Resources for all concerned with culture of authoritarianism in society, banalisation of communalism, (also chauvinism, parochialism and identity politics) rise of the far right in India (and with occasional information on other countries of South Asia and beyond)
Lucknow:
On March 4, 2018, a year after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power
on the plank of improving law and order in Uttar Pradesh, chief
minister Adityanath claimed that not a single incident of communal violence had taken place in the state since he took over.
Ten days later, the Union home ministry tabled statistics in parliament which showed that Uttar Pradesh continues to top the list of states in
terms of the number of incidents of communal violence incidents and
related deaths – 44 people were killed and 540 injured in UP in 2017.
This compares poorly with 29 deaths and injuries to 490 people in 2016,
and 22 deaths and 410 injuries the previous year. The incidents of
communal violence in places like Bulandshahr and Saharanpur clearly
showed the involvement
of the Adityanath-led Hindu Yuva Vahini and local BJP activists. Those
involved were reprimanded but strict legal action against the culprits
did not follow.
On January 16, 2018, the Adityanath government issued a press
statement in which it said the UP police had invoked the National
Security Act (NSA) against 160 people in order to control law and order.
This was one of their prized achievements, apart from racking up 1200 police encounters in 10 months. The most prominent of the NSA detentus is of course Bhim Army founder Chandrashekar Azad, who has been lodged in jail since May 2017.
In popular parlance, the NSA is known as a law in which there is ‘no vakil, no appeal, no daleel’
(no lawyer, no appeal, no argument).’ The Act, whose stated purpose is
“to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and for matters
connected therewith,” came into force on September 23, 1980. It empowers the Central and state governments to detain a person
to prevent him/her from acting in any manner prejudicial to the
security of India, the relations of India with foreign countries, the
maintenance of public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services
essential to the community. The maximum period of detention is 12
months. The order can also be made by the district magistrate or a
commissioner of police under their respective jurisdictions, but the
detention must be reported to the state government along with the
grounds on which the order has been made.
Under the Act, a person can be detained for up to 10 days without
being informed about the reasons for the detention. The government is
allowed to withhold the information supporting the detention in ‘public
interest.’ A detained person is not permitted to question his/her
accusers or the evidence in support of their detention. Nor are they
allowed a lawyer in this period. A three-person advisory board made up
of high court judges or persons qualified to be high court judges
determines the legitimacy of any order made for longer than three
months. If approved, a person may be held extra-judicially for up to 12
months. The Wire met the families of 15 people detained under the
NSA in the past one year from four districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh
known as Poorvanchal; all the arrests were made after incidents of
communal clashes. Even when there were allegations of the clear
involvement of Hindu chauvinist groups like Hindu Yuva Vahini, Hindu
Samaj Party and Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha, those put behind bars
were invariably Muslim. All the accused were first granted bail by the
sessions court and as soon as they got bail, re-arrested by the police
under the NSA. Locals believe that just as the 2014 elections were
preceded by a large number of minor communal clashes which polarised
voters, these clashes and selective detentions under the NSA are part of
the Sangh parivar’s preparation for the 2019 general elections. Kanpur: Two clashes, but NSA only for the Muslims
In response to media reports critical of religious celebrations inside UP police stations, Adityanath said on August 19, 2017, “If I cannot stop namaz on the road, I have no right to stop Janmashtami at a police station.”
In fact, when reports of hooliganism by kanwariyas through their loudspeakers, DJ and road shows was pointed out, he said, this was a yatra of Shiv devotee and not a “shav yatra” (funeral
procession). By introducing religious sentiments in the maintenance of
law and order, the chief minister clearly indicated that religious
celebrations are above the rulebook. Thousands of our readers believe that free and independent news can be a public-funded endeavour. SupportThe Wire and join them.
