The Tribune, March 06, 2020
Enforced ghettoisation
Overnight, ‘borders’ have been demarcated in the minds of Hindus & Muslims
Radhika Ramaseshan
Senior Journalist
If there was an image that encapsulated the enduring aspects of the week-long communal violence that devastated northeast Delhi, it was the ‘gulel’. A catapult was allegedly placed on the rooftop of a three-storeyed building, housing a school at Shiv Vihar, one of the deeply impacted areas, and used to shoot stones and bricks and fire Molotov cocktail on another school that stood cheek by jowl. One school was owned by a Muslim and the other by a Hindu. The propeller was showcased by the patrolling police as a manifestation of the ‘ingenuity’ and ‘planning’ that went into the violence to visiting journalists who were asked to videograph it, as the cops sheepishly ducked questions on why the local intelligence was oblivious to the preparations. The catapult figuratively travelled all over northeast Delhi and embedded itself in people’s consciousness to become a leitmotif. Every other building was supposed to have had a projectile to launch attacks, although the topography belied the fanciful theory.
The physical targets made it plain as to which community was targeted and why the targets were chosen: to humiliate Muslims who were on the receiving end since 2014, first through isolated lynching by cattle vigilantes that fostered a narrative underpinned on the belief that you either live on the ‘terms’ set by the Hindus (no consuming beef and meat in general) or perish. The collective brutalities followed, UP being the standout state before Delhi caught up. Several masjid, mazar and madarsa were set upon by mobs and burnt down. Then, the mobs went for shops, a major source of livelihood for Muslims who realised that entrepreneurship was their only viable route to a better life. An entire market, vending tyres and auto parts, was set aflame. The economic spine was broken. Finally, came the homes that were zeroed in on that in certain settlements, rows and rows of Hindu houses went untouched while those of the Muslims were looted and razed. Forced into stray relief camps or the homes of relatives and good Samaritans who offered temporary shelter, the dispossessed and the dishoused said they had no hope of returning to their homes, even if they were reconstructed, but would rather relocate to where the community was in a majority.
Not that the areas that make up northeast Delhi are habitable even in a basic sense, except for those who early on acquired large tracts of land and raised decent homes. But these are few and far between. For the majority, Hindus and Muslims, it means surviving in a semi-urban sprawl that was the recipient of a miniscule number of big city amenities and the object of wilful neglect, visible in the open, clogged drains, narrow roads and unclaimed garbage. The four major drains, intersecting the habitations that have become hotspots (Shiv Vihar, Chand Bagh, Babarpur, Gokalpuri etc), flow from the Eastern Yamuna Canal in Ghaziabad and served as convenient dumps for the corpses that are daily surfacing. The final death count is incalculable.
The political undertones were two. The RSS and the BJP have a significant presence in northeast Delhi that has spawned the growth of the affiliates like the Bajrang Dal. Lok Sabha MP Manoj Tiwari is from the BJP. Of the 10 Assembly constituencies here, the BJP picked up three amidst a pro-AAP wave: Rohtas Nagar, Karawal Nagar and Ghonda. The last two saw heavy violence.
BJP’s supporters made it apparent that they did not take kindly to AAP’s victory which, they alleged, was accelerated with ‘100 per cent’ Muslim votes. However, AAP stickers were also spotted on the doors of Hindu shops and homes, suggesting that the contest was not one-sided, as the BJP propagated. By the admission of some BJP backers, with a 70 (Hindu):30 (Muslim) demographic ratio, it was ‘irrational’ for the AAP to win seven seats, with just the backing of the minorities. The RSS-BJP votaries’ ire was fixed on two entities: Mustafabad MLA Haji Yunus, who was singled out as the ‘linchpin’ of the attacks on Hindus, and AAP councillor Tahir Hussain, who was implicated in the murder of an IB official and since suspended by the party. Yunus, they claimed, had organised celebrations to fete the AAP’s victory with ‘incendiary’ slogans, although the claim was not endorsed by the unaligned Hindus. However, one thread in a larger theme coalesced with another. An offshoot of the Muslim-AAP association was the charge that the minorities started the violence to embarrass the Modi government during US President Donald Trump’s visit. The trigger for the attacks, however, differed from area to area.
The second subtext was the protests against the CAA that were also held in northeast Delhi in controversial circumstances. The spur was moving the Jaffrabad sit-in to outside a Metro station. The movement was handy to feed the charge that the protests inconvenienced civilians and ought to be dismantled. Added to that was the Bhim Army’s call for a Bharat bandh on February 27 that was allegedly backed by Muslims. The spectre of a Muslim-Dalit alliance, created by the Bhim Army’s support for the anti-CAA campaign, unnerved the BJP that counted Dalit sub-castes such as the Valmiki and Khatik in its large base.
Expectedly, stories of Hindus and Muslims saving one another from marauders intersperse a grim narrative, but the reality is that the violence has not only scarred hearts and minds, but polarised the gut reaction. Earlier, there were no physical barriers between the pockets occupied by the Hindus and Muslims. Overnight, as it were, the ‘borders’ have been demarcated, with Hindus mapping out alternative routes to reach Metro stations and their workplaces, and Muslims ruling out the option of returning to their homes in the mixed areas. With the non-BJP parties retreating from articulating a position on the violence, is there a lining on the horizon?
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Showing posts with label Ghettoisation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghettoisation. Show all posts
March 06, 2020
March 18, 2017
India - Slow ethnic cleansing: In 2015 BJP councillor locked out Muslim family's home, openly incited a mob against them, forced them to move out in Moradabad, UP
The Hindu
A Muslim family that had recently bought a house in a Hindu
neighbourhood in the Katghar area of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, has
decided to sell the property after the local BJP councillor locked them
out of their own premises on Wednesday night. The councillor also tried
to incite a mob against the family.
The incident comes just weeks after two youths in Mumbai were refused a job and a house respectively for being Muslim.
BJP councillor Vidyasharan Sharma, a Hindu hardliner, locked the house of Shahana Parveen with locks of his own and announced that he would not allow any Muslim family to stay in a Brahman neighbourhood of the city.
When Ms. Parveen and her family reached their house on Wednesday night, they saw an extra lock on the door. When she sought to ask her new neighbours, she saw the mob being egged on by the BJP leaders.
“When we tried asking from the neighbours what was going on, we saw Sharma with a mob. He told us that we being Muslims could not stay in a Hindu area. Now we have decided to sell the house and vacate it as soon as possible,” Ms Parveen told The Hindu on phone.
“We will soon shift to the nearby Muslim locality of Maqbara. We do not want to stay against people's wishes in their area,” said the distressed owner.
When the police reached the spot, Mr Sharma categorically told the policemen that “whatever be the case, Muslims can’t stay here. Brahmin families live in the locality and under no circumstances we will allow a Muslim family to live in between them.”
When The Hindu contacted Mr Sharma for his reaction, he denied however doing anything illegal.
In a video of the entire episode, widely circulated on Whatsapp, other social media platforms and also broadcast on local news channels, Mr Sharma is heard speaking about Muslims in a manner which is unlawful.
Ms Parveen bought the house from Shashi Prabha on June 11. Ms. Prabha, the previous owner told The Hindu that she had found it difficult to sell the house for last two years as the BJP councillor had warned her against selling the house to non-Hindus.
“We have been trying to sell the house but we were not getting any buyers. Sharma had warned us not to sell the house to any non-Hindus,” she said.
