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Shillong: Why a tiff between Sikhs and Khasis escalated into violence, fuelled by Whatsapp rumours
Members of the Dalit Sikh community claim that the attacks are
aimed at getting them to leave their homes in the heart of the city and
move to the outskirts.
A Sikh man holds a photograph of his parents. His family has
lived in Shillong since his great-grandfather moved here in 1947.
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Makepeace Sitlhou
Since Thursday evening, the residents of
Shillong’s Punjabi Line have barely eaten or slept. The 500 or so
inhabitants of this slum have mainly been confined to the area since it
was besieged by scores of members of the dominant Khasi community, who
are demanding that the long-time Punjabi settlers be moved to an area on
the outskirts of the city.
The trouble was sparked on Thursday
morning by an altercation between a Sikh woman who lives in the colony
and a Khasi bus driver over the parking spot for a Meghalaya State
Transport Corporation bus. Matters escalated later that day, leading to
curfew being imposed in the city early on Friday morning. On Sunday, the
restrictions were relaxed for seven hours .
On
the ground, there are two versions about the incident that set off the
violence. Some members of the Sikh community in Punjabi Line said that
after a Sikh woman was harassed by Khasi men, she and four other women
living in the settlement beat them up. The Khasis say that after the
argument about parking, they were assaulted by men from the Punjabi Line
colony.
The Meghalaya police have arrested one man from Punjabi Line in connection with the assault.
Despite
the competing claims, the feuding parties reached a formal compromise
at the local Cantonment Board police station on Thursday afternoon. The
agreement, written by the bus driver in Khasi, stated that he had no
hard feelings towards the Sikh woman and man accused in Thursday’s
altercation. “I feel no anger or bitterness,” the statement reads. “And
they have given us money [Rs 4,000] for medicines for the conductor and
the two passengers.”
But on Thursday night, fake news soon spread
on Whatsapp that a group of Punjabi people from the colony had
decapitated two Khasi boys. A mob soon gathered near the colony, intent
on violence. The mob clashed with personnel of the Central Reserve
Police Force and state police, resulting in injuries on both sides.
Superintendent of Police (City) Stephan Rynjah was injured after he was hit by a rod. The police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.
Curfew
was imposed in several parts of Shillong early on Friday morning. In
other places, restrictions on the assembly of more than four people were
also put in place. Internet and text messaging services were also shut
down across the city to prevent rumours from spreading. The Army was put
on standby. On Friday night, the Army carried out a flag march
in areas where curfew had been imposed. The Army also fed and housed
more than 300 civilians from the “disturbed areas” in the cantonment,
according to a release from the Press Information Bureau.
Asha
Kaur stands outside her house in Shillong's Punjabi Line. Kaur, her
husband and children have taken refuge in the local gurdwara since
violence broke out on Friday.
‘They want to build a mall on our land’
At
11 am on Saturday, a disquieting calm hung in the air in Punjabi Line,
which is located near Bara Bazaar in the heart of Shillong. There were
few people to be seen in the cordoned-off colony.
On a street
strewn with vegetable waste leading to the colony, a group of men stood
guard against possible attackers. Others were building barriers of brick
and wood to restrict entry to the colony’s gurdwara. Contrary to news
reports, the gurdwara was not attacked on Friday. However, as the mob
hurled petrol bombs and stones at houses in one section of Punjabi Line,
a fire started in a nearby salon, residents say.
Since the
violence broke out, almost half of the colony’s residents have moved out
of their homes taking refuge in the gurdwara.
Garo tribal Dalri
Sangma, who married a Punjabi from the colony just two months ago, was
among those who had taken refuge in the shrine, along with her
distraught mother-in-law, and sister-in-law and her children. “I have
been in Shillong since my childhood but I never thought these people
would be so dangerous,” said Sangma. “My sister-in-law’s husband from
Guwahati cannot come and take her, nor can my own parents visit because
of the curfew.” Sangma’s father works in the Shillong police department.
While
the men stood guard outside, the women worked in the gurdwara’s langar,
the community kitchen, on which the colony’s residents have depended
for their meals these past few days. “When the fire started, it could
have easily spread to houses where women and kids were sleeping,” said
Asha Kaur, a homemaker who born in Shillong and lived here all her life.