When Muharram last year fell on October 1, bang in the middle of the
period for the Hindu ritual of the immersion of Durga idols,
intelligence units across the country flagged the possibility of
communal tension since both observances involve street processions. West
Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee prohibited the
immersion of Durga idols on October 1 and requested people to do it
between October 2 and October 4. The West Bengal government faced heavy
criticism from the BJP. However, no incidence of violence happened in
the state. In Uttar Pradesh, on the other hand, inspired by the CM’s
call for unabashed public displays of religious sentiment on the
streets, nine districts –
Kanpur, Ballia, Pilibhit, Gonda, Ambedkar Nagar, Sambhal, Allahabad,
Kaushambi and Kushinagar – witnessed communal tension and violence on
October 1 due to the two religious processions.
On October 1, Kanpur witnessed two major religious clashes. One was
at the Rawatpura, where a Ram Baraat – a wedding procession for Lord
Ram – organized by the Ram Lalla committee of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
came in the way of a Tazia procession, a representation of the tombs of
Hassan and Hussain. Local Intelligence Units had earlier alerted
the administration in Lucknow about the possibility of clashes but no
preventive measures were taken. As a result, there was a clash that led
to stone pelting, air shots that left several injured including two
policemen. Several people from the Ram Lalla committee were detained and
later let off.
On the same day, a Moharram procession in Juhi Param Purwa, a ghetto, was stopped
at the intersection of the locality by Hindu Samaj Party members
leading a Durga idol immersion procession. There was firing and stone
pelting here too. Juhi Param Purwa is a small locality, primarily
dominated by Muslim and Dalits. On one side of the intersection live the
Muslims and on the other side live Dalits. In the violence here, a
police vehicle, and the only shop and a house owned by a Muslim on the
Dalit side was torched. The police arrived on the spot and by that
evening 57 people were detained. Most were released, except Hakim Khan,
Farkun Siddiqui and Mohammad Salim, who were slapped with the National
Security Act one month after their arrest – as soon as they were granted
bail by the local court.
In the ten months since the three have been behind bars, Hakim’s
daughter was born, Farkun’s daughter had to leave school because of the
stigma of being a criminal’s daughter and Salim’s children have been
tossed around from one relative’s house to the other
Hakim’s wife, daughter and mother in Kanpur. Credit: Neha Dixit
Hakim Khan, 35, worked with the Sahara group as an insurance agent
and has been part of several peace and communal harmony initiatives in
the area. On October 1, when the Tazia procession was stopped, he had
stepped in to broker peace between the two sides and returned home after
the police arrived on the spot. “He would participate in temple
festivities, food camps on Tuesdays for Lord Hanuman and even mop the
temple stairs,” says Ram Prakash, his neighbour. He was picked up by the
police in the early hours of October 2 from his house. “He was thrashed
with belts and the police also said to him ‘You say Islam zindabad a
lot, isn’t it?’” says Mohammed Kasim, his elder brother.
Farkun’s wife, Sophia, holds up his photograph. Credit: Neha Dixit
After Farkun Siddiqui’s arrest, his 12-year-old daughter faced jibes
at school. Her teacher called her ‘the daughter of a criminal.’ Her
classmates would regularly tell her, ‘Muslims are terrorists.’ Fed up of
the daily reprimands, she stopped going to school mid-way through the
academic year. Last month, she took admission in another school and is
repeating her class. “He worked as a contractor for the municipal
corporation for years. An income tax payer is suddenly a threat to
national security and has been behind bars for 10 months now. Tell me
how to interpret it if it’s not religious discrimination?” asks Sophia,
Farkun’s wife, who says all their savings will soon be exhausted.
In Kanpur, Mansoor tent house set on fire. CreditL Special Arrangement
Mansoor Tent house was the only shop owned by a Muslim on the Dalit
side of the locality. It was owned by Salim, also known as Pappu. His
house was adjacent to the shop. “We have lived there for several years
and there has never been a threat in the past on the basis of our
religion,” says Ruki, his wife. On the day when the violence broke out,
first his shop was set on fire and then his house. “There were lots of
people in the Durga idol procession that I had never seen before. They
were the ones who first started ransacking the shop and then set the
shop and the house ablaze,” she says. Her two young children had
fainted during this three-hour long ordeal before they were rescued by
relatives. Her 12-year old son, Babbu, says, “There were two-three from
the neighbourhood too. Take me to the police, I will identify them all.”
