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Yusuf, a school dropout but business
sharp, organizes annual large Iftaar parties in his Muslim mohalla,
also attended by powerful Hindu politicians. The fast observers
clean their plates engagingly, drinking litres of soft drinks and
water, under the gaze of politicians, casually chewing pan or
succulent dates and surveying the dilapidated landscape. It is
their prized electoral sanctuary; occasionally they irrigate it
with notional presence. Seeing devouts hurrying to the mosque,
politicians show urgency to leave. Yusuf is elated: he showed
folks his high political connections and politicians his resources
and leadership.
Soon after the dignitaries leave, arrives a speeding police jeep.
Leading his crowd, the host lunges toward it. They
enthusiastically greet the Station House Officer (SHO) leading his
uniformed pack. The crowd’s eyes are fixed on his oiled baton and
revolver dangling from his belt. He shakes hands with the host and
waves at the others. Gratified, they smile. After he leaves, they
debate animatedly the history of good and rogue SHOs. The debate’s
ingredients are warnings, abuses, hard slaps, dirty floor
squatting, handcuffing, FIRs, detentions and speed money; and
then, astronomical rates for SHO posting in the ‘fertile’ Thana.
The recent news of government’s belated political appointments of
Muslims on minority bodies like Rajasthan Wakf Board, Rajasthan
Madrassa Board, Urdu Academy and Rajasthan Minority Commission,
allegedly all from Bareillvi School (seen as ‘adversary’ of
Deoband School) doesn’t excite Yusuf. He is upset, indeed, for
something else: the appointment of a Muslim Superintendent of
Police (SP) as a member of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission
(RPSC). He thinks it is a ‘bad’ decision of the state and the
incumbent. It is a waste of the community’s precious, scarce
asset. Where are Muslim SPs these days? For Muslims, an SP is far
more useful than an RPSC member, he argues, narrating Muslims’
bitter experiences.
The awe associated with next-door lawyer, doctor or professor in
western countries is preserved for an SP, not for RPSC member, in
feudal India. SP’s house is an iconic reference, an identifier,
for locations of others’ in the neighbourhood. He isn’t the only
Muslim sharing this perception, shaped by insecure life in an
insecure communal environment. The incumbent’s own politically
powerful Kayamkhani community, claiming Hindu Rajput ancestry, is
critical. The community, spread in the districts of Churu, Nagaur,
Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Jodhpur, Bikaner and Jaipur, has good presence
in army and police, because of network-based recruitment from the
beginning in both the services. Kayamkhani lawyers, officers,
teachers and businessmen share Yusuf’s perception: ‘Whatever,
after all, an SP is an SP!’
Yusuf knows that the SP is the boss of all SHOs of a district. I
explain to him that the RPSC selects state-level officers.
Ignoring this, he reiterates: ‘Is an RPSC member more powerful
than an SP?’ Seeing me a bit puzzled at the oddity of the
comparison, he smiles. Gazing in my eyes, he explains the
‘conspiracy’ theory against Muslims.
Recently, more than a hundred innocent Muslims’ houses/shops were
burnt and looted in the Marwar, Hadoti and Mewar regions.
Mosques/shrines and Quran were desecrated in the state. A Muslim SHO was lynched and burnt alive in Sawaimadhopur, in a Muslim
MLA’s constituency. Ten Muslim Meos were killed in police firing
in the Jama Masjid of Gopalgarh, Bharapur, also a Muslim woman
MLA’s constituency. All killings, arson and looting occurred in
the very presence/connivance of the police. “Tell me”, he quizzes,
“if a Muslim SP was on duty in those places, could such violence
have occurred that gruesomely?” Saddened, and knowing the facts
from the PUCL and media reports and our own visits to the places,
I agree. Our team saw on the Kota-Manohar Thana highway large
billboards screaming: Hindu Rashtra ke adarsh Hindu gaon mein
aapka swagat hai. ‘Welcome to the ideal Hindu village of Hindu
Nation.’ The Police advised us to avoid night travel in that
communally ‘dangerous’ zone. Yusuf says: “in these multiplying
sensitive situations, a Muslim SP is critical for a threatened
community.”
