Muslims are at the receiving end of Hindu Gujjar highhandedness in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district

From: Frontline, Feb. 23-Mar. 08, 2013

Living in fear

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in Bhilwara

The vacant faces told the story of the wanton destruction. On January 25, a day before the Indian republic completed 63 years, 37 shops, including kiosks, belonging to members of the minority community in Asind tehsil in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district, were set ablaze even as a helpless district administration watched, busy as it was controlling another conflict in the adjacent Gulabpura tehsil. The incident occurred when the Congress, perceived to provide a safe environment for the minorities, was in power. Seventy persons were arrested, the bulk of them from the majority community of Hindu Gujjars, including a district leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

What began as a dispute over the route of a procession taken out by Muslims metamorphosed into a strategy of arson in which the livelihoods of the minority community were systematically targeted by the Hindu Right.

Bhilwara is represented by Union Minister C.P. Joshi; but no one even from the State Cabinet made a visit to the place. Sources in the Chief Minister’s Office told Frontline that Ashok Gehlot had promptly convened a meeting on January 25 and deputed the Inspector General of Police, the Divisional Commissioner and two DIG-level officers to make a quick assessment and for damage control. But the damage, it seems, had already been done. Sentiments raged against ruling party representatives.

“We would just like to know how long we must remain like this in perpetual fear of being attacked. It is better that we sit across a table and discuss openly what is expected of us. If it is going to be an unequal relationship in democratic, secular India, then so be it, but tell us where we stand,” said Abid Hussain, a property dealer.

The day of the arson was Bara-wafat, celebrated both as the birthday and the day of demise of the Prophet Muhammad. Permission was sought by the community’s leaders to take out a procession—a ritual they have been undertaking for years—in the tehsils of Asind and Gulabpura, both with sizable Muslim populations. However, organisations of the Hindu Right, which included the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), the Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, insisted before the administration that the procession would not be allowed to pass through temple areas.

It had so transpired that the administration had not given permission to an earlier programme, a path sanchalan (route march) of the RSS, to pass through Muslim areas. The path sanchalan, planned a year earlier, was to be a show of strength, and was to coincide with the 1,101st anniversary of a Gujjar deity, Devnarayan. The chosen date was January 13. The idea was to converge on one point from three corners of Asind town, passing through areas with Muslim homes and places of worship.

Asind is no stranger to communal violence; the demolition of a medieval Kalandari masjid in 2001, located on the premises of the Sawai Bhoj temple, had vitiated relations between the two communities. The masjid was never rebuilt.
[. . .]
The social fabric of Bhilwara, known as the Manchester of Rajasthan, is under strain. The interdependence of Hindus and Muslims living here will be a thing of the past soon. A good section of the trading community seems to be backing Sangh activities.

FULL TEXT: http://www.frontline.in/stories/20130308300410700.htm