Like Palestinians, Muslims Of Muzaffarnagar Forego Their Right To Return,
On Oath
Saeed Naqvi
Dated: 15.11.2013
The government
of Akhilesh Yadav in UP has asked the battered Muslims of Muzaffarnagar to sign
an affidavit:
“Myself and
members of my family who have left our village and our homes due to violent
incidents in our village, will not now return to our original village and home
under any circumstance.”
This
undertaking, sought by a government which lays a special claim on Muslims, has
made Firaq Gorakhpuri’s famous couplet stand on its head.
“Palat rahey
hain ghareeb ul
Watan, palatna tha
Who koocha
rookash e jannat ho
Ghar hai ghar phri bhi.”
(Exile may have
been the very picture of paradise, but please let us return because there is no
place like home, after all)
In this
affidavit, the SP government is demanding the Muslim refugees of Muzaffarnagar
to forego their right to return, rather like the Palestinians. Many refugees
worldwide do not return for a variety of reasons. But here the state is
complicit in perpetuating the exile.
If the refugees
commit themselves not to return home, they will be entitled to a cheque of Rs.5
lakhs, equivalent of about $8000.
There are other
conditions for the recipient of the dole:
“The lumpsum
financial help being given by the government will be used by me only to
rehabilitate my family. With the help of this money, I will live with my family
arranging for residence elsewhere (not in my village).” Returning home is taboo
once the cheque has been accepted.
A further
condition is:
“On receiving
the lumpsum financial help amount, neither I nor any member of my family will
demand any compensation relating to any damage to any immovable property in my
village or elsewhere.”
The implication
is that any property left behind in the village can be vandalized or occupied
by those who have pushed out the Muslims from their respective villages. But
these Muslims will forfeit the right to complain about their properties being
vandalized or occupied once they have received the Rs.5 Lakh cheque. Brilliant
governance.
One would have
expected the State government to send the refugees back to the homes they had
fled during the riots. True, they have gone through horrible experiences. They
have seen their relatives killed, their wives and daughters raped. They are
therefore afraid returning to their villages unless the State can ensure their
security. In normal times this was supposed to be the duty of the State. But
the Samajwadi party appears to be evolving a new pattern of institutionalized
apartheid as a means of managing the fallout from communal riots.
Who knows, the
UP government may have embarked on an imitable model. If the majority community
in a village has grown tired of that profaned term “composite” culture, all it
has to do is to riot on a massive scale and drive out the minority into make
shift refugee camps. The SP officials will show up cash-in-hand and ensure that
the minority never returns to the homes it has abandoned.
The majority
will now have a homogenous population in the villages. If the uprooted
minority, Rs.5 Lakhs in hand, mutate and become the new banjaras or gypsies, so
be it. If they settle in blocs of newly constructed shacks, they will be easy
targets for arson as well as for votes.
It is also
possible that the State government is not being as cynical as it may appear to
be. It possibly has collaborators among the Muslim clergy.
Muzaffarnagar is
close to Deoband, the largest Muslim seminary in the subcontinent. Maulana
Arshad Madani and his disciples have shouldered a great deal of the
responsibility of the riot victims still in the camps. The government in
Lucknow has done little to help.
Why should a
government which imagines the Muslims are its vote bank, not be energetically
helping them in their distress? For two reasons: it would not like to be seen
by the majority community to be reaching out to Muslims. In an atmosphere so
polarized, supposing mischievous elements scream “appeasement”, that word will
resonate statewise. It is not totally rational but that is the state of funk in
which all parties are fighting these elections, except perhaps the three ladies
– Mayawati, Jayalalita and Mamata.
Handing Rs.5
Lakh to Muslim refugees and encouraging them to take the road, is Mulayam’s way
of playing both sides:
“Shaikh bhi
khush rahey
Shaitan bhi
naraaz na ho”
Which means that
the “Shaikh should be pleased but Satan should not be displeased either”.
Well, the Shaikh
of Deoband is actually playing ball with Mulayam. He is advertising the cheque
as a boon for the Muslims of nine villages of Shamli and Muzaffarnagar. The
political quid pro quo is simple: the clergy gets the credit for having
extracted the boon from the SP government and thereby hopes to tighten its grip
on the community. A rattled SP expects Deoband to help it win back the Muslim
votes.
The Deoband
School considers the separation of poor Muslim families, a minority in many
villages, from the prosperous Jat majority an outcome to be desired. Why?
Because wives and daughters of the extremely poor Muslims are exposed to sexual
exploitation by the rich.
Will they not be
so exploited as gypsies or in new settlements they know nothing about?
From the great
secular fraternity, the silence on Muzaffarnagar has been deafening. Some weeks
ago the CPM organized a Convention against Communalism at Delhi’s Talkatora
stadium. The hall was full of SP volunteers wearing red caps. No sooner had
Mulayam spoken than the red caps left. Only the CPI’s A.B. Bardhan urged
Mulayam to arrange for the return of the refugees. Mulayam winced.
The only party
with friends in Muzaffarnagar and which is campaigning for the refugee’s return
is an unexpected one: Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
Where does the
Congress stand on the issue of the return of the refugees?
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