Is the backlash on Northeasterners a ruse to return to communalised politics?
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| RSS men providing ‘protection’ to fleeing Northeasterners at Bangalore station |
- September 2011 Ten Muslims killed in clashes between Gujjars and Meo Muslims in Gopalgarh in Rajasthan
- October 2011 Four Muslims killed in communal clashes in Uttarakhand’s Rudrapur
- January 2012 Rama Sene activists hoist a Pakistani flag in north Karnataka’s Bijapur district to provoke tension, six are arrested
- May 2012 Police install 50 CCTV cameras in Kasargode district in Kerala after repeated clashed between Hindus and Muslims
- July 2012 Clashes between Bodos and Muslims in Assam, over 70 killed
- June-August 2012 Hindu-Muslim clashes in UP’s Bareilly, Pratapgarh, Ghazipur, Deoria, Sitapur, Faizabad and Mathura districts, at least nine dead
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Is the communal fire from Assam spreading to other parts of India?
The large-scale departure of Northeast migrants from Bangalore certainly
doesn’t look like it’s going to be the last of the spillover from
Bodoland. Last week, a Mumbai rally called to condemn the killings of
Muslims in Assam and Myanmar ended in mob violence that left two dead
and several injured. Police suspect that videos and pictures from the
two restive regions were deliberately circulated beforehand to inflame
tensions among the Muslim audience.
Similar propaganda material is also suspected to be behind the Pune
attacks on students from the Northeast. The local police have arrested
several Muslim men who, they say, were behind the attacks. But there’s
also been another theory doing the rounds—that it is the RSS which is
circulating some of these rumours to create an atmosphere of hatred
which suits the politics they support.
Ahead of the two state elections this year (including Gujarat) and as
many as nine next year (Karnataka, MP, Delhi and Rajasthan among them),
Assam’s ethnic clashes come as a timely pretext for those out to engage
in communal politics. Together with localised incidents in Uttar
Pradesh and elsewhere, many fear the recent developments signal a return
of communalism to replace corruption as the electoral agenda.
Promptly off the blocks was Gujarat’s chief minister Narendra Modi,
who’s seeking a fourth consecutive term a few months from now. On
Janmashtami day, writing on his blog, he accused the UPA of “promoting”
cow slaughter and exporting beef to bring in a ‘Pink Revolution’. Modi
didn’t even spare the PM for failing to make a mention of the violence
in Mumbai in his Independence Day speech (Manmohan had made a reference
to the Assam clashes). “Something so serious...how can the PM be quiet
about it?” the CM asked. Baroda-based retired professor and activist
J.S. Bandukwala says, “Modi has no choice, especially since he is facing
a split in his own ranks. Creating a communal atmosphere is the only
way he can tide over it.”
When clashes first broke out in Assam in July, few imagined it would
have such widespread communal repercussions. But developments have
increasingly veered that way as entities, both Muslim and Hindu, seek to
polarise and communalise the rhetoric. While the BJP has chosen to harp
on illegal migrants from Bangladesh, Muslim political parties and their
leaders (such as MP Asauddin Owaisi, who warned of a “third wave of
radicalisation amongst Muslim youth”) have chosen to focus only on the
plight of the Muslims in Bodoland.
The head of Assam’s leading opposition party, the predominantly Muslim
All India United Democratic Front, Badruddin Ajmal, insists that 90 per
cent of those killed in the violence are Muslims. How can any meaningful
reconciliation come about in such a charged atmosphere? “This is not
the situation to use for political mileage and profiteering.
Unfortunately, exactly that has happened,” says Akhil Ranjan Dutta,
associate professor of political science at Gauhati University. “The BJP
and Sangh leaders are focussed only on making illegal migrants the
culprits. On the other hand, the reaction of the Muslim fundamentalists
and reactionary elements has been equally disturbing. And the more the
issue is taken up at the national level, the more it has become
communal,” he adds.
Meanwhile, the police are investigating if the latest incidents in
Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad are all part of an organised
attempt to provoke communal riots. An sms doing the rounds before the
violence in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan asked, “Burma, Assam, Gujarat,
Kashmir ke baad na jaane kahan? Burma mein Musalmano ke qatl-e-aam or
zulm ke khilaf Azad Maidan may Sunday ko rally hai.” It went on to
criticise the media for covering the gunning of Sikhs in the US in great
detail but ignoring the killings of Muslims. “Is SMS ko Sunday se pehle Hindustan ki har Musalman or mantriyo or media tak pahunchao...,”
it added. Worried, the central government has now asked states to keep
track of social media, where most of this propaganda is being
circulated.
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| Mumbai Riots |
In Mumbai, several people were seen climbing on to local trains with
rods and petrol canisters, all of which were later used in the violence
in and around Azad Maidan. While the obvious finger pointing has been at
Muslim fundamentalists and the underworld, Mumbai-based Asghar Ali
Engineer, who heads the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, says
one can’t exclude the possibility of Hindu right-wing forces provoking
the clash. “Hindu right-wing groups know very well now that they can’t
have a repeat of Gujarat in 2002. They tried launching terror attacks,
thinking Muslims will be blamed for them, but this too failed as the
Hindu terror nexus was exposed. Now the new strategy is to focus on
minor riots and identity-based isolation of groups and communities,” he
says. Activist Harsh Mander adds that states and local officials must be
made accountable to contain the communal violence.
In Bangalore, migrants from the Northeast have suddenly begun fleeing
en masse, fearing reprisal attacks from Muslims. Even presuming that
the Muslims are furious and ready to turn violent, the question is would
they be so foolhardy to do so in a BJP-ruled state? Simultaneously, the
RSS has promptly stepped into the limelight, as defenders of the
terrified people. They have also claimed they are not behind the rumours
which called on migrants to flee the city before Id-ul-Fitr (around
August 20), after which Muslims will apparently go on the rampage.
Vishwa Samvad Kendra, the RSS’s news agency, is already busy
distributing pictures of khaki-clad activists crowding around railway
stations in Bangalore and talking to people from the Northeast.
While nobody is sure who is behind the rumours, the fear among the
Northeast migrants in Karnataka is palpable. Last week, a Tibetan youth
was stabbed mistakenly in Mysore by unidentified miscreants. Home
minister R. Ashoka said as many as 6,800 Northeast migrants had left the
city on Wednesday and another 1,000 had fled on Thursday by the time
this report was filed. (Reports also talked of around 1,000 people
gathering at Pune station in Maharashtra. Reports of northeasterners
fleeing have also come from Kerala and AP).
A communalised atmosphere is slowly building up, which has worrying
consequences for states like Uttar Pradesh, already the scene for
several localised riots this year. Shahid Siddiqui, recently expelled
from the Samajwadi Party in UP, claims the state has deliberately chosen
not to crack down to create a communal divide ahead of the 2014 LS
elections. “Any polarisation is not just going to help the BJP, it’ll
also help the SP and Congress. The so-called secular parties also
benefit from keeping the Muslims jittery,” he says. Congress-ruled
Rajasthan too has seen several communal incidents of late, including the
violence in Gopalgarh in September 2011 that left 10 dead. The question
India must confront as we head into several state and general elections
is whether the communal cauldron is being stirred all over again.
By Debarshi Dasgupta and Panini Anand
Source : Outlook India
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