Strangely, Mohammad Salim was arrested by the police despite his house
and shop being set on fire and his family stranded on the streets. Two
days after this incident, the Maa Durga tent house was inaugurated just
next to Salim’s shop with a temple on the pavement right in front. Since
Salim’s arrest, the family has been living at various relative’s houses
with no means of income.
Salim’s wife, Ruki Begum , in Kanpur. Credit: Neha Dixit
Even though the BJP won the last general and assembly elections
comfortably, party representation in civic local bodies across Uttar
Pradesh remains a sore point. In the December 2017 civic polls too, it received only 29% of the votes.
These civic polls were held just two months after Moharram in several
cities including Kanpur in 2017. Hakim was planning to contest the
elections from Juhi ward, the constituency in which Param Purwa is
located. “Had he contested the elections, he would have definitely won”
owing to Hakim’s popularity both among Hindus and Muslims, says Ram
Prakash.
“If this is not an act of prejudice by the police, what is? Why was
no one from the Hindu Samaj Party been arrested? Why was a person who is
equally loved and respected by both communities targeted?” asks
Mohammad Kasim.
The Hindu Samaj Party, an offshoot of the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu
Mahasabha, notorious for fanning communal sentiments, was part of the
Durga idol procession on the fateful day. “By setting Mansoor Tent house
on fire, they sent out a loud message – to root out Muslims and their
means of livelihood. By setting up Maa Durga Tent house next to it two
days later, the message was that economic survival is possible only
through communalism,” says Rajiv Yadav, an activist from Rihai Manch, an
advocacy group. The fact that no one from the Hindu Samaj Party was
arrested for this incident demonstrates the prejudiced nature of the
police proceedings. “The idea is that Hindus have a free hand and will
get away with anything and Muslims will be put behind bars,” says Rajiv.
Shakeel Ahmed Bundela, a lawyer in the Kanpur district court points
out that in the Rawatpura violence, most of the people detained by the
police were from the Ramlalla committee. He says, “Both the incidents
happened on the same day. In fact, in Rawatpura, the police was
grievously injured. How come NSA was not imposed on the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad members in that incident and only on these guys here? This
disparity needs serious investigation.” Just Rs 7 per day from readers like you will keep The Wire going. Click here for more details.
Tazia politics is not new in Kanpur. Every year, there are tensions
and protests across the city. The difference between now and then is
that this time it has been used not just to foster divisions between
Hindu and Muslim but also to divide locals on Dalit vs Muslim lines to
win an election. Not surprisingly, BJP candidate Rakesh Kumar Paswan
from the Pasi caste of the Dalit community won from the Juhi ward two
months later in December, 2017 owing to the Dalit Muslim divide created
by the October 1 incident.
Ram Bahadur, a local priest in a temple in Param Purwa says, “There is a saying in Kanpur, ‘Ama, mathadhishi band karo
(Please stop being a religious head)’ The mathadhish causes trouble,
divides people for political gains. I guess, we really need to repeat it
every passing day now.”
Before taking his oath as chief minister, Yogi Adityanath was a mathadhish – head of the Gorakhnath Math in Gorakhpur. Bahraich: Pitting Dalits against the Muslims
“Have you heard of Zarina Begum? She was the last royal court singer
of Awadh,” says Basheer Ahmed, a local resident in his 70s. “She was
Begum Akhtar’s disciple and known for the baithak style thumris.
She died just two months back in Lucknow in extreme penury. She was the
pride of Nanpara, Bahraich,” he declares as he starts playing a clip on
his smart phone. An old woman with a harmonium sings, “Nazar laagi raja tore bangle pe… (I am looking towards your palace, o king…),” she sings longingly. “An eye has been cast on Nanpara too,” he says. “But it is an evil one”.
Bahraich is among the 250 most backward districts of India with low
socio-economic and basic amenities indicators and Nanpara is a small
town in the district. It is located just 16 km from the Indo-Nepal
border, surrounded by dense forests. Due to its proximity to the border,
it has strategic economic importance in the area.
