What it is to be victims of pogroms: Atali

On Friday June 19, 2015 an eerie but carefully manipulated vaudeville of Hindutva started in Atali. The two fans that riot victims put in the burnt down mosque were removed because they constituted rebuilding the mosque. It was the lion dictating to lamb to behave although the river water was flowing down from the direction of the lion. The lamb was polluting the water even from down the river. A native worshipper Nizam Ali said this as the gist of the matter: “We put fans at the mosque because it becomes very hot and the elderly find it uncomfortable. We didn’t want to begin construction or do anything that could lead to tension. But the Jats protested and said we were trying to take over the land.” [1] Thus a new variety of entertainment of Hindutva began in which the Jats, Hindus, Dalits will watch the hapless Muslims do antics at the bidding of the majority, a comic interlude after the tragedy of May 25, 2015. As was the tragedy the fall out of the panchayat meeting of the majority so was the “variety”, entertainment. The landscape of India dots with mosques and temples coexisting for centuries and yet in the topsy-turvy world of Hindutva how could it be viable: “The land where they built the mosque belongs to the village and not the Waqf. There is a temple there. How can a mosque and a temple exist next to each other?” What Sudhir Choudhary is wondering is that even when the title of the land is vested with the Muslims and wakf board the “variety” has to be accepted for entertainment of the majority. The Ballabhgarh SDM Priyanka Soni played her own role by not using discretion as the matter is in court. Lack of critical thinking is the price to pay to play this role. A fact finding team by Khudai Khidmatgar unearthed another act of the vaudeville: “However on digging deeper our fact finding team found out that the Jat community claims that the Muslims had pelted stones on them twice on the Jats on 24th May 2015. They go on claiming that some Muslim families under the influence of a few rich and powerful Muslims in fact burnt their own homes and even tried to burn an old man from their own community to create the impression that Jats were creating havoc and mayhem. “There is even confusion regarding the land on which the mosque is being constructed because while the Jats claim that there was no judgment in favour of construction of the Mosque in fact those who had filed a case against the construction had withdrawn the case. The Jats claim that the Masjid cannot be constructed in that very spot because it is panchayat land and that cannot be used for construction of religious structures. They add that the Muslims may build their mosque a little away from the spot and that would be a peaceful solution.” During all these varieties of acts a new narrative sobered by experience and resignation surfaced. It is that of a humble hawker of cloths in ten villages of Wallabhgarh including Atali. Shabbir Mullah : “Where can we go. The people of these villages did not let us part them when the partition took place and people were migrating to Pakistan. They stopped us here. So where do we go from her now? If they wanted to kill us they would have done long back. The ancestors of the natives of these hamlets gave us refuge here. “Now in whatever way they want to keep us we would live accordingly.” [2]Those who heard this pathetic realization burst out in tears including minister for social justice Krish Pal Gujjar, education minister Ram Vilas Sharma, PWD minister Rao Ranvir. They hugged each other and spooke loudly that the Muslims need not leave now. They assured Mulla and the rest of the Muslims present in theWallabgarh panchayat hall that they could live as they like. Everyone wept profusely as was the cathartic effect in them. ------ [1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/ramzan-in-atali-jats-get-mosque-fans-removed/ [2] Inquilab June 5, 2015 Was the attack in Atali (Haryana) an act of terrorism? The defining feature of the carnage in Atali on May 25, 2015 bore the hallmark of terrifying fear. This is writ large on the doors of the houses of the victims which are unlocked and unbolted and the fans still moving from the ceilings of the houses looted and burnt. The attack came so swift that the hapless Muslims ran for their life and limbs. This was the same ferocity as was seen in Muzaffarnagar in 2013 and Gujarat 2002. Tractor trolleys carried well armed Jats in Muzaffarnagar. In Gujarat the police would first shoot at Muslims and frighten them into hiding and then the extremists of RSS/Bajrang Dal/VHP would descend upon the cowering quarry. In all these the shrinking back of the hapless cornered or fleeing or running head over heels and then being overwhelmed and killed or maimed or quartered is terror. The gas cylinders hurled into the houses and shot at by gun causing terrific explosions is also qua terrorism. It was not mere “Arson at Atali” as is dubbed by Frontline of June 13-24 issue or a skirmish by some from the majority community. It is also astounding that the women Frontline spoke to said that they had no role in it when it was the women who were leading the attacks. One of them acted the role of Maya Kodnani of Gujarat Naroda