“We removed our gas cylinders and put out the fire ourselves. After we
had handled everything, then the fire brigade came.”
Shillong has a reputation for being safe for women. But
Kaur said this only applied to tribal women. “They [the Khasi men] came
and harassed our women,” she alleged. “Are we supposed to just do
nothing? Are our women not entitled to the same courtesies as Khasi
women?”
Gurjit Singh, secretary of the village panchayat council,
acknowledged that men from Punjabi Line were involved in assaulting the
Khasi men, but said that the matter had initally been resolved with the
signing of the compromise in the police station. The fact that the
violence took place despite the agreement indicated that it was aimed at
driving members of the Punjabi community out of their homes, he
alleged.
Asha Kaur claimed that the authorities want the residents
of the colony to relocate to Nongmenson, on the outskirts of the city.
However, the community is not keen on moving since their jobs and their
children’s schools are in the city.
On
Friday night, a mob threw petrol bombs and stones over the walls of the
Sweepers Colony, which set this hair-cutting salon on fire.
Brought in by the British
Dalits
from Punjab first moved into Shillong over 160 years ago, when the
British brought them to Meghalaya to work in the hill station town as
sweepers and “manual scavengers” cleaning excreta from toilets. “Our
people have been living here before 1853 when the Syiem of Mylliem
[village] donated this land to us saying we could live here as long as
we want,” said Gurjit Singh. The Syiem is the traditional chieftain who
acts as a public authority on local judicial and administrative matters
within the jurisdiction of the Khasi Hill Autonomous District Council.
As
proof, Singh said that he has a letter issued by the Syiem of Mylliem
in 2008 to the chairman of the Meghalaya State Electricity Board in
which the village chief acknowledges that his predecessors had alloted
the Dalit community a plot of land after the Raja of Mylliem entered
into an agreement with the British government on December 10, 1863, to
establish Civic and Military Sanitaria in the area.
After
Independence, members of the community continued to be employed as
sweepers and toilet cleaners by the Shillong Municipal Board, state
government offices, hospitals, Cantonment Board and the police. “No one
objected to us living here during the time when we were engaged in
manual scavenging work after nightfall,” said Singh. “That time they
needed us since no one else would do it.”
He added that there
have been attempts to evict the community from Punjabi Line since the
practice of cleaning toilets manually was stopped here in the 1980s.
Dalri
Sangma, a Garo woman, married a Punjabi man from Shillong’s Punjabi
Line colony two months ago, and is expecting their first child. She has
taken refuge in the gurdwara, along with her in-laws.
‘Illegal settlement’
Many
Khasi residents of Shillong view Punjabi Line as an illegal settlement –
and believe that some of its residents are involved in criminal
activities.
As panchayat council secretary Gurjit Singh noted,
there have been previous attempts to evict the Dalit Sikh community from
Punjabi Line, which is also known as Sweepers’ Colony. In the 1970s,
the district commissioner had issued members of the settlement an
eviction order. But this was stayed in 1986 by the Meghalaya High Court.
Over the years, groups like the Khasi Students’ Union and the
Federation of Khasi Garo Jaintia People have often called for the
Punjabi settlers to be evicted from this part of town.
In past
years, the community has approached the National Commission of Scheduled
Castes and the National Commission for Minorities against attempts to
evict them. It also filed a public interest appeal in the High Court,
citing the Constutional right of Indian citizens to move freely through
the country and live wherever they choose to.
Singh alleged that
the residents of the colony have faced discrimination for years. He said
that the colony did not receive basic amenities from any of the local
MLA’s schemes until residents appealed to the state governor in 2009.
Moreover, the colony’s residents are unable to get electricity
connections without a no-objection certificate from the municipal board,
even though the original owner of the land – the village of Mylliem –
has no problem with this.
“The [municipal] board says it is a
disputed area,” said Singh. He claimed that it was absurd that the
colony’s residents were being asked to get a document from the municipal
board when the area falls under a village panchayat. This, said Singh,
is harassment.
