Nonlinear Narratives - notes from Muzaffarnagar
Chinki Sinha
Muzzaffarnagar, November 5, 2013
That they want gun licenses isn't such a misplaced demand, a man says. After all, the state has failed to protect them. The fields with the sugarcane crop rising tall, and hiding so much, have become the killing fields. Nobody is cutting the crop anymore. It turns brown, and ripe. Unclaimed, uncared for. Not until the state concedes.
Shahnawaz Khan, a Samajwadi Party worker, gets into a white Scorpio with the Samajwadi Party flag. It starts to move. He raises his hand, and the vehicle stops.
“Our battle isn't with the Hindus. It is with Jat terrorism. If they can call their panchayats, so can we,” he says. “We have waited for too long.”
A panchayat of the Jats was called in for October 6. That has been postponed. The muslims have formed a Bhartiya Kisan Majdoor Manch on Sunday to negotiate for their rights. This is to fight Jat terrorism.
“We will fight the battle of the disenfranchised. We have been under the shadows of the Jats. Now, we will claim our space, and our dignity,” he says.
Night has descended. In Hussainpur, men are collected outside the pradhan's house. Section 144 is imposed. But they have disregarded it. Beyond this, the village is submerged in darkness. Except for when a woman wails out loud.
http://chinkisinha.blogspot.in/2013/11/nonlinear-narratives-notes-from_8540.html
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