BJP councillor locks out Muslim family in Moradabad
Parveen pressured to move away from Hindu neighbourbood.
The incident comes just weeks after two youths in Mumbai were refused a job and a house respectively for being Muslim.
BJP councillor Vidyasharan Sharma, a Hindu hardliner, locked the house of Shahana Parveen with locks of his own and announced that he would not allow any Muslim family to stay in a Brahman neighbourhood of the city.
When Ms. Parveen and her family reached their house on Wednesday night, they saw an extra lock on the door. When she sought to ask her new neighbours, she saw the mob being egged on by the BJP leaders.
“When we tried asking from the neighbours what was going on, we saw Sharma with a mob. He told us that we being Muslims could not stay in a Hindu area. Now we have decided to sell the house and vacate it as soon as possible,” Ms Parveen told The Hindu on phone.
“We will soon shift to the nearby Muslim locality of Maqbara. We do not want to stay against people's wishes in their area,” said the distressed owner.
When the police reached the spot, Mr Sharma categorically told the policemen that “whatever be the case, Muslims can’t stay here. Brahmin families live in the locality and under no circumstances we will allow a Muslim family to live in between them.”
When The Hindu contacted Mr Sharma for his reaction, he denied however doing anything illegal.
In a video of the entire episode, widely circulated on Whatsapp, other social media platforms and also broadcast on local news channels, Mr Sharma is heard speaking about Muslims in a manner which is unlawful.
Ms Parveen bought the house from Shashi Prabha on June 11. Ms. Prabha, the previous owner told The Hindu that she had found it difficult to sell the house for last two years as the BJP councillor had warned her against selling the house to non-Hindus.
“We have been trying to sell the house but we were not getting any buyers. Sharma had warned us not to sell the house to any non-Hindus,” she said.
Though Ms Parveen has complained to the police
against Mr Sharma, she has decided to sell and move as she does not want
to live “with the threats”.
June 13, 2016
India: Mass movement on religious lines leads to ghettoization in riot-scarred West UP
The Times of India
Mass movement on religious lines leads to ghettoization in riot-scarred West UP
Sandeep Rai | TNN | Jun 11, 2016, 10.06 PM IST
Members of another Kashyap family move out of the communally sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar. Members of another Kashyap family move out of the communally sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar.
KAIRANA (SHAMLI): A day after NHRC sent notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on exodus of 250 Hindu families from Kairana due to "fear of criminals" belonging to another community, in the communally-sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar, it's emerged that it's not just Hindus who have migrated from Muslim-dominated areas, but vice-versa. Mass movement of families is happening across religious lines and is leading to ghettoization in the region.
"Hindus are moving out from Muslim dominant villages while Muslims are leaving Hindu majority regions," said Rihana Adeeb, director of Astitva, an NGO working for the rehabilitation of riot-displaced Muslim families. As Shamli DM Sujeet Kumar said he had set up a probe panel to look into the exodus of Kashyap families from Kairana, TOI visited one Jannat colony in Kandhla area of Shamli, where the number of Muslim families swelled considerably due to migration from other areas.
"We could feel too much hatred against us. A vicious atmosphere compelled us to abandon our houses and the village and move to Kandhla," said Mohd Ayyub of Jannat colony, saying pretty much what Hindus, who had to leave the area along with their families, said.
Akram Akhtar, programme officer of NGO Afkar India Foundation, said, "We have a list of more than 1,000 Muslim families that moved from their native villages to Muslim-dominated areas in the last three years in Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Baghpat districts. The exodus is naturally out of fear."
BJP's Kairana MP Hukum Singh, however, denied the reports of Muslims moving to other areas. "To my knowledge, not a single Muslim family has moved out of Shamli and Muzaffarnagar districts as they have nothing to fear. However, it is true that Hindu families have been forced to leave their ancestral houses and move out. Kashyaps of Kairana is case in point."
On Wednesday, Singh had produced a list of 346 Hindu families that he claimed had fled leaving their properties behind after they were allegedly targeted and persecuted by another community. The MP said the list mentions only the families of Kairana, and if those who migrated from other parts of the district are included, the number would be more than a thousand.
"This is exactly what had happened in Kashmir. Businessmen are being targeted in a bid to grab their establishments and properties. These people are forced to migrate leaving their ancestral properties behind. And in the hurry, they have no other choice but to sell their properties far below the prevailing market price or just abandon them," the MP said.
Rahul Bansal (name changed), a jeweller in Gumbad locality of Kairana, has had to move his family to Saharanpur after his son was murdered allegedly by a man from the minority community. "The 60% Hindu population in the locality reduced to 30% in a couple of years. We did not feel secure in the area and had to shift to other city," he said.
Sunil Kumar Jain lost his sprawling house in Muzaffarnagar soon after the 2013 riots. "We used to live in Khalapar locality of Muzaffarnagar. It was a Muslim-dominated area. We had to move out of the area due to fear. When we returned after the riots were over, our house had been grabbed by a local muscleman. We have had to sell it off at a throwaway price. Now, we are staying in a rented accommodation in Nai Mandi area," Jain told TOI.
Mass movement on religious lines leads to ghettoization in riot-scarred West UP
Sandeep Rai | TNN | Jun 11, 2016, 10.06 PM IST
Members of another Kashyap family move out of the communally sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar. Members of another Kashyap family move out of the communally sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar.
KAIRANA (SHAMLI): A day after NHRC sent notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on exodus of 250 Hindu families from Kairana due to "fear of criminals" belonging to another community, in the communally-sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar, it's emerged that it's not just Hindus who have migrated from Muslim-dominated areas, but vice-versa. Mass movement of families is happening across religious lines and is leading to ghettoization in the region.
"Hindus are moving out from Muslim dominant villages while Muslims are leaving Hindu majority regions," said Rihana Adeeb, director of Astitva, an NGO working for the rehabilitation of riot-displaced Muslim families. As Shamli DM Sujeet Kumar said he had set up a probe panel to look into the exodus of Kashyap families from Kairana, TOI visited one Jannat colony in Kandhla area of Shamli, where the number of Muslim families swelled considerably due to migration from other areas.
"We could feel too much hatred against us. A vicious atmosphere compelled us to abandon our houses and the village and move to Kandhla," said Mohd Ayyub of Jannat colony, saying pretty much what Hindus, who had to leave the area along with their families, said.
Akram Akhtar, programme officer of NGO Afkar India Foundation, said, "We have a list of more than 1,000 Muslim families that moved from their native villages to Muslim-dominated areas in the last three years in Muzaffarnagar, Shamli and Baghpat districts. The exodus is naturally out of fear."
BJP's Kairana MP Hukum Singh, however, denied the reports of Muslims moving to other areas. "To my knowledge, not a single Muslim family has moved out of Shamli and Muzaffarnagar districts as they have nothing to fear. However, it is true that Hindu families have been forced to leave their ancestral houses and move out. Kashyaps of Kairana is case in point."
On Wednesday, Singh had produced a list of 346 Hindu families that he claimed had fled leaving their properties behind after they were allegedly targeted and persecuted by another community. The MP said the list mentions only the families of Kairana, and if those who migrated from other parts of the district are included, the number would be more than a thousand.
"This is exactly what had happened in Kashmir. Businessmen are being targeted in a bid to grab their establishments and properties. These people are forced to migrate leaving their ancestral properties behind. And in the hurry, they have no other choice but to sell their properties far below the prevailing market price or just abandon them," the MP said.
