surprise as Narendra
Modi and Amit Shah had had enough of the same in 2002 and knew how it had won
the first election for the right wing Hindu party which was shaky and uncertain
at first and then it went on to win three more elections. Both the pogroms in
Gujarat and in Muzaffarnager were organized to achieve the goal of Hindutva and
mark it, there would be no remorse felt over it. for their next item is to tell
loud and clear that the Muslims had it coming to them! This standard
justification was asserted soon after the Babri mosque was demolished.
Even
the Muslims knew what was in store for them. In one of the refugee camps a
victim called Yasin Ahmad remarked: "This is all political. This is just
so they can polarise us before the elections. We are nothing but fodder for
these politicians." (7)
-------
(1)
The Times of India
Communal riots have now made big inroads into rural India
DIPANKAR GUPTA | Sep 14, 201
Communal riots have now made big inroads into rural India
DIPANKAR GUPTA | Sep 14, 201
(4)
ibid.
(5)
ibid
(7)
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