Why
Bijnor Communal Villainy Did Not Spread
Saeed
Naqvi
I had Muzaffarnagar riots of February
2013 at the back of my mind when I drove towards Pedda village on the
Bijnor-Najibabad Road where three Muslims had been shot dead by Jats who fired
with guns and pistols from the terraces of their homes.
Trouble began when two Muslim girls were
harassed at the bus stop. When their men folk protested, the economically
stronger Jats decided to teach them a lesson.
Muslims in Pedda have for generations been
“dhobis” or washermen. In Sir Saiyyad Ahamd Khan’s framework, these are
“arzals” or “menials”. Above them in the caste/class hierarchy are “Ajlafs”,
weavers, and “Ashraf”, the genteel lot, the ones for whom the Aligarh
University was initially opened.
That Yasmeen and Farheen are college
going girls is not a negligible detail: it is a glimmer of hope in a picture of
unrelieved gloom which envelopes the community. Jats are prosperous farmers but
socially static on issues like gender and are still bound by Khaps. The
man-woman population ratio is eerily adversarial to women. In the Muslim hovel,
there is economic want, not social regression.
Arrogance of economic power bristles at
the sight of the lowest strata crawling upwards. This explains some of the accelerated
violence against dalits and muslims. Caste and communal prejudice converge in
such instances.
The gram pradhan or village head of Pedda,
Anis Ahmad, is a short, dark man with a well trimmed beard and a mandatory skull
cap, headgear which defines all Muslims from Madrasas. He has gone through the
drill at the Deoband seminary, a stint as a tailor in Kuwait and now a dress
designer, (believe it or not) for “fashion shows”. He is not free of the usual
Mullah hypocrisy:
“I don’t touch female bodies; I tailor
clothes for mannequins.”
With the advent of washing machines,
muslim washermen in villages like Pedda have diversified as tailors, barbers,
fruit and vegetable sellers, automobile mechanics, handy men of all sorts.
The Pradhan takes me into the house
where three men were shot dead on the terrace of their home. Below, in a dark
verandah, women wail.
Outside, across the lane, is the
fortified house of Pedda’s most powerful Jat, Sansar Singh. He hid in another
village five kms away, but has since been arrested along with eight others
involved in organizing the violence.
A dozen or so policemen are snoozing
outside Sansar Singh’s house, their weapons on their laps. This is the scene
outside every Jat house in the lane upto the highway where a large number of
policemen keep vigil.
“Look” Anis Ahmad points his finger, “They
are protecting only Jat houses”.
At Bijnor’s police headquarters,
Superintendent of Police (Rural) Dharam Veer Singh, thumps his table gently.
“Yes, we are protecting Jat houses. If
police were not posted as a deterrent, angry muslims may retaliate against Jat
women and children.”
Theoretically, Singh has a point but do
Muslims in their current state of demoralization, ever retaliate? The two local
journalists, Naresh Sharma of Swatantra Awaz and Jalil Ahmad, of a local TV
channel, India Voice, are crouching on Singh’s table, symbols of watchfulness.
Singh smiles, “Please give the police
some credit for having prevented riots from spreading.”
Why did these riots not spread?
He cites geography as a roadblock to
communalism. “The Ganga flows between Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Bijnor – the
communal wave that overwhelmed areas the other side of the Ganga some years
ago, weakens crossing the river.” There are other reasons for weakened
communalism in Bijnor.
Amit Shah’s very determined presence in
Muzaffarnagar and Shamli three years ago made the difference. Trumped up
stories of “love jihad”; fake video from Pakistan’s north west circulated as Jats
being lynched by Muslims; Maha Panchayats of weapon wielding mobs and Amit
Shah’s famous refrain, “Yeh badley ka election hai” (We go into this election
to seek revenge) – all augmented the incendiary atmosphere. Today, there is
saffron in the air, true, but not murderous saffronization.
In Bijnor, Muslims as well as the
administration (even some Jats) have praised the local MLA Ruchi Veera of the
Samajwadi party who was present in the village round the clock for the duration
of tension. In fact she was able to extract Rs. 20 lakhs from the government in
Lucknow by way of relief within days of the violence. Assessments of damage are
being made for more.
District magistrate Jagat Raj is flanked
by City SP M.M. Baig and SSP Umesh Kumar Srivastava, to address about 60 print
and TV journalists around a giant oblong table. Seldom have I heard media being
so lavishly thanked for having exercised restraint.
On my return when I cross the barrage on
the Ganga, I remember SP (Rural), Dharam Veer Singh’s words: rivers block
communal waves. Before reaching Meerut, I see road signs to Muzaffarangar. I
have horrible memories of that pogrom. Past Meerut is Maliana, the site of the
notorious 1987 massacre. The police had separated 42 muslim young men, lined
them up by the nearby canal and shot them.
P. Chidambaram was Rajiv Gandhi’s
Minister of State for Home. He knows that incident like the back of his hand. He
is now a columnist. Maybe, someday he will give us the inside story on why the case
drags on into its 29th year? Approaching Ghaziabad, I see signs to
Dadri where in September 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq was lynched by Cow Protection
vigilantes. His family is still implicated in unproved charges.
As lights of Delhi shimmer, the villainy
of Pedda recedes. Nastier memories surface.
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