In August 2015, a year after the Modi-led BJP government came into
power at the Centre, the religion-wise 2011 census data was released.
The data was used for propaganda by Hindutva groups to spread the myth
that the Hindu population is on a decline and that Muslims were adding
to their population as a form of Islamist jihad. Groups like the RSS,
VHP and Bajrang Dal started campaigns like ‘Ghar Wapsi’, a program to
convert non-Hindus and bring them back to the Hindu fold. Yogi
Adityanath had also claimed that ‘ghar wapsi’ will continue till conversion to all religions is banned. There were reports that claimed Nanpara
has seen an astronomical rise in the number of Muslims, comprising of
70% of the total town population. Since then, Sangh activists refer to
Nanpara as the ‘jihad by population project’, as Bahraich zone Bajrang
Dal president Manish Gupta, told this reporter.
Pilgrims getting reading for the journey to the mazhar of Ghazi Miyan in Bahraich. Credit: Vipin Patel/YouTube
Bahraich also has a large Dalit population and the Lok Sabha
constituency is a reserved seat for SC candidates. In the run up to the
2017 UP assembly elections, the BJP and RSS had also started making
concerted efforts to start representing Dalit icons as Hindu figures in
order to polarise votes on communal lines. One of the booklets
distributed by the Sangh contained a story
titled “The Badshah and the Raja,” about an 11th century battle near
what is now Bahraich. The battle pitted a Muslim king, Ghazi Saiyyad
Salar Masud, against Suheldev, a chieftain who many believe was a Pasi.
Currently, the Pasis form the second-largest Scheduled Caste group in
Uttar Pradesh, after Jatavs. According to the booklet, Masud invaded
India early in the second millennium, and waged an aggressive campaign
till he encountered Suheldev. Ahead of the battle, Masud decided to
place a herd of cows at the head of his army, aiming to disrupt any
attack by his Hindu opponent, who considered the animals sacred. But,
the legend goes, Suheldev and his army freed the cows under the cover of
night, and saved them. The booklet states that Suheldev then went on to
kill Masud – a claim that some historians have challenged. Harbans
Mukhia told The Wire, “There is written evidence that he finally couldn’t stop Masud’s army from advancing further into UP.”
The booklet praised Suheldev and called on readers to protest against
the Urs, or death anniversary celebration, of Masud, held every May at
his dargah in Bahraich. These efforts were aimed at creating divisions
between Dalits and Muslims. In the 2017 UP assembly elections, the BJP
won six out of the seven assembly seats from here. Savitri Bai Phule, a 33-year-old Dalit BJP candidate who identifies herself as a ‘sadhvi’ (monk) is the elected MP.
“What do you think? When so many concerted efforts are made by the
Sangh, there will be no impact on the people in Nanpara who are already
struggling with unemployment and hunger?” asks Basheer.
On the morning of December 2, 2017, close to 300 people took out a
Barawafat procession in Gurgutta village of Nanpara. Barwafat is
celebrated by Muslims as the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammed.
Culturally, Uttar Pradesh has had a history of Muslims and Hindus both
participating in these processions. Since the Yogi government came into
power, the festival has been removed from the list of government
holidays in the state.
Aqeela with her daughters in Bahraich. Credit: Neha Dixit
“It was 10-11 in the morning and it is true that the procession did
deviate from the designated route. As soon as it reached the village
intersection, there was stone pelting by members of the Hindu Samaj
Party and Bajrang Dal from the other side. There were a couple of rounds
fired in the air that led to commotion.” Bystanders say that there was
religious sloganeering from both sides. A couple of roadside kiosks were
damaged. The police arrived along with the Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) and
the situation was brought under control. Between that day and the next,
altogether 38 people were held from all over the village. “In the name
of controlling the tensions, the SSB took away our poultry and goats.
Some even asked us to cook them for the SSB to eat,” says Kanhaiya, a
local resident. Finally, nine people were arrested and charged under the
Prevention of Atrocities against SC/ST Act. Eventually, the nine were
granted bail but soon after, five of them were slapped with the National
Security Act. All of them were Muslims.