Residents of Punjabi Line have attempted to barricade the entrance of the local gurdwara.
‘No help from MLA’
The
Punjabi Line colony is part of the North Shillong Assembly constituency
whose MLA is Adelbert Nongrum of the Khun Hynniewtrep National
Awakening Movement or KHNAM. Kaur says that the Sikh community does not
expect any help from him. “Since he was elected [in February], this
situation has started,” said Kaur. “A few years back, he had said that
if he came to power, he would have this line [Punjabi Line] removed. We
called him for help when this [the trouble] started, and he told us that
he was in Delhi. We later get to know through Facebook that he is
giving speeches here.” Scroll.in made several attempts to reach Nongrum for a comment but he was not available.
According
to Gurjit Singh, in 2009, land documents were issued to the Guru Nanak
School, the gurdwara and temples in the colony. However, 218 colony
residents were not issued land titles even though the district
commissioner at the time had assured the National Commission for
Scheduled Castes that the allotments would be made.
Homemaker Asha
Kaur said that she had heard that the state government planned to build
a mall at the site of the colony to serve the city’s increasing tourist
arrivals. “We have been here since our childhood and are raising
children of our own now,” said Kaur. “But they want to drive us out at
all costs. Yesterday, I heard them sloganeering outside, ‘Either you die
or you give us this place.’”
‘Simmering anger’
Representatives
of the Khasi community, however, say that the protests against the
residents of Punjabi Line are the result of the eruption of pent-up
anger among the local tribal residents, and not because of the parking
altercation, as the media has been reporting.
Donald V Thabah, a
Khasi Students’ Union spokesperson, claimed that residents of the colony
– who his organisation claims are squatters – have assaulted Khasi
youth several times in the past. “These people who have taken to the
streets have been holding their anger for too long, especially those who
conduct business in the Mawlonghat market area,” he said. “People in
Sweepers’ Lane assault and attack villagers coming from the Khasi and
Jaintia hills.”
However, he was unable to explain the possible
reasons for these attacks, since he does not know “the background of
these people and the kind of records they have”.
Thabah also
alleged that some groups were trying to gain political leverage from the
violence, but declined to identify those groups.
Although the
Khasi Students’ Union denied having any hand in orchestrating the
protest, Thabah admitted that some of its members participated in it.
The
Khasi Students’ Union contends that the colony is situated in a
commercial area owned by the Mawlonghat market. “It [the colony] is
expanding at a pace that soon the whole market will become a residential
area,” said a member of the union.
The students’
body maintains that the current protests are unlike the agitation in
Shillong in 2013, during which residents resorted to violence to demand
the introduction in Meghalaya of an inner line permit system to restrict
the entry of outsiders in the state. Those protests were backed by 14
civil society groups with the Khasi Students’ Union – which has a
reputation of being hostile to non-tribal outsiders – at the forefront.
However,
during a joint press briefing on Saturday along with its old allies –
the Federation of Khasi-Jaintia and Garo People and the Hynniewtrep
National Youth Front – the Khasi Students’ Union
demanded stringent punishment for the people accused of assaulting the
Khasi men, government compensation for the victims and the eviction of
residents from Punjabi Line.
Women make chapatis at the community kitchen in the gurdwara.Khasi
Students’ Union president Lambok Starwell Marngar alleged that the
police was responsible for the current situation. “The victim did not
want to compromise but the police convinced them to compromise,” he
claimed.
Donald Thabah of the Khasi Students Union claimed that
Khasi protestors had faced the maximum wrath of the police, with over 80
people being treated in hospital for injuries sustained from tear gas
shells. When told that the mob had used petrol bombs, he said that the
mob had started to disperse on Thursday, after the magistrate asked them
to maintain the peace and return home. But anger was reignited when the
Sikh residents of the locality then started laughing and jeering at
them, he said.
Thabah told Scroll.in that there were
reports that Home Minister James Sangma had agreed to the demands of the
agitators. But Chief Minister Conrad Sangma told Scroll.in:
“We have asked for a status report on the situation and will take a
decision based on it. However, the issue will be taken seriously by the
government.” All photographs by Makepeace Sitlhou.