Mind moving mountain: choosing the perceptive mind in fighting communalism/terrorism
by Mustafa Khan
MJ Akbar misquoted Shakespeare to criticize AR Antulay. They represent two opposing tendencies of mind, one cynical and the other sycophantic. Thus there is need to find out a more perceptive way of tackling the menace of communalism and terrorism.
A French girl visited Malegaon for a research topic on communalism in the town. Sarah Chauvin and I met an experienced member of the National Integration Council of Malegaon. Prakash Patil gave an example how he prevented a riot taking place in the town in 1983. A lawyer called Yeshwant K Gunjad found that someone had hung a garland of bones on the idol of the female goddess of Matamath Hindu temple in Muslim dominated area. The temple and the Ahle Hadish mosque share a common wall. It was midnight of a Saturday. He raised a hue and cry over the defilement. People gathered outside and tension spread like a wildfire. Patil tried to pacify and reason with the people but had to rush to the nearby police station to seek help. Inspector Deshpande made a phone call to additional superintendent of police Mr Mushriff who was in a meeting at Nasik with district superintendent Mr Ankola. Mushriff rushed enough strength of police to deploy in the town.
By the time Mushriff reached the hotspot it was Sunday morning. The Hindutva leaders of the time Bhima Gawli and Puntambekar were with the crowd. The restive crowd was getting out of control when Mushriff had to act fast. To contact the district collector he wanted to use phone. The only phone available was there in the Maharashtra Bank opposite the temple. When he saw the bank open on a Sunday he felt it strange and inquired about it and found that the bank was opened because the house of Gunjad was to be auctioned since he could not pay back loan he had taken. One event connected to another, Gunjad had seen the garland, he hollered the people to gather there, he had filed complaint and he as in the forefront of the agitation. Mushriff detained him for questioning and within no time he confessed his guilt that he had garlanded in order to create a riot and save the auctioning of his house. Nothing came out of the incident because lawyer Puntambekar fought the case of Gunjad and got him acquitted!
But it was not so easy for the Good Samaritan, Patil, who was at his wit's end reasoning with the crowd. He told them that the garland was not exactly around the neck of the goddess, that it was hung from the trishul. That it was made of the common cord used in sewing gunny sack in storing sugar and grains available mostly with the Hindu traders in the nearby Gudbazaar. That the pieces of bones were of chicken or mutton that the Muslim then were not accustomed to consume as they were beef eaters. In this way he bought precious time to reason and pacify the irate mob and successfully prevented the mounting tension exploding into a communal riot.
Patil and Mushriff used their minds to solve a very difficult problem. A mind that could be the proverbial mind that Swami Vivekananda was searching, a vedic mind in an Islamic body. Neither was either a sycophantic or a cynic. Akbar and Antulay have a sermon in stone here: grow old along with me, the best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was created. Tackling communalism is also tackling terrorism today.
Antulay spoke out of turn. The death of Hemant Karkare is still a matter of heavy consequences. Who is fighting terror and how, is still shrouded in mystery. The disappearance of Anita Uddaiya and her reported return from the US raises more questions than the government or the police can answer. She had seen the six[and where were the other four] terrorists land off Cuffe Parade beach in Mumbai on November 26. She should have been given police protection. She was called to confirm the identity of the bodies at JJ Hospital. But she was whisked away from the toilet. Is it a cloak and dagger type of Conan Doyle? On her return to Mumbai the police took her to the Cuffe Parade police station to take down her statement. If she was taken out of the country by the Americans why this charade, then? If it was kidnapping then somebody else should have been called at the police station. If it was cleared at the highest level of the government there is still the problem that a citizen of a free democratic country disappears and even her daughter or niece does not know and has to register a case of missing person. Why is Anita so queasy about identifying the copses of the slain terrorists when she was so forthcoming on the night of the attack in asseverating that she had confronted them and would have fittingly replied if she knew their identity and motivation? Are we also following our big brother in the While House in learning extraordinary rendition and outsourcing of torture, etc? Antulay's raising question about who sent Karkare is equally relevant here. But with a catch: the people and not ministers should ask or introspect why the things happen the way they happen.
This would save us time and embarrassment of another minister, the British foreign secretary David Miliband that "war on terror" was and is "misleading and mistaken" and the motivations and identities of terrorists are disparate.
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