Rahul Bansal (name changed), a jeweller in Gumbad locality of Kairana, has had to move his family to Saharanpur after his son was murdered allegedly by a man from the minority community. "The 60% Hindu population in the locality reduced to 30% in a couple of years. We did not feel secure in the area and had to shift to other city," he said.
Sunil Kumar Jain lost his sprawling house in Muzaffarnagar soon after the 2013 riots. "We used to live in Khalapar locality of Muzaffarnagar. It was a Muslim-dominated area. We had to move out of the area due to fear. When we returned after the riots were over, our house had been grabbed by a local muscleman. We have had to sell it off at a throwaway price. Now, we are staying in a rented accommodation in Nai Mandi area," Jain told TOI.
April 27, 2016
No houses on rent for minorities: UN expert hits out at Indian mindset (catchnews)
catchnews - 24 April 2016
No houses on rent for minorities: UN expert hits out at Indian mindset
Catch Team @catchnews | 24 April 2016
QUICK PILL
The discrimination
It has been observed time and again that Indian landlords don't easily rent out houses to Muslims or women
Especially in the case of religious minorities, this leads to ghettoisation
The expert view
UN's Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, has echoed these observations
She has criticised the Indian mindset for continuing with this discrimination
More in the story
Now that Farha has made these observations, what happens next?
What does the Government of India have to say about her view?
Recently, when a Muslim professional set out looking for a house in South Delhi, some of the home owners he met had strange excuses.
"That landlord in Safdarjung Development Area says he will rent out the place only to a vegetarian," the broker told him.
"A polite way to refuse a Muslim," the professional thought.
Another landlord, a young guy who has made money in the US and is now taking a break, mostly playing golf, had an interesting proposition for the professional.
"My father, who happened to be a journalist, had many Muslim friends. So I do not mind that you are a Muslim, and I am ready to rent out this room to you. But you cant have anybody coming or leaving, be it your family or your friends. None at all," he told the professional.
His demands basically meant that he was not willing to give the house. "Or why would he say things like nobody can come. It isn't a jail after all," the professional thought.
"Minorities, women and SCs face discrimination and ghettoisation when it comes to renting homes"
It's not just in the posh colonies in Delhi, Mumbai and other big cities - this problem has forced many minorities to move into ghettos.
But they're not the only ones. Women, too, face intrusive questioning while looking for accommodation.
'Are you single'? 'Will your boyfriend be visiting'? 'Do you have male friends'? 'When are you planning to get married'? These are some of the most common questions working women have to face in every city.
UN expert's scathing view
These observations were echoed by Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, who was in India recently on a 12-day visit to assess the housing sector.
In her observations, which have upset the Indian government, she said that India had a legacy of discrimination against minorities, people from the Scheduled Castes and women, and it still remains apparent and manifests in different ways.
Farha pointed out that a detailed report will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council at its 34th session in March 2017 in Geneva. However, the observations will be first sent to the Government of India for verification and comment.
India is presently one of the 47 members of the Human Rights Council.
"UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, assessed the sector on a 12-day visit"
The government of India doesn't seem happy with her views. The Ministry of External Affairs said that her views don't reflect the UN's view of India.
"The reports prepared by the Special Rapporteurs during such visits are their own work, based on their travel within the country and their interaction with government officials, or both, at Central and state levels; site visits and community interactions, meetings with NGOs and many others," the MEA said.
"The Special Rapporteur would be sharing her draft report with the Government of India for factual verification in due course, before its formal tabling in March 2017 during the 34th Session of the UNHRC in Geneva," the MEA statement reads.
Forced evictions
Meanwhile, Farha also called for a moratorium on forced evictions and demolition, and said that the country needs a national housing law, which is based on national and international human rights commitments.
"I am extremely concerned for the millions of people who experience exclusion, discrimination, eviction, insecure tenure, homelessness and who lack hope of accessing affordable and adequate housing in their lifetimes," she said.
She reportedly pointed out that the frequency of forced demolitions and evictions is sometimes justified by taking recourse in the economic agenda of the government. According to some estimates, 2.5 lakh people have been forcibly evicted from their homes between 2010 and 2015. India is home to the largest population of urban poor and and landless people.
She also mentioned how "there is no national law, policy or programme in place to ensure homeless people have access to medium and long-term housing options," and how even the newly launched Housing for All, a Central government scheme, does not take into account this group of deprived people.
In cities like Delhi, scores of homeless people die every year due to extreme weather conditions.
No houses on rent for minorities: UN expert hits out at Indian mindset
Catch Team @catchnews | 24 April 2016
QUICK PILL
The discrimination
It has been observed time and again that Indian landlords don't easily rent out houses to Muslims or women
Especially in the case of religious minorities, this leads to ghettoisation
The expert view
UN's Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, has echoed these observations
She has criticised the Indian mindset for continuing with this discrimination
More in the story
Now that Farha has made these observations, what happens next?
What does the Government of India have to say about her view?
Recently, when a Muslim professional set out looking for a house in South Delhi, some of the home owners he met had strange excuses.
"That landlord in Safdarjung Development Area says he will rent out the place only to a vegetarian," the broker told him.
"A polite way to refuse a Muslim," the professional thought.
Another landlord, a young guy who has made money in the US and is now taking a break, mostly playing golf, had an interesting proposition for the professional.
"My father, who happened to be a journalist, had many Muslim friends. So I do not mind that you are a Muslim, and I am ready to rent out this room to you. But you cant have anybody coming or leaving, be it your family or your friends. None at all," he told the professional.
His demands basically meant that he was not willing to give the house. "Or why would he say things like nobody can come. It isn't a jail after all," the professional thought.
"Minorities, women and SCs face discrimination and ghettoisation when it comes to renting homes"
It's not just in the posh colonies in Delhi, Mumbai and other big cities - this problem has forced many minorities to move into ghettos.
But they're not the only ones. Women, too, face intrusive questioning while looking for accommodation.
'Are you single'? 'Will your boyfriend be visiting'? 'Do you have male friends'? 'When are you planning to get married'? These are some of the most common questions working women have to face in every city.
UN expert's scathing view
These observations were echoed by Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, who was in India recently on a 12-day visit to assess the housing sector.
In her observations, which have upset the Indian government, she said that India had a legacy of discrimination against minorities, people from the Scheduled Castes and women, and it still remains apparent and manifests in different ways.
Farha pointed out that a detailed report will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council at its 34th session in March 2017 in Geneva. However, the observations will be first sent to the Government of India for verification and comment.
India is presently one of the 47 members of the Human Rights Council.
"UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, assessed the sector on a 12-day visit"
The government of India doesn't seem happy with her views. The Ministry of External Affairs said that her views don't reflect the UN's view of India.
"The reports prepared by the Special Rapporteurs during such visits are their own work, based on their travel within the country and their interaction with government officials, or both, at Central and state levels; site visits and community interactions, meetings with NGOs and many others," the MEA said.
"The Special Rapporteur would be sharing her draft report with the Government of India for factual verification in due course, before its formal tabling in March 2017 during the 34th Session of the UNHRC in Geneva," the MEA statement reads.
Forced evictions
Meanwhile, Farha also called for a moratorium on forced evictions and demolition, and said that the country needs a national housing law, which is based on national and international human rights commitments.
"I am extremely concerned for the millions of people who experience exclusion, discrimination, eviction, insecure tenure, homelessness and who lack hope of accessing affordable and adequate housing in their lifetimes," she said.