Munna, a brick kiln worker, Aslam, a bangle seller, Masood Raza, a
madrassa teacher, Noor Hasan, a rickshaw puller and Arshad, a student
have been in jail for the past nine months under the NSA.
There were six potatoes boiling in turmeric and salt water on a mud
stove outside the small room with a broken, thatched grass roof on the
day I visited Aquila Bano and her seven daughters. This was to be their
dinner. Her husband, Noor Hasan, in his early 40s, worked as a rickshaw
puller in Delhi. He earned Rs 200-300 per day and came home every three
months. He was one of those who was picked up by the police on December
2. “He was on his way back from a doctor’s clinic. He had taken our
sick child for treatment. But he had to return because the clinic was
shut due to the Barawafat tension,” says Aquila. Since his arrest, with
no other financial support, Aquila, in her mid-30s and illiterate, has
been working as a farm labourer, earning Rs 120 per day. Till date,
different lawyers have relieved her of Rs 35,000 on the pretext of
helping her to get Noor Hasan released. “This is money I have taken on
loan from several places. I don’t know how I will repay it,” she says.
With no money to travel, the family has not met Noor Hasan – who is
lodged in Bahraich jail – for months.
Sammo with her family in Bahraich.Inset: Her husband’s bangle shop. Credit: Neha Dixit
It had only been an hour since Aslam had opened his bangle shop on
the day of the procession when tensions escalated. Looking at how the
adjacent kiosks were being destroyed by a frenzied mob, he stayed at the
shop to protect it. “He had just bought a new stock of bangles,” says
Sammo, his 30-year-old wife. “The police picked him up from the shop
itself,” she says. Aslam, 35, had rented the shop and would make up to
Rs 4,000 a month. Sammo works as a farm labourer too to feed her six
children. “Seven small size burnt rotis is all he gets in the prison. He
has not had a stomach full of food in these nine months,” she says. She
too has paid Rs 40,000 to a lawyer for Aslam’s release with no real
updates on the review of the NSA charges against him.
“All the rich people got away. And the poor were detained under NSA.
The police has just been collecting bribes. Testing and stretching till
the point people keep paying. Then, they release those who pay the
most,” says Ram Niwas, a local tea stall owner.
Saifuneesa with her daughter. Credit: Neha Dixit
Similarly, Maqsood Raza, 32, also earned Rs 4,000 as a madrassa
teacher and was picked up by the police. His two-year-old daughter has
been ailing for the past few months and the family has no money for
treatment. “I have run from office to office. I will have to go to my
parents’ house since there is no money to survive,” says Saifuneesa, his
wife.
Mohammad Munna, also the same age as Maqsood, worked at a brick kiln
in Nepal. His job was to take mud bricks to the kiln for cooking and
that earned him Rs 5,000 per month. “His sons have stopped their
education and started working as daily wagers to feed the family,” says
Abdul Khalid, his younger brother.
Eighteen-year-old Mohd Arshad was a student at a madrassa in
Kozhikode in Kerala and had come to visit his parents after six months
just a day before the incident. “He was part of the procession and came
home as soon as the procession got violent. “The fact that he was
getting educated was seen as a threat by those who are trying to
polarise people,” says Shama, his mother. She says that Arshad has
become depressive in prison. “He says, if I stay here more, I will go
mad or I will kill myself,” she says.
“Last year, someone tied a pig at the local mosque during Ramzan. We
acted wisely and did not aggravate tensions. We kept quiet and
complained to the police. We don’t want a riot here. But they are hell
bent,” says Maulana Akbar. The village locals are of the view that these
clashes are being manufactured for larger electoral gains. His
neighbor Ram Kishen says, “In our village, Muslims participated in
Dussehra, Ramlila, Durga Pooja and Holi and Hindus were part of
Barawafat and kept taziyas in Muharram. Since the Sanghi propaganda
about growing Muslim population started, they have been trying break our
unity, the Dalit-Muslim unity.”
