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)
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(1) http://www.indianexpress.com/
(2) Losing Absalom. Minneapolice: Coffee House, 1994. P.35) See in “Education and the Novel” by Mustafa Khan University News November 18, 1996.
(3) The Man Accused Of Fanning The Muzaffarnagar Riots
(4)
(5)
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/
(6)
Crowds wanted me to talk only about Modi, says BJP leader – Ndtv Septermber 10,,2013
(7) http://www.tehelka.com/
(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/
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