Patia, exhorting the Hindus to kill and burn the Muslims. The woman who acted a major role gathered other women for the attack. It was tactical move to render police ineffective. But it does not end there. In Muzaffaragar pogroms the niece of the former chief of ATS of Maharashtra Krish Pal Raghuvanshi spoke to her uncle from Muzaffarnagar to delay the dispatch of the paratroopers so that they could finish killing more Muslims. The Tehelka issue of November 2007on genocide in Gujarat 2002 shows pictures of women mauling Muslim victims in the hands of the police and snatching them from the police to vent their fury. As in most other violent incidents it was the armed wing of the RSS, Bajrang Dal that was behind the attacks. The young people in Atali told Frontline that Bajrang Dal volunteers visited the village even afterward and assured full “support” to the majority community. What is its import? Since the people from the majority Hindu communities of Jats and Dalits and others did not get even a minuscule of a scratch on their skin in the operation, nor were they arrested despite being named and identified by their victims in 70 First Information Reports submitted against them. The involvement of the central armed cadres of Bajrang Dal is ominous. Sabir Ali, a victim: “All our economic activities are tied to the Jats. Barring the fact that we do the namaaz, there is nothing different between the two communities. We share many similarities. Was there any need to do all this? ...We do not want to fight. We want to live and let live. Why do they consider us inferior? Is it because we are landless? But we are educated. They do not involve us in any village decisions. This was preplanned, otherwise they wouldn’t have the courage to attack us like this?” A part of the answer lies in the fact that it was a planned attack in which volunteers to perpetrate violence were brought from outside the village, too. There were gas cylinders collected. Tractors were kept ready. The police were withdrawn from the site for three hours during which the attack took place. Two of the Muslim villagers had become very rich and bore the brunt of the attack. Every terror incident is also a means of propaganda. In Atali the message was clear that there would be no mosque allowed, no visiting Tabligi jamat group allowed. It was a reminder that 5 years ago such a group had visited the Muslims and propagated Islam. This attack was what also happened in Charleston, South Carolina, black Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, 2015. The attacker Dylann Roof entered it and asked the name of the pastor and then shot dead nine attending the Bible class. Roof wore jersey with a flag of Confederacy and another of Rhodesia and apartheid in South Africa. In India violence against Muslims is perceived as what they deserve as a reaction to what they do. So Hindus perpetrate terror but it is only in response to what Muslims do and therefore Hindus are not terrorists but Muslims are. The same is the case in executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Nihad Awad’s reflection: “We have been conditioned to accept that if the violence(the attack in church in Carolina) is committed by a Muslim, then it is terrorism.” “If the same violence is committed by a white supremacist or apartheid sympathizer and is not a Muslim, we start to look for excuses — he might be insane, maybe he was pushed too hard.”[1] The politics behind the Atali incident was that Muslims must remain second class citizens and limit themselves to outlying areas from where the mosque prayer calls do not disturb the majority dominant community of Hindus. Nay, the mosques themselves must not be visible. In other words Muslims must either merge in the Hindu fold or became invisible. A sociologist Sudhir Deshpande put it in a frame: “The famous “action-reaction” sequence of 2002 attempted to install a normalised anti-Muslim prejudice as the cornerstone of contemporary Hindutva. While Muslim-baiting is as old as Hindutva itself, the challenge was to normalise it, to legitimise it in the eyes of ordinary people to the point where it would become a self-evident truth.” There is “… imposition of conditionalities limiting the extent and quality of their citizenship” [2] Like Modi succeeded in showing the Muslims their place and teach them a lesson in Gujarat, the Jats and their temporary allies have also done it in another action scene. However whether the Muslims would construe themselves to live like that is not in the hands of those who familiarly teach Muslims lessons. As Modi fore grounded the cycle repairer Muslim in his village who had no social mobility. Even his grandson also remained the same humble cycle repairer. The members of the Muslim minority community often repeat (without realizing the irony in it, perhaps) that god does not change the lot of those who are not cognizant of it themselves. However, regretful is the absence of prudence in those who are hell bent to destroy even such like the fakirs[beggars] and tellies[makers of oil] of Atali! ----- [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-shooting-terrorism-or-hate-crime.html?_r=0 [2]thttp://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-restrained-riot-of-atali/article7333979.ece