Lynching in Nagaland, finger of suspicion pointing at Modi Sarkar

The juggernaut of the BJP government against Indian Muslims is stepping up. The inhuman dragging of the accused Sayed Farid Khan for more than seven miles, stark naked, pelted with stones and beaten most brutally and then hung on the clock tower in the centre of the Dimapur city of Nagaland is the worst nightmare in India for more than six decades of Independence. For the beleaguered Muslim minority it is continuing agony. The time was well chosen to offset the cultural malaise of the ignominious male psychology of rapists as revealed through the BBC video film India’s Daughter. The incident of the so called rape in Dimapur on February 23, 2015 was revived to stage manage a protest in which Muslims were again in for identity politics of being meted out jungle law dispensation of justice on March 5th. It surely reminds one of Muzaffarnagar where the incident of teasing a Hindu girl on August 27, 2013 led to the Jat panchayat on September 7 when murder and mayhem was let loose on the Muslims for electoral gains that was to follow. Similar incidents come to mind like Modi taking 10 hours to come up with his manufactured theory that the Godhra train fire was sabotage perpetrated by Pakistan agencies rather than a fire incident that it actually was. “It is the Centre who is responsible for ensuring the security of the inmates [of the central jail in Dimapur],” remarked Tarun Gogoi, chief minister of Assam on March 5th . He also observed that the medical report did not show any trace of rape.[1]The Modi sarkar chose to look the other way as usual when it comes to perpetrating revanchist attacks on Muslims. It was as if the Modi sarkar was seeking to retaliate Muslims of Bengali-Assamese origin to avenge for Muslims not voting for either the Hindu party BJP candidates or its allies with grouse against the minority in the disturbed NE region. The similarity of ten days interregnum in Dimapur matches with Muzaffarnagar scourge of Muslims, instrument of torture and punishment. First three days passed peacefully for the government of Nagaland had refused to allow protest under Section 177. There was no need to sanction the protest on March 5th. They were in touch with the Home Minister of India, Rajnath Singh. Who then finally prevailed upon the state to bring about lapsing and relaxing Section 177 of Criminal Procedure Code. It clearly forbids unlawful assembly. Why did Chief Minister Zeliang admit that it was a mistake? Was he under pressure and from whom?