Since independence only four Muslims became members of the RPSC,
none in BJP regimes, partly explaining reasons for small number of
Muslims in civil services. The RPSC always has one member each
from ST/SC and OBC, and rest from the upper castes. Except the age
factor, these appointments are purely political in nature,
ignoring qualifications, professional and public reputation of the
appointees. Political lobbying is common. A kar sevak was killed
in police firing during the Ayodhya movement. His college wife was
appointed in the RPSC and then as a member of the Union Public
Service Commission.
An assertion of strong correlation between a) the ethnicity of
Commission Members and experts and b) that of successful
candidates, keeping their ratios constant, isn’t fallacious. Enter
candidates’ socioeconomic backgrounds in the equation, the picture
would be sharper. Though, according to the Sachar Committee
Report, an uneducated Muslim mother wishes to educate her
daughters, more than her husband, Muslims are often blamed for
lack of education and competitive desire, ignoring pervasive
hostile external environments—policies, programs and
prejudices—militating against them.
Himself living in an apartheid-like red-lined zone, devoid of
sanitation, schools, parks, playground and health centres (though
dotted with liquor and paan shops, polluting industries,
adulterated medicines and sweet shops, dubious ‘doctors’ and
police stations), Yusuf illustrates the situation. Government
Durbar School was the oldest and reputed school of Jaipur in a
Muslim locality. Its alumni became noted administrators,
professionals, businessmen and politicians. Recently, the
Government closed it down, giving its large campus to the police,
despite public protests and litigations. Before killing the dog it
was given a bad name. Government let infrastructures get
dilapidated and teachers unruly. Girls had no toilet. Middle class
students migrated to other schools. Muslim students left
stupefied, either straying into low-paid labour markets or
deviance. Cultural prejudices crop up in their admissions in good
private schools. If not dropouts from orphanage-like government
and Muslim schools, fewer make to colleges. Most can’t afford high
fees of coaching shops. So fewer Muslim graduate and crack
competitive examinations. Girls face complex geographical and
cultural obstacles.
Yusuf returns to his main concern, underlining universal
perceptions: the need for more appointments of Muslims in the
police force. He rationalizes that in the presence of a Muslim SP
a trigger-happy police is unlikely to fire indiscriminately as
witnessed in Gopalgarh massacre, where 219 rounds of bullets were
fired at one time - highest round of bullets being fired so far in
India, excluding during wars. Nor, mayhem of arsons and looting of
the scale of Sarada (Udaipur), Semli-Hat, Maheshpura and Manohar
Thana (Jhalawar) may happen. Mixed neighborhood interfaces and
‘borders’ are combustible zones. Gujarat border is expanding
northward to the Hadoti, Mewar, Marwar and now Meo regions due to
complicity of the police and the lack of state neutrality due to
immediate political expediency.
“The ‘loss’ of one Muslim SP in the police force is
important/meaningful to Muslims” he maintains. He is shocked to
learn that the SP, as an RPSC member, isn’t entitled anymore to an
armed security guard in police uniform, a siren-equipped escort
vehicle and, still worse, a personal car with a red light. When I
say that the tenure of a RPSC member is for good six years so he
can do a lot in that period but on the other hand, by remaining in
the police service, he could have become Inspector General of
Police, IGP, or reached even higher. Yusuf agonizingly bursts:
Satyanash! Yeh to fir bahut gadbad hogaya, Janab! ‘Calamitous!
Then this is all screwed up, sir!’ He bemoans, ‘This is a real
conspiracy against Muslims!’ That said it all. Anti Muslim In riot
prone areas, the partisan need for physical security overshadows
all other considerations for most Muslims. Experience has taught
the community that anti Muslim rioters get away with murder and
mayhem mainly because the police consistently plays a partisan
role and helps rioters instead of protecting the victims. Hence
the desperate desire to have their co religionists in the police
Prof. Hasan taught in Rajasthan State Institute of Public
Administration, universities of Nairobi and Jodhpur and was Member
Academic Council, AMU. Currently, Member, Rajiv Gandhi Social
Security Mission, Rajasthan.
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