She reportedly pointed out that the frequency of forced demolitions and evictions is sometimes justified by taking recourse in the economic agenda of the government. According to some estimates, 2.5 lakh people have been forcibly evicted from their homes between 2010 and 2015. India is home to the largest population of urban poor and and landless people.
She also mentioned how "there is no national law, policy or programme in place to ensure homeless people have access to medium and long-term housing options," and how even the newly launched Housing for All, a Central government scheme, does not take into account this group of deprived people.
In cities like Delhi, scores of homeless people die every year due to extreme weather conditions.
June 19, 2015
India: Basharat Peer on Mumbra, India’s largest Muslim ghetto
The Hindu, June 19, 2015
In India’s largest Muslim ghetto
by Basharat Peer
Uprooted from Mumbai after the 1992-93 riots, thousands of Muslim families found safety in Mumbra on the city’s outskirts. Visiting it over a few days, Basharat Peer discovered islands of progress amid large seas of neglect in the township that nine lakh people call home
On a recent afternoon, after a two-hour drive out of Mumbai, I followed a highway hugging the low hills of Mumbra, north-east of the city, near the Thane creek. As the road forked downhill, hundreds of grimy, teetering buildings stacked like tattered books in a neglected public library were the first glimpse intimation of Mumbra, India’s largest Muslim ghetto. Despite the heat, young boys played cricket in a clearing by a graveyard. A chaotic medley of vehicles choked the main street leading into the Kausa area of the ghetto.
Mumbra expanded with great velocity in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The Bombay riots of December 1992, which overwhelmingly killed Bombay Muslims, and the retaliatory bomb blasts in January 1993 by the Muslim underworld, reconfigured the social geography of the city. Bombay Muslims from riot-hit areas sought safety in numbers and found it in Mumbra, where Muslims from the Konkani coast had a long-standing presence. Through a combination of the desire for safety among Muslims, the relatively cheaper price of apartments, and continued rural-urban migration, Mumbra’s population grew 20 times from about 45,000 before the 1992 riots to more than 9,00,000 in the 2011 Census — possibly one of the fastest expansions of an urban area in India.
"Not Bombay, a village"
Assadullah Khan, an electrical engineer in his late 40s, was among the first groups of people who moved to Mumbra from Mumbai after the 1992-1993 violence. Mr. Khan was living in Kannua Nagar in the suburb of Vitroli, a mixed neighbourhood, where Hindus and a smaller number of Muslims lived together without incident. Mr. Khan, who also gave part-time tuitions to students, was the only Muslim in his building. After the riots, most of his Muslim neighbours began to migrate to areas with a heavier concentration of their co-religionists. Mr. Khan was weighing his options.
A female neighbour warned him. “You should leave now,” she said. “Things are going to get worse.” He moved his wife and children to his in-laws’ house overnight. “A little later, I sold my apartment for much less than it would fetch on the market,” Mr. Khan told me. The market for distress sales was booming.
Mr. Khan found shelter in his brother-in-law’s apartment in Mumbra. “We then bought an apartment of our own and have lived here since,” he said. Thousands followed him, from Bhandup, Vitroli, Ghatkopar, Behram Baug, and Walkeshwar. Uprooted from the charred geography of the city, they converted a semi-rural backwater into a promised land.
The Maharashtra and central governments, which had watched impassively through the riots, left the migrants to their own devices, but Mumbra grew. Power and water supply was feeble. There was little public infrastructure. The crisis provided a business opportunity for Mumbra builders; they set out to build illegal and substandard apartment blocks, which were (and still are) a lot cheaper by Mumbai standards. In the early 90s, an illegally built two-bedroom apartment in Mumbra would sell for around Rs. 2 lakh. “Most of the buildings are illegal,” a builder told me. “Today, an illegally built three bedroom costs Rs. 8-10 lakh. If I built that legally, it would cost Rs. 25-30 lakh.” Mumbra is a mixture of middle, lower-middle, and working class Muslims, but the majority are from the lower-middle and working classes. “Most people here couldn’t afford the legal market prices,” he said.
The poor building quality exacted a terrible cost in 2013 when a building collapse killed more than 70 people. It did not deter new arrivals. Rafiuddin Khan, a retired teacher in his 70s, lived most of his life in a tenement near Mohammad Ali Road — one of the oldest Muslim majority areas in Mumbai. “Our area was safe but I was tired of living with a growing family in two rooms,” he said. He sold his chawl; it fetched enough money to buy an apartment in a Mumbra apartment block. “It is a lot more space than we had in Bombay,” he said. He paused for a while, as if reimagining the vistas of his earlier life in the middle of the bustling metropolis. The ease of travel and the proximity to major public hospitals, schools, and colleges was missing in Mumbra. A journey to the city in a sardined local train took about an hour and half. “It is not Bombay, it is a village.”
Desire for upward mobility
The signs of aspiration are seen in the names of apartment blocks: Shimla Park, M.M. Valley, and Wafa Park. The impatience with the status quo and the desire for upward mobility screams from roadside billboards advertising the achievements of Mumbra boys and girls in coaching classes and private schools. A higher secondary level school, Al Hidayah School, has advertised with a collage of smiling student photographs and the percentages of their Senior Secondary School marks. There was pride in that data: Out of 24 students, 9 have secured above 75 per cent and 14 between 60 per cent and 70 per cent. Meanwhile, Shoeb Junior College simply said: 89.16 per cent success.
“When we moved here, we clearly felt the absence of things we were used to in the city,” said Mr. Khan, the engineer. The ghetto had a few government schools, which were abysmally overcrowded and lacked infrastructure. Mr. Khan gave up engineering and set up a tuition centre, Unique Classes. When an old Sikh family, which had run a private high school in Mumbra decided to sell the school, Mr. Khan bought it, renaming it Assadullah Khan English High School and Junior College. It already has 1,400 students. “We are trying to fill the gaps ourselves,” he said. Despite having around a million residents, the Maharashtra government has not set up a single public college in Mumbra.
Beyond the doors of the ghetto, a Mumbra address often carries a degree of prejudice and suspicion. A lawyer spoke of trying to buy an Idea Internet dongle at a Thane shop and being turned away; an Urdu publisher spoke of waiting months to get a landline and broadband connection from BSNL. A few weeks ago, a private school in Panvel, a suburb 24 kilometres from Mumbra, decided to ban admissions of students from the ghetto, claiming that they behave badly. Waris Pathan, the Byculla area legislator from Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, led a protest against the school administration, which eventually revoked its decision.
Neglect and discrimination
One evening, I met Nazim Qazi, a sanitation officer with Thane Municipality. Before moving to Mumbra, when his wife, a schoolteacher, got a job in the area, he lived in Andheri and Thane, working as a freelance Hindi journalist, writing about cinema and the underworld — the two great Bombay themes. He gave it up for a more stable income at Thane Municipality.
Mr. Qazi lived in a relatively spacious, meticulously neat two-bedroom apartment with his wife, son, and two daughters. He saw certain benefits in living in Mumbra. “Women can walk around anytime and nobody will bother them. We have been here since 1999 and we sleep in peace, without any fear of riots or disturbances.” He loved hearing the azaan, the call for prayer, five times a day. “It has been easy to raise my children with Muslim values here,” he said.
As we spoke, Shehzad Faisal Qazi, his 20-year-old son, who has a mechanical engineering degree from Anjuman-I-Islam College, a minority institution in Panvel, joined us. A fashionable young man with rimless glasses, Mr. Faisal had recently returned from Coimbatore, where he and his college mates had won several top positions in a Go-Kart design competition. They were trying to patent an anti-skid mechanism for cars. He was about to leave for New Delhi to take classes for the Indian Administrative Services examination.
