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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 is being vandalized by putting
up renovation of Bhagyalaxmi temple, which is abutting the
Charminar. This violates the norms of Archaeological Survey of
India. The plea of ASI that the changes in temple may damage the
Minar and that this an illegal act is falling on the deaf years
and government has been letting the act of desecration of
Charminar going on, much to the annoyance of the people of old
city of Hyderabad and historic Charminar area. There have been
minor skirmishes due to which many a people have been injured and
the area saw the curfew for some time.
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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