There is a saying in Bahraich that the root of curry masala is onion.
“Sangh is the onion that needs uprooting here to get rid of the
communal masala and restore the peace and sanity of our village,” says
Basheer Ahmed.
§
Barabanki: Turning a tradition of syncretism into an object of division
Every Holi, Dewa Sharif, the white shrine of Sufi Saint Haji Waris Ali
Shah in Barabanki district turns red, yellow, red, pink, purple and all
the colours that could be imagined. Waris Ali Shah was a 19th century
saint and the founder of the Warsi sect of Sufism. He believed that all
religions are based on love and affection. His followers were Hindus,
Muslims, Christians and Sikhs and were allowed to stay in their own
religion. To mark this tolerance, he started the tradition of
celebrating Holi at the shrine every year, which has continued for over a
century.
On April 27, 2017, just a month after Yogi Adityanath led BJP
government came into power, UP cabinet minister Rajendra Pratap Singh claimed that the previous Samajwadi Party-led government
provided electricity to the ‘Muslim’ shrine Dewa Sharif but not to the
Hindu Lodheshwar Mahadev temple in the same district. Both places of
worships were given a communal identity despite their secular
traditions.
Lodheshwar temple calls. Credit: Neha Dixit
Lodheshwar Mahadev temple is an hour away from Dewa Sharif on the
banks of Ghagra river in Mahadeva village of Ramnagar tehsil, Barabanki.
It is believed that the Pandavas from the Mahabharata performed a yagya
for Lord Shiva here. A well by the name of Pandav Kup exists and the
water is considered holy. The temple is also known for its syncretic
culture. For centuries, shops outside the temple premises selling
offerings, material required for rituals, crafts, crockery, utensils,
toys have been owned and run by both Hindus and Muslims. In fact, the
two annual fairs held at this temple, one on the occasion of Shivratri
in the month of March-April and the other a cattle fair in the month of
October-November, are a major contributor to the village’s economy. Both
Hindus and Muslims participate with equal enthusiasm. In the past, the
presiding priests of the temple have been instrumental in ensuring
communal harmony.
Barabanki’s ‘Chhota Yogi”: Adityanath Tiwari
The temple management has a curious method of designating the chief
priest. Every four years, the contract for the presiding rights over
Lodheshwar is handed over by the temple trust to the top bidder. It is
widely believed that this is the method adopted by most temple
managements in North India. Last year, Mahant Adityanath Tiwari, who in
his late 30s and fashions himself after Yogi Adityanath, was handed over
the contract for Rs five lakhs. Since then, he has been constructing a
temple complex dedicated to several Hindu deities on the lines of the
Gorakhnath math presided over by Yogi Adityanath. He has also started a
construction material enterprise called ‘Shiva traders’ just next to the
under-construction temple complex. Good journalism costs money. We’ve made it easier for you to fund The Wire. Now, you can support us by giving as little as Rs 200 every month.
On November 26, 2017, while campaigning for local body elections,
chief minister Adityanath also promoted sectarian division by using
electricity distribution to Dewa Sharif as a poll issue. Dewa, he said,
‘got electricity 24×7, Mahadeva got none. We will change this.’ Mahant
Adityanath Tiwari was also a contestant in the same elections for the
post of the village pradhan. As part of his election campaign, he
started a drive to get rid of the loudspeakers from a mosque which has
stood next to the temple for 200 years. Inspite of stirring divisive
sentiments, the duo did not reap benefits and ‘Chota Yogi’ lost the
elections to Jaan Mohammed, a Muslim candidate, by 122 votes.
Four months later, on March 14, 2018, at noon, an idol procession led
by Shiv Bhagwan Shukla, a member of Hindu Yuva Vahini – the youth
militia founded by Adityanath – entered Mahadeva village from the
neighbouring Surajpur village with at least a hundred participants on
tractors and bikes. They were taking the idol of Laddoo Gopal to the
Lodheshwar temple for blessings. According to eyewitnesses, young
intoxicated men indulged in loud sloganeering and created a ruckus. On a
jammed road, some men on a tractor used sexually explicit language and
threw gulaal – the coloured powder used as part of Holi
celebrarions – on a 13-year-old school girl riding pillion with her
brother, Shah Fahad. When Shah Fahad objected to the sexual harassment,
more people came in support. The heated conversation soon turned
violent.