Along with the strivings, a sense of neglect and discrimination pervades Mumbra, which does not have a single public hospital. The nearest public hospitals are in Kalua and Thane. Several clinics and rudimentary private hospitals have come up. Mumbra goes without electricity for at least six hours everyday. “We are No. 1 in load-shedding,” Mr. Qazi laughed. “But things are a lot better compared to even five years ago.”
The evidence of incremental progress was visible in Mumbra. Some streets had been paved with tar. State Bank of India, HDFC, and Bank of Maharashtra had opened branches or ATMs. A Domino’s Pizza outlet opened last year. The absence of banking facilities or companies denying home delivery of products has, for years, been the standard attitude towards India’s Muslim ghettoes. Barely an hour from the Indian Parliament, the Okhla Muslim ghetto in New Delhi did not have a single bank despite a population of several lakh. Two years ago, Jammu and Kashmir Bank opened a branch in Zakir Nagar. Juhapura, the Ahmedabad ghetto, whose population doubled after the 2002 riots, still does not get piped water or gas, and remains excluded from Ahmedabad’s vaunted public transport network.
Run-ins with police
Mumbra also lives with a hostile relationship with the police. It was home to Ishrat Jahan, who was killed along with three other men by the Gujarat police. The Central Bureau of Investigation later described the killings as a “fake encounter”. Taunts of being a safe house for terrorists are often thrown at Mumbra. Last March, several hundered policemen raided Mumbra one and a half hours after midnight. A video recorded by a local journalist shows scores of men being paraded through dark streets by the police, bundled into police vans, and held for hours in Mumbra police station. Around 80 people, including young students, poets and old men were arrested. The police claimed to be looking for two petty thieves wanted for chain-snatching.
One afternoon, I met Ishrat Jahan’s family in Mumbra. They continue to litigate and fight the everyday battles of existence on the periphery. Ishrat’s sister Musarat Jahan recently completed her B.A. in Psychology through a correspondence course, but her mother, Shamima Kausar, is too scarred to let her step out and seek work. “I can’t trust the world anymore,” said Ms. Kausar. Yet, there are bills to pay. Ishrat’s brother Anwar Iqbal used to do odd jobs to support the family. Initially, he was denied employment because he was Ishrat’s brother, but he persisted and found work at a BPO in Thane. “It is an American company,” said Ms. Jahan. “He doesn’t make calls, he does data entry.”
basharat.peer@thehindu.co.in
In India’s largest Muslim ghetto
by Basharat Peer
Uprooted from Mumbai after the 1992-93 riots, thousands of Muslim families found safety in Mumbra on the city’s outskirts. Visiting it over a few days, Basharat Peer discovered islands of progress amid large seas of neglect in the township that nine lakh people call home
On a recent afternoon, after a two-hour drive out of Mumbai, I followed a highway hugging the low hills of Mumbra, north-east of the city, near the Thane creek. As the road forked downhill, hundreds of grimy, teetering buildings stacked like tattered books in a neglected public library were the first glimpse intimation of Mumbra, India’s largest Muslim ghetto. Despite the heat, young boys played cricket in a clearing by a graveyard. A chaotic medley of vehicles choked the main street leading into the Kausa area of the ghetto.
Mumbra expanded with great velocity in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The Bombay riots of December 1992, which overwhelmingly killed Bombay Muslims, and the retaliatory bomb blasts in January 1993 by the Muslim underworld, reconfigured the social geography of the city. Bombay Muslims from riot-hit areas sought safety in numbers and found it in Mumbra, where Muslims from the Konkani coast had a long-standing presence. Through a combination of the desire for safety among Muslims, the relatively cheaper price of apartments, and continued rural-urban migration, Mumbra’s population grew 20 times from about 45,000 before the 1992 riots to more than 9,00,000 in the 2011 Census — possibly one of the fastest expansions of an urban area in India.
"Not Bombay, a village"
Assadullah Khan, an electrical engineer in his late 40s, was among the first groups of people who moved to Mumbra from Mumbai after the 1992-1993 violence. Mr. Khan was living in Kannua Nagar in the suburb of Vitroli, a mixed neighbourhood, where Hindus and a smaller number of Muslims lived together without incident. Mr. Khan, who also gave part-time tuitions to students, was the only Muslim in his building. After the riots, most of his Muslim neighbours began to migrate to areas with a heavier concentration of their co-religionists. Mr. Khan was weighing his options.
A female neighbour warned him. “You should leave now,” she said. “Things are going to get worse.” He moved his wife and children to his in-laws’ house overnight. “A little later, I sold my apartment for much less than it would fetch on the market,” Mr. Khan told me. The market for distress sales was booming.
Mr. Khan found shelter in his brother-in-law’s apartment in Mumbra. “We then bought an apartment of our own and have lived here since,” he said. Thousands followed him, from Bhandup, Vitroli, Ghatkopar, Behram Baug, and Walkeshwar. Uprooted from the charred geography of the city, they converted a semi-rural backwater into a promised land.
The Maharashtra and central governments, which had watched impassively through the riots, left the migrants to their own devices, but Mumbra grew. Power and water supply was feeble. There was little public infrastructure. The crisis provided a business opportunity for Mumbra builders; they set out to build illegal and substandard apartment blocks, which were (and still are) a lot cheaper by Mumbai standards. In the early 90s, an illegally built two-bedroom apartment in Mumbra would sell for around Rs. 2 lakh. “Most of the buildings are illegal,” a builder told me. “Today, an illegally built three bedroom costs Rs. 8-10 lakh. If I built that legally, it would cost Rs. 25-30 lakh.” Mumbra is a mixture of middle, lower-middle, and working class Muslims, but the majority are from the lower-middle and working classes. “Most people here couldn’t afford the legal market prices,” he said.
The poor building quality exacted a terrible cost in 2013 when a building collapse killed more than 70 people. It did not deter new arrivals. Rafiuddin Khan, a retired teacher in his 70s, lived most of his life in a tenement near Mohammad Ali Road — one of the oldest Muslim majority areas in Mumbai. “Our area was safe but I was tired of living with a growing family in two rooms,” he said. He sold his chawl; it fetched enough money to buy an apartment in a Mumbra apartment block. “It is a lot more space than we had in Bombay,” he said. He paused for a while, as if reimagining the vistas of his earlier life in the middle of the bustling metropolis. The ease of travel and the proximity to major public hospitals, schools, and colleges was missing in Mumbra. A journey to the city in a sardined local train took about an hour and half. “It is not Bombay, it is a village.”
Desire for upward mobility
The signs of aspiration are seen in the names of apartment blocks: Shimla Park, M.M. Valley, and Wafa Park. The impatience with the status quo and the desire for upward mobility screams from roadside billboards advertising the achievements of Mumbra boys and girls in coaching classes and private schools. A higher secondary level school, Al Hidayah School, has advertised with a collage of smiling student photographs and the percentages of their Senior Secondary School marks. There was pride in that data: Out of 24 students, 9 have secured above 75 per cent and 14 between 60 per cent and 70 per cent. Meanwhile, Shoeb Junior College simply said: 89.16 per cent success.