In warrior’s uniform tolling the bell but refusing to wear the white skull cap of peace [Islam] The students wearing school and college uniforms were released from their institutions in a surge of waves upon waves rushing to the central jail where the violence was in full force. This is indication of well prepared plan beforehand and not spontaneous. The central police force could have swung into action and prevented them at the origin, their educational centres. But the students marched like a parade before breaking into running all the way several kilometers to take part in the lynching. This could not be called spontaneous reaction. But Hindutva forces and political parties like BJP and Shiv Sena have never missed any occasion to blame the Muslims. In the Saamna editorial March 9th the party spokesman and editor wrote: "What should have happened in Delhi, has happened in Nagaland. The accused in the December 16 [2012] gang rape case are presently in Tihar jail and international news channels are showing their lives on TV as if they are actors."[2] The descending hordes on the central prison guarded by central government reserve police, resembled the followers of Jack in their hunt of their arch rival Ralph in William Golding ‘s novel Lord of the flies. It is a story of how children left to themselves without discipline, morality and religious pieties can lapse into barbarism and acquiring the law of the jungle. Golding was a born protestant but had qualms over the working of the evil in the world hence got converted to Catholicism. The novel illustrates the transformation in the life of the children. As PM Narendra Modi eulogized the Nagas as well educated and young who speak English, like the children in the novel. Left to themselves they live post ‘lapsarian’ life where their leaders exploit them. The teachers in the schools and colleges could have on their own controlled them and prevented rushing out. But they deliberately failed in their duty as did the police. It reflects on India of 1992 when the central government paramilitary forces and army failed to prevent the destruction of the Babri mosque, pulled down in the presence of the religious and spiritual leaders and heads. Gogoi knew the combination of the security forces around the prison in Dimapur and the attitude of BJP government to Muslims. That is why he inferred that the central government was responsible. Only a few months back he had cautioned the new prime minister about the dangers of the infiltrators from Bangladesh. But the murderous mobs knew that their victim was Assamese Muslim and that was enough. He was a Muslim. The manufacturing of a cause to cause a riot was unmistakable. The victim of the so called rape had demand a huge sum of money, twenty thousand rupees when she visited the hotel. Farid refused. Therefore, an ingenious excuse, bogus rape report was the instrument of pressure, the despicable jazia. Gogoi had come to know that there was no trace of rape, swab or no swab. Minor injuries to the fingers do not constitute rape. Sending further swabs to the laboratory is eye wash. As a consequence cultural reasons: "The people of Nagaland have long been protesting the illegal migration from Bangladesh. But their protests were ignored. In the middle of this unrest came up this rape incident...This incident made people lose their patience...it is only a result of people's anger against increasing sexual crimes."[Saamna editorial] Bal Thackeray had always called Bengalese speaking Indian Muslims as Bangladeshis. He even advocated attacking them in acts of terror. This discrimination is based not on linguistic factor but religious. The same sophistry is followed in the present situation in Dimapur. Its precursor was the speech of Modi on the eve of 2014 election and the subsequent pogroms in Assam. The event of March 5th bore the hallmark of Talibans, "a Talibani style of functioning," is emulating of the terrorism practiced by fanatic Muslims in order to also stigmatize the community. The PM had praised the Nagas as sport loving people. The children in Lord of Flies had great fun in hunting the pigs as a sport but it transformed into hunting to kill human beings. It is the leader who is the agent of change. As Subhajit Sengupta put it “Farid, it appears, has become a victim of the identity mistakenly or conveniently bestowed upon him. The mob targeted him more for his perceived IBI identity and his alleged crime only acted as the spark. However, there doesn't appear to be any direct link between the alleged rape victim and this violent mob.”[3] Rape is used as a strategic dynamic of violence on the “other”. In October 2001 riot in Malegaon whispering campaign was launched that Muslims had raped Hindu women and that resulted in 16 innocent Muslims killed in police firing. Muslims hadn’t raped or molested anyone. The other has no right to touch our women but if he dares to do so we have the right and capability to retaliate. “The ugly premise behind both is the same. Women are regarded as the property of a community and what outrages a community is not rape but the temerity of the “outsider” who lays claim to another’s community’s “property”.[4] The lynching in Nagaland was sown way back during the election campaign 2014. In the fag end of the campaign on May 4, 2014 Modi invoked Mamta Banerji “You are concerned about infiltrators and not your own people ... they must go back, they are robbing the youths of India of their livelihood.”[5] After becoming PM Modi praised the Naga youths while completely ignoring their lifelong insurgency in order to further divide the populace ala ‘your enemy’s enemy is your friend.’ He befriended the Nagas for a cause. Whose enemies’ enemies were the so called Nigerians at the Ravi Metro Station in Delhi on September 28, 2014? They were trying to board the train when they were pushed aside by other passengers. Their taking objection of this kind of unseemly and unfamiliar behavior was misunderstood. Thereupon the locals started thrashing them. For a long time they were beaten blue. Then the Central Industrial Security Force arrived there, however the beating went on. The CISF took custody of them and as they were taking them to their office the crowds again snatched them from the security personnel and again set upon them. As the crowd raised ‘Bharat mata ki jai’, long live mother India, the victims gave call of ‘Allah is great’. This attempted lynching was caught on camera and played again and again and again. The Modi sarkar took no notice. Given the kind of milieu created by the Hindutva extremists and their sympathizers there is eerie silence that this might lead to a reign of lynching or a reign of terror! That is what had happened in May campaign. The recriminating campaigning of Narendra Modi against the Muslim minority everywhere including West Bengal and Assam is responsible for the plight of the Muslims. A common thread runs through the pogroms of Narayanguri, Dimapur and Ravi Metro Station: religious identity. Not the extermination of rhinoceros to make place for illegal immigrants but extermination of Muslims themselves! The way Farid Khan was taken out and lynched leaves no doubt that it was a conspiracy. He had “consensual sex” with her. She was a neighbor from the village of his wife and there was no reason why he should do anything. But the go between the two was well acquainted with the woman and Farid. He had arranged a deal whereby Farid had paid her 5000 for have sex with her twice. From the interrogation it was clear that this was not rape and yet the central police did not act firmly. The woman should also have been arrested for the false FIR she had lodged. There was enough time for it. Several days had passed. Furthermore, the hordes which had broken the jail did not touch the middle man who was also lodged in the jail. He was known to the attackers as he was from their Naga community. The first day Farid spent was in the police custody, it was on the second day that he was transferred to the central jail. The first report of the state government said that it was not clear that he had raped her. In the second report it said “Khan did not rape the woman.” [6]So the question arises who in the meanwhile arranged the mammoth crowd to descend on the jail and break it even when it was heavily guarded not by state force but central government force, CISF that is under Ministry for Home Affairs, under Raj Singh? The agony of Indian Muslims is graphically caught in the photo of the victim of the lynching. Even after his death it is extended to the those Muslims who have survived him in the rest of the country. For them to see and remember their fate in the country!

------ [1]http://www.mid-day.com/articles/protests-erupt-in-assam-cm-gogoi-blames-csf-for-attack/16043163#sthash.uvN4wlHy.dpuf [2] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/lynching-of-rape-accused-reflects-peoples-anger-shiv-sena/articleshow/46500427.cms [3] http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dimapur-lynching-an-identity-lynched/532888-3-226.html [4] http://www.firstpost.com/india/dont-touch-our-women-the-dimapur-lynching-was-never-about-justice-2143305.html [5] http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/04/modi-assam-muslims-immigrant-congress-idINKBN0DK0FQ20140504 Modi rails against illegal immigrants after Muslim killings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Dimapur_mob_lynching [6] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/dimapur-mob-lynching-victim-was-never-raped-nagaland-govt-tells-mha/