Meanwhile, a false rumour was spread that the Laddoo Gopal idol was
tossed around by Muslims and thrown away. This escalated tensions in the
neighbouring areas. Within minutes, the incident was given a communal
colour and the local police arrived.
The same evening, police from Ramnagar police station registered an
FIR on the basis of a complaint by Shiv Bhagwan Shukla claiming that a
Muslim mob with roughly 40 people attacked the idol procession and
started robbing ‘Hindu’ girls and women of their jewellery and injured
12 people. The police did not mention the sexual harassment of Shah
Fahad’s sister that triggered the incident. An FIR was filed against 12
Muslims under serious charges and against 40-45 unknown people. All the
witnesses in the police’s complaint are members of the local Hindu Yuva
Vahini unit. The next morning, 12 people were arrested and sent off to
Barabanki jail. No FIR was filed and no arrests were made against any of
the outsiders who was part of the idol procession. Five days later, all
12 were granted bail. As soon as the 12 reached court, four of them,
Rizwan, Zubair, Ateek and Mumtaz were told that they would be detained
under the National Security Act.
Rizwan’s parents, Barabanki. Credit: Nexa Dixit
Rizwan, 25 and Mumtaz, 35, worked as ‘bisati walas.’ This is a common
term used for street hawkers who sell imitation jewellery, toys,
clothes and housekeeping items in villages. Both ran their own shops
outside the Lodheshwar temple. At the time of the arrest, Rizwan’s
father, who ran a cycle repair shop, suffered a paralytic stroke. His
other brother, Taj, who was incapacitated because of polio in his
childhood is now running the shop. “There is no means of livelihood. The
entire family was dependent on him,” says Shakeela, his mother. The
Ramnagar police station’s report to to the police superintendent
describes Rizwan as ‘Yeh nihayat dabang, hinsak evam uttejak pravrati ka vyakti hai’ (He is extremely dominant, violent and aggressive) as an explanation for why he should be detained under the NSA.
Mumtaz’s family has no money to repair the thatched roof of their
home. Aleema, his wife says, “I have been giving wheat flour in boiled
water to my one-year old daughter as a substitute for milk. There is no
money to eat or buy milk. We can’t even afford to meet him in jail.” Her
other five daughters, all between the age group of five to 12, work in
neighbouring houses for food.
Barabanki Mumtaz’s family. Credit: Neha Dixit
Zubair, 40, and Ateek, 25, worked at local tent houses. Salma,
Zubair’s wife has moved to her parents’ house for lack of two square
meals. Habib Ahmed, his father says, “They have now imposed restrictions
on meeting him in jail. I was recently told that not more than two
meetings in a month are allowed.”
Ateek, is the uncle of the girl who was harassed that day. His
father, Basheer, says, “Even the police has denied Chota Yogi’s theory
that the idol was touched or tossed around by Muslims. The problem is
that this mahant is not from our area. He came from Hardoi and settled
here a few months back and brought communal poison coupled with his own
political ambition. Since then, he has been disrespecting our secular
unity, our Ganga Jamuni culture. And that’s what the Hindu Yuva Vahini
units are doing in east UP.” ‘Ganga Jamuni’ is a term used for the
culture in the plains of North India which is a fusion of Hindu and
Muslim elements. “I want to ask these people, have they forgotten how a
Muslim tailor has been serving Ramlalla in Ayodhya for years? Have we
not served the Mahadeva by taking care of the thousands of kanwars that
come to Pandav kup for centuries?” adds Basheer.
Chota Yogi has now started a campaign to oust all Muslim shop owners
from outside the temple complex. “They are giving Rizwan and Mumtaz’s
example of how Muslims are a threat to national security. This is also a
way to economically weaken working class Muslims in the area,” says
Shakeela, Rizwan’s mother.