“When we moved here, we clearly felt the absence of things we were used to in the city,” said Mr. Khan, the engineer. The ghetto had a few government schools, which were abysmally overcrowded and lacked infrastructure. Mr. Khan gave up engineering and set up a tuition centre, Unique Classes. When an old Sikh family, which had run a private high school in Mumbra decided to sell the school, Mr. Khan bought it, renaming it Assadullah Khan English High School and Junior College. It already has 1,400 students. “We are trying to fill the gaps ourselves,” he said. Despite having around a million residents, the Maharashtra government has not set up a single public college in Mumbra.
Beyond the doors of the ghetto, a Mumbra address often carries a degree of prejudice and suspicion. A lawyer spoke of trying to buy an Idea Internet dongle at a Thane shop and being turned away; an Urdu publisher spoke of waiting months to get a landline and broadband connection from BSNL. A few weeks ago, a private school in Panvel, a suburb 24 kilometres from Mumbra, decided to ban admissions of students from the ghetto, claiming that they behave badly. Waris Pathan, the Byculla area legislator from Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, led a protest against the school administration, which eventually revoked its decision.
Neglect and discrimination
One evening, I met Nazim Qazi, a sanitation officer with Thane Municipality. Before moving to Mumbra, when his wife, a schoolteacher, got a job in the area, he lived in Andheri and Thane, working as a freelance Hindi journalist, writing about cinema and the underworld — the two great Bombay themes. He gave it up for a more stable income at Thane Municipality.
Mr. Qazi lived in a relatively spacious, meticulously neat two-bedroom apartment with his wife, son, and two daughters. He saw certain benefits in living in Mumbra. “Women can walk around anytime and nobody will bother them. We have been here since 1999 and we sleep in peace, without any fear of riots or disturbances.” He loved hearing the azaan, the call for prayer, five times a day. “It has been easy to raise my children with Muslim values here,” he said.
As we spoke, Shehzad Faisal Qazi, his 20-year-old son, who has a mechanical engineering degree from Anjuman-I-Islam College, a minority institution in Panvel, joined us. A fashionable young man with rimless glasses, Mr. Faisal had recently returned from Coimbatore, where he and his college mates had won several top positions in a Go-Kart design competition. They were trying to patent an anti-skid mechanism for cars. He was about to leave for New Delhi to take classes for the Indian Administrative Services examination.
Along with the strivings, a sense of neglect and discrimination pervades Mumbra, which does not have a single public hospital. The nearest public hospitals are in Kalua and Thane. Several clinics and rudimentary private hospitals have come up. Mumbra goes without electricity for at least six hours everyday. “We are No. 1 in load-shedding,” Mr. Qazi laughed. “But things are a lot better compared to even five years ago.”
The evidence of incremental progress was visible in Mumbra. Some streets had been paved with tar. State Bank of India, HDFC, and Bank of Maharashtra had opened branches or ATMs. A Domino’s Pizza outlet opened last year. The absence of banking facilities or companies denying home delivery of products has, for years, been the standard attitude towards India’s Muslim ghettoes. Barely an hour from the Indian Parliament, the Okhla Muslim ghetto in New Delhi did not have a single bank despite a population of several lakh. Two years ago, Jammu and Kashmir Bank opened a branch in Zakir Nagar. Juhapura, the Ahmedabad ghetto, whose population doubled after the 2002 riots, still does not get piped water or gas, and remains excluded from Ahmedabad’s vaunted public transport network.
Run-ins with police
Mumbra also lives with a hostile relationship with the police. It was home to Ishrat Jahan, who was killed along with three other men by the Gujarat police. The Central Bureau of Investigation later described the killings as a “fake encounter”. Taunts of being a safe house for terrorists are often thrown at Mumbra. Last March, several hundered policemen raided Mumbra one and a half hours after midnight. A video recorded by a local journalist shows scores of men being paraded through dark streets by the police, bundled into police vans, and held for hours in Mumbra police station. Around 80 people, including young students, poets and old men were arrested. The police claimed to be looking for two petty thieves wanted for chain-snatching.
One afternoon, I met Ishrat Jahan’s family in Mumbra. They continue to litigate and fight the everyday battles of existence on the periphery. Ishrat’s sister Musarat Jahan recently completed her B.A. in Psychology through a correspondence course, but her mother, Shamima Kausar, is too scarred to let her step out and seek work. “I can’t trust the world anymore,” said Ms. Kausar. Yet, there are bills to pay. Ishrat’s brother Anwar Iqbal used to do odd jobs to support the family. Initially, he was denied employment because he was Ishrat’s brother, but he persisted and found work at a BPO in Thane. “It is an American company,” said Ms. Jahan. “He doesn’t make calls, he does data entry.”
basharat.peer@thehindu.co.in
June 16, 2015
India: Study shows National Capital Region homeowners turn away Dalits and Muslims (Seema Chishti)
In both the methodologies, the home-seekers had the same credentials but for their names that indicated their caste and religion.
The methodologies included contacting the “home-providers” via telephone or meeting them face to face.
Written by Seema Chishti | New Delhi | Updated: June 16, 2015 9:17 am
A study on discrimination in urban housing rental preferences, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Economic and Political Weekly, shows high levels of exclusion of Dalits and Muslims in the five metropolitan areas of NCR.
The team of researchers, led by Prof S K Thorat, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and comprising scholars such as Anuradha Banerjee, Vinod K Mishra and Firdaus Rizvi, covered attempts to get houses on rent in Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Noida between January and March 2012.
The methodologies included contacting the “home-providers” via telephone or meeting them face to face. In both the methodologies, the home-seekers had the same credentials but for their names that indicated their caste and religion.
The telephonic audit had a total of 1,469 home-seekers, 493 each bearing upper-caste Hindu, Dalits and Muslim names. While not one of the 493 high-caste home-seekers received a negative response, about 18 per cent of Dalits and 31 per cent of Muslims faced outright rejection, found the study. Together those receiving either a negative response or a positive one with conditions attached worked out to 41 per cent in the case of Dalits, and around 66 per cent for Muslims.
tenantsThe face-to-face audit covered 198 home-seekers, with 66 high-caste Hindus, Dalits and Muslims each. While 97 per cent of upper-caste Hindus got a positive response, 44 per cent of Dalits and 61 per cent of Muslims faced rejection. Together those receiving either a negative response or a positive one with conditions attached worked out to 51 per cent in the case of Dalits, and 71 per cent for Muslims.
In other words, the chances of Dalits and Muslims finding a house fell in the case of face-to-face contact. It also means that a significant number of Dalits and Muslims have to spend much more to stay in accommodations in NCR than their upper-caste counterparts.
“This indicates a clear case of market failure,” says Thorat, “where even prosperity does not allow you to buy your way out of discrimination… The studies do reveal that Muslims are even worse off than Dalits as far as the rental housing market goes.”
“Non-monetary motive often prevails among landlords renting out houses,” says the study, which chose Delhi for the research as it is often considered amongst the most migrant-friendly and cosmopolitan cities in India.
“While about 18 per cent of Dalits faced outright refusal from upper-caste landlords due to their caste, 23 per cent of them did get houses on rent but with differential terms and condition such as high rents and other restrictions. In case of Muslims, about one-third of them faced outright refusal from the landlords due to their religion, another 35 per cent managed to get houses on rent but with differential terms and conditions.”
The study focused on identifying discrimination in the NCR areas from both the supply and demand ends. The demand side included Dalit and Muslim home-seekers facing unequal treatment; and the supply side included discrimination practised by the “house providers”, including landlords, real estate agents and brokers.
While the broad results were categorised as positive and negative, positive was further broken down into differential demands (in terms of rents and security).
