Ram Puniyani
The events taking place in
different parts of the country in October-November 2012 have been very
disturbing to say the least. It is the continuance and recurrence of communal
events, communal violence in different parts of the country, in UP, Assam and Hyderabad
in particular. In UP since the Akhilesh Yadav Government has come to power
there has taken place a series of acts of violence in UP. Since Samajwadi Party
took over the reins of the state in March 2012, in the past few months’
communal violence took place in Mathura ,
Pratapgarh, Bareilly , Meerut ,
Allahabad and Lucknow . The latest in the series has been
the tragic events of Faizabad, where On 24 October 2012, when the immersion
procession of Durga was going on, a girl was molested by few miscreants. Making
this as a pretext few people started stone throwing in the nearby areas. A
rumor was spread in Faizabad that Muslims are doing the stone throwing. The mob
went on to burn nearly 25 shops of Muslim traders. They also rampaged the
office of bilingual (Urdu and Hindi) paper Aap Ki Takat. This paper is
continuously giving the message of Peace and calling for Hindu-Muslim unity.
They also vandalized the mosque.
According to activist Yugal
Kishore Sharan Shastri, this was a pre-planned attack. The editor of the paper
Manzar Mehdi feels, this is an attempt to silence the voice of peace. The
police took long time to reach the spot and did not intervene effectively.
Similarly the fire brigade also took four hours to reach, by which time the
shops were totally destroyed.
In the far off Assam , the
recurrence of violence resulted in the death of six people, and it seemed
whether there is going to be recurrence of the tragic incidents of July 2012,
when nearly four lakh, mainly Muslims, were displaced and sixty people died. Assam violence
was a bit different than others as here the number of displaced were much more
and it seemed that there is a plan to get the Bodo areas cleared from the
presence of the Muslims. Here one also saw that in the process of
rehabilitation the Government is having a lopsided approach and Muslims are not
being rehabilitated as many of them do not fuilfil the criterion of proper
records due to various reasons. This was one case of violence where apart from
police playing its role of a mere onlooker, the propaganda, based on
misconceptions was made the base of violence. It has been propagated that
Muslims are infiltrators, Bangldeshis and have been encroaching the lands of
Bodos. Lot has been written to dispel this
myth. Muslims have mainly been coming from Bengal from 18th Century due to the
British policy of reducing the pressure on overpopulated Bengal and to ensure
that the stretches of Assam ,
having low population density are populated. Since the perceptions have made a
deep root in social common sense, the violence against Muslims, the citizens of
Assam-India have gone on and communal forces have taken full advantage of that.
The third incidence is from the
Southern state of Andhra, where the historic monument of Charminar
 |
| Courtesy: The Hindu |
These three incidents are very
typical of as to what goes on to make a communal violence. There is preplanning
in these acts, as is clear in all these cases. The pretext and rumours about
violation of the modesty of women, is very much visible in the case of
Faizabad. In case of Faizabad, apart from intimidating the minorities, burning
their shops, the ransacking of the office of bilingual paper, Aap Ki Taqat is
very symbolic. This paper is bilingual, Urdu and Hindi. Its belief is that
Hindu Muslims are brothers and Hindi-Urdu are sisters. It has been talking of
peace in Ayodhay and is opposed the communal politics which led to Babri
demolition. In UP while the Samajvadi party (SP) is very much in the total
control of situation, how come violence is taking place? SP has been always
claiming to be secular and in past many a times it has come forward to protect
the values of secularism. There seem to be deeper forces which are beyond the
control of SP, or does SP sees a political benefit in letting violence happen
remains to be seen. It is painfully obvious in case of UP, Faizabad also that
police machinery is not interested in controlling the violence, even when it
can. It either helps the rioters or looks the other way round when the violence
is taking place. In Hyderabad
one sees the use of historical places to incite the communal tension. How
systematically communal forces built up the Ram
Temple campaign leading to demolition
of Babri Masjid is a sad reminder to what can happen in Hyderabad . In Ayodhya also Babri Masjid was a
monument under control of ASI, but with political hysteria built around it, it
was demolished in the broad day light with state, police very much in the know
of things.
The multiple factors which lead
to communal violence remain unaddressed so the recurrence of these acts of
violence goes on in such a painful way. Social activists and scholars have
pointed out the role of communal forces, state machinery, irrespective of who
is in power; the role of rumours, the ‘social common sense’ targeted against
minorities persists. It is very sure that unless the problem is dealt with in
its totality the country will keep suffering the pain of this violence and
minorities in particular will keep suffering. It also reminds us as to what is
the state of our democracy and the need for an effective and balanced Communal
Violence Bill? No democracy can be satisfactory unless the minorities are safe
and secure and are having equity in economic matters. These incidents are
reminders to all those having faith and longing for a peaceful, secular,
democratic society that we need to work against those who operate on communal
ground, we need to ensure that social misconceptions are removed and an
atmosphere of amity is created and that pressures have to bring in Communal
Violence prevention Bill to punish the acts of commission or omission by
political authorities and the police forces..
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