Tenants rejected
After phone interaction:
Upper caste Hindus: 0%
Dalits: 18%
Muslims: 31%
After meeting:
Upper caste Hindus: 3%
Dalits: 44%
Muslims: 61%
source: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/rentals-ncr-homeowners-turn-away-dalits-muslims/99/
The methodologies included contacting the “home-providers” via telephone or meeting them face to face.
Written by Seema Chishti | New Delhi | Updated: June 16, 2015 9:17 am
A study on discrimination in urban housing rental preferences, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Economic and Political Weekly, shows high levels of exclusion of Dalits and Muslims in the five metropolitan areas of NCR.
The team of researchers, led by Prof S K Thorat, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and comprising scholars such as Anuradha Banerjee, Vinod K Mishra and Firdaus Rizvi, covered attempts to get houses on rent in Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Noida between January and March 2012.
The methodologies included contacting the “home-providers” via telephone or meeting them face to face. In both the methodologies, the home-seekers had the same credentials but for their names that indicated their caste and religion.
The telephonic audit had a total of 1,469 home-seekers, 493 each bearing upper-caste Hindu, Dalits and Muslim names. While not one of the 493 high-caste home-seekers received a negative response, about 18 per cent of Dalits and 31 per cent of Muslims faced outright rejection, found the study. Together those receiving either a negative response or a positive one with conditions attached worked out to 41 per cent in the case of Dalits, and around 66 per cent for Muslims.
tenantsThe face-to-face audit covered 198 home-seekers, with 66 high-caste Hindus, Dalits and Muslims each. While 97 per cent of upper-caste Hindus got a positive response, 44 per cent of Dalits and 61 per cent of Muslims faced rejection. Together those receiving either a negative response or a positive one with conditions attached worked out to 51 per cent in the case of Dalits, and 71 per cent for Muslims.
In other words, the chances of Dalits and Muslims finding a house fell in the case of face-to-face contact. It also means that a significant number of Dalits and Muslims have to spend much more to stay in accommodations in NCR than their upper-caste counterparts.
“This indicates a clear case of market failure,” says Thorat, “where even prosperity does not allow you to buy your way out of discrimination… The studies do reveal that Muslims are even worse off than Dalits as far as the rental housing market goes.”
“Non-monetary motive often prevails among landlords renting out houses,” says the study, which chose Delhi for the research as it is often considered amongst the most migrant-friendly and cosmopolitan cities in India.
“While about 18 per cent of Dalits faced outright refusal from upper-caste landlords due to their caste, 23 per cent of them did get houses on rent but with differential terms and condition such as high rents and other restrictions. In case of Muslims, about one-third of them faced outright refusal from the landlords due to their religion, another 35 per cent managed to get houses on rent but with differential terms and conditions.”
The study focused on identifying discrimination in the NCR areas from both the supply and demand ends. The demand side included Dalit and Muslim home-seekers facing unequal treatment; and the supply side included discrimination practised by the “house providers”, including landlords, real estate agents and brokers.
While the broad results were categorised as positive and negative, positive was further broken down into differential demands (in terms of rents and security).
Tenants rejected
After phone interaction:
Upper caste Hindus: 0%
Dalits: 18%
Muslims: 31%
After meeting:
Upper caste Hindus: 3%
Dalits: 44%
Muslims: 61%
source: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/rentals-ncr-homeowners-turn-away-dalits-muslims/99/
April 11, 2015
India: Mr Home Minister, don't push Kashmiri Pandits into concentration camps
http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/mr-home-minister-don-t-push-kashmiri-pandits-into-concentration-camps/article1-1335893.aspx
Harinder Baweja, Hindustan Times | Updated: Apr 10, 2015 19:33 IST
Dear Mr Home Minister,
I write with a great sense of urgency.
You, your party and the government, no doubt, have noble intentions when it comes to resettling Kashmiri Pandits but emphasising, reiterating and re-emphasising that they will be rehabilitated in 'clusters' defeats the very purpose of trying to get them to return to their homeland.
Let go of your ideology and the BJP's stand on the issue for just a few minutes and rewind to the pre-nineties when the AK47 gun had not raised its nozzle in the air to deafening chants of 'hum kya chahte, azadi…' (We want freedom). Sure, as the home minister of India, you are--and should be--concerned about the safety and security of an entire community that was forced out of the Valley but bringing them back to ghettos is no homecoming.
Their ghar wapsi will be meaningful only if they can return to a normal life and live in the midst of their Kashmiri Muslim neighbours. By caging them into sand-bagged clusters, you will only be making sitting ducks out of them. Do you, Mr Home Minister, want to dot the city of Srinagar with more bunkers that will have to be put up on the roads leading up to such clusters? Do you want suspicion between the Pandits and Muslims to grow new feet? Do you want to further alienate the Pandits?
Do you know that till the early 90's when the migration started, the Pandits and Muslims were bound by tradition, love and warmth? Each time a Pandit girl got married, a Muslim neighbour accompanied her to her new marital home; so close were the ties; so passionate the bond.
Yes, it was shattered in the early 90s when Pandits were targeted and killed and their bodies thrown into open squares, to spread terror. Yes, the mosques were overtaken by gun-wielding militants who screamed slogans from the loudspeakers from within these places of worship. Yes, the Muslim neighbours got carried away by the slogan for azadi and didn't do enough to stop their Pandit sisters and brothers from leaving.
Demonstrators clash with police during a protest in Srinagar against a government proposal to create exclusive settlements for Kashmiri Pandits. AFP Photo
Can I please tell you that the ordinary Kashmiri Muslim bears a huge cross for having allowed their Pandit neighbours to leave. Soon after the exodus, hundreds travelled from Srinagar to the refugee camps in Jammu to personally apologise. The message was always the same: it's a regret they would take to their grave.
Speak to some of the Pandits, and they will tell you that they DO NOT (emphasis deliberate) want to live in 'Israel-type settlements' (to borrow chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's words). Yes, they're worried about returning but their worries are different.
They worry about what jobs they would go back to. There aren't enough employment opportunities even for the Muslim youth. Eighty percent who sold their homes through the 90s and the decade after--as they saw no hope of returning-- are concerned about how they will adjust to a new neighbourhood. They are worried about taking their children--born post-migration--to a society they know little about.
So, Mr Home Minister, rehabilitating the Pandits is not a simple exercise. It's most certainly not about building a cluster and ensconcing them in there. Concentration camps are not what Pandits are looking for when they talk about a life with dignity. You can't possibly expect them to move from a refugee camp to a cluster akin to a concentration camp.
By insisting on moving Pandits into clusters, you are also giving the separatists a new lease of life. Yasin Malik, who has barely been able to gather more than a few hundred people, is now taking out protest marches that are leading to a stand-off with the security personnel. A deteriorating law and order will only bring back memories of violence that the Pandits have been battling for a long time. The larger point the separatists are making is simply this: don't divide the state along religious lines. I agree with their message even though I've often disagreed with their politics.
One last thing: you and your government need to move fast. Twenty five long years have passed since they left home. You need to reintegrate them soon. In a few years, the new generation of Pandits won't know what Kashmiriyat is all about. It's about being tied by love and tradition. You can't afford that. India, as a nation too can't afford that.
Yours faithfully,
Harinder Baweja
(The views expressed are personal.)
Harinder Baweja, Hindustan Times | Updated: Apr 10, 2015 19:33 IST
Dear Mr Home Minister,
I write with a great sense of urgency.
You, your party and the government, no doubt, have noble intentions when it comes to resettling Kashmiri Pandits but emphasising, reiterating and re-emphasising that they will be rehabilitated in 'clusters' defeats the very purpose of trying to get them to return to their homeland.
Let go of your ideology and the BJP's stand on the issue for just a few minutes and rewind to the pre-nineties when the AK47 gun had not raised its nozzle in the air to deafening chants of 'hum kya chahte, azadi…' (We want freedom). Sure, as the home minister of India, you are--and should be--concerned about the safety and security of an entire community that was forced out of the Valley but bringing them back to ghettos is no homecoming.
Their ghar wapsi will be meaningful only if they can return to a normal life and live in the midst of their Kashmiri Muslim neighbours. By caging them into sand-bagged clusters, you will only be making sitting ducks out of them. Do you, Mr Home Minister, want to dot the city of Srinagar with more bunkers that will have to be put up on the roads leading up to such clusters? Do you want suspicion between the Pandits and Muslims to grow new feet? Do you want to further alienate the Pandits?
Do you know that till the early 90's when the migration started, the Pandits and Muslims were bound by tradition, love and warmth? Each time a Pandit girl got married, a Muslim neighbour accompanied her to her new marital home; so close were the ties; so passionate the bond.
Yes, it was shattered in the early 90s when Pandits were targeted and killed and their bodies thrown into open squares, to spread terror. Yes, the mosques were overtaken by gun-wielding militants who screamed slogans from the loudspeakers from within these places of worship. Yes, the Muslim neighbours got carried away by the slogan for azadi and didn't do enough to stop their Pandit sisters and brothers from leaving.
Demonstrators clash with police during a protest in Srinagar against a government proposal to create exclusive settlements for Kashmiri Pandits. AFP Photo
Can I please tell you that the ordinary Kashmiri Muslim bears a huge cross for having allowed their Pandit neighbours to leave. Soon after the exodus, hundreds travelled from Srinagar to the refugee camps in Jammu to personally apologise. The message was always the same: it's a regret they would take to their grave.
Speak to some of the Pandits, and they will tell you that they DO NOT (emphasis deliberate) want to live in 'Israel-type settlements' (to borrow chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's words). Yes, they're worried about returning but their worries are different.
They worry about what jobs they would go back to. There aren't enough employment opportunities even for the Muslim youth. Eighty percent who sold their homes through the 90s and the decade after--as they saw no hope of returning-- are concerned about how they will adjust to a new neighbourhood. They are worried about taking their children--born post-migration--to a society they know little about.
So, Mr Home Minister, rehabilitating the Pandits is not a simple exercise. It's most certainly not about building a cluster and ensconcing them in there. Concentration camps are not what Pandits are looking for when they talk about a life with dignity. You can't possibly expect them to move from a refugee camp to a cluster akin to a concentration camp.
By insisting on moving Pandits into clusters, you are also giving the separatists a new lease of life. Yasin Malik, who has barely been able to gather more than a few hundred people, is now taking out protest marches that are leading to a stand-off with the security personnel. A deteriorating law and order will only bring back memories of violence that the Pandits have been battling for a long time. The larger point the separatists are making is simply this: don't divide the state along religious lines. I agree with their message even though I've often disagreed with their politics.
One last thing: you and your government need to move fast. Twenty five long years have passed since they left home. You need to reintegrate them soon. In a few years, the new generation of Pandits won't know what Kashmiriyat is all about. It's about being tied by love and tradition. You can't afford that. India, as a nation too can't afford that.
Yours faithfully,
Harinder Baweja
(The views expressed are personal.)
September 14, 2014
India: The making of a ghetto (Salil Tripathi)
If Muslims aren’t welcome in parts of urban India, they will live in their own complexes, creating new walled cities Salil Tripathi
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/7mJMg1yIwrWfYuT6B7IukJ/The-making-of-a-ghetto.html
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/7mJMg1yIwrWfYuT6B7IukJ/The-making-of-a-ghetto.html
December 18, 2013
Ghettoisation changing demography of rural Muzaffarnagar post riots | Sandeep Joshi
(Report in The Hindu, MUZAFFARNAGAR, December 18, 2013)
by Sandeep Joshi
With at least six small colonies being built in the rural areas of Muzaffarnagar for settlement of riot-hit Muslims who have permanently left their villages out of fear of the dominant Jat community, ghettoisation, which was till now relevant in big cities, is the new phenomenon in this agrarian belt that is bound to have a deep social and political impact in the years to come.
While 70-odd houses with two rooms each have already been handed over to affected villagers in Khampur village, similar small colonies of 60-70 houses are being built in Muslim-dominated villages like Bassi Kalan, Malukpura, Loi, Dadhedu and Jaula, all within 30 km from the district headquarters. This trend is also being seen in the neighbouring Shamli district .
“Muslims who left their homes during the riots and took refuge in nearby villages, mostly dominated by their community members, have refused to return. Now with relief camps being winded up as compensation-distribution exercise coming to an end, people of these villages have come forward to give them land at minimal charges so that riot-affected people can leave camps and build their new homes,” social activist Shandar Gufran told ‘ The Hindu’ .
It is the residents of villages worst affected by riots who have refused to return fearing yet another backlash from their “influential” Jat neighbours. These villages include Kutba-Kutbi, Tavli, Budhana, Lisad, Phugana, Kakra, Mundvar, Hussainpur and Lakh Bardi. Initially religious organisations came forward and constructed houses for displaced people in Khampur, but later the State government announced Rs.5 lakh grant to built houses to people not willing to return to their villages.
No displaced Muslim wants to leave his home and property and start living in another place, but riot-affected people allege that Jats have threatened them with dire consequences if they returned.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/ghettoisation-changing-demography-of-rural-muzaffarnagar-post-riots/article5472349.ece
by Sandeep Joshi
With at least six small colonies being built in the rural areas of Muzaffarnagar for settlement of riot-hit Muslims who have permanently left their villages out of fear of the dominant Jat community, ghettoisation, which was till now relevant in big cities, is the new phenomenon in this agrarian belt that is bound to have a deep social and political impact in the years to come.
While 70-odd houses with two rooms each have already been handed over to affected villagers in Khampur village, similar small colonies of 60-70 houses are being built in Muslim-dominated villages like Bassi Kalan, Malukpura, Loi, Dadhedu and Jaula, all within 30 km from the district headquarters. This trend is also being seen in the neighbouring Shamli district .
“Muslims who left their homes during the riots and took refuge in nearby villages, mostly dominated by their community members, have refused to return. Now with relief camps being winded up as compensation-distribution exercise coming to an end, people of these villages have come forward to give them land at minimal charges so that riot-affected people can leave camps and build their new homes,” social activist Shandar Gufran told ‘ The Hindu’ .
It is the residents of villages worst affected by riots who have refused to return fearing yet another backlash from their “influential” Jat neighbours. These villages include Kutba-Kutbi, Tavli, Budhana, Lisad, Phugana, Kakra, Mundvar, Hussainpur and Lakh Bardi. Initially religious organisations came forward and constructed houses for displaced people in Khampur, but later the State government announced Rs.5 lakh grant to built houses to people not willing to return to their villages.
No displaced Muslim wants to leave his home and property and start living in another place, but riot-affected people allege that Jats have threatened them with dire consequences if they returned.
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/ghettoisation-changing-demography-of-rural-muzaffarnagar-post-riots/article5472349.ece
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