There are also growing voices among the Hindu Yuva Vahini and Hindu
Samaj Party units backed by Chota Yogi to get rid of the 200-year-old
Jama Masjid made by Raja Jehagirabad that stands next to the temple.
“The argument is that the temple has existed since the time of
Mahabharat and the mosque is just 200 years old made with an intention
to overshadow the temple,” adds Shakeela.
Locals believe that electoral politics is disturbing the fabric of
the village. Shakeela says, “First, they tried to divide people in the
civic polls. That didn’t work and Chota Yogi lost. They arrested
Muslims. Now in the run up to the 2019 elections, they want to get rid
of the mosque. Can’t the police see that? Or is that too much to
expect?”
§
Azamgarh – When technology and social media meet communal politics
‘Jahan aadmi, wahan Azmi’ (Wherever there is a human being,
there is an Azmi). This is a common saying in north India throwing light
on the large-scale migration from Azamgarh that started almost a
hundred years back and is still prevalent.
Sarai Mir, a small town in Azamgarh district on the Azamgarh-Lucknow
highway, is known for three things – Abu Salem, a convicted gangster,
Abu Azmi, a Samajwadi Party politician and laung lata, a sweet dipped in
sugar syrup.
In popular culture, it is called Chhota Dubai since a large number of
households have at least one member in the Gulf for work. It is said
that the people of Sarai Mir have been migrating for work since World
War II. Many went to Myanmar in the 1930s as traders and labourers and
came back with better financial status. The average quality of life here
is better compared to other parts of Azamgarh but it still does not
have quality higher education colleges, industrial units or other
employment opportunities to stop the migration.
According to the 2011 census data, Muslims constitute 52% of Sarai
Mir’s population. The people of the town are wary of both the media and
politicians. “It has been 10 years since the Batla House police
encounter in Delhi on September 19, 2008 but the media and the
politicians still keep labelling this place as a terror factory,” says
Shah Alam, a local resident. The two students, Atif Ameen and Mohammed
Sajid were shot dead in the encounter and Zeeshan, the one arrested by
the police in the Batla House incident, are all from this area. The
Batla House encounter was debated, heavily contested by human rights
activists and lawyers. The authenticity of the incident is mired with
complicated questions till date. In fact, in 2016, the police claimed
that Mohammed Sajid did not die in the encounter but fled and later
joined ISIS. This is also heavily debated since the police could not
provide any proof. In the last one-year, the UP police and
Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has made several arrests of Muslim youths
from Azamgarh, Kanpur and other parts of UP as part of their official
‘deradicalisation project. Since then, Azamgarh and Sarai Mir have dealt
with the stigma associated with them.
Within a month of the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government coming to power in Uttar Pradesh in February, 2017, five people were arrested
from various parts of the state for making derogatory remarks on social
media about the chief minister. A year after that, on April 24, 2017,
Amit Sahu, a 20-year-old man from Sarai Mir, allegedly wrote a
derogatory Facebook post about Prophet Mohammed and Islam. Amit is a
member of the Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha. He was also part of the
Bajrang Dal earlier.
The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha has been especially active in
Uttar Pradesh since 2014. It also operates with different names in
several areas, including Hindu Samaj Party. Its president, Kamlesh
Tiwari had made objectionable comments
about Prophet Mohammed on December 2, 2015. He was arrested and charged
under the National Security Act after protests from across the country
in February, 2016. He was set free by the Allahabad High Court six
months later. Since then, he has been arrested several times and
released – for inflammatory remarks and for inciting kar seva at the disputed Ram mandir in Ayodhya.
On April 27, after protests from locals, a complaint was filed at the
Sarai Mir police station against Sahu. The police filed the FIR under
section 295A and 66A of the IT Act and sent him to jail. (Curiously, 66A
of the IT Act was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court
in 2015 itself)
Dissatisfied with the police proceedings, the next day, on April 28,
close to 300 protestors gathered outside the police station to demand
imposition of the National Security Act on Sahu. The members of Hindu
Samaj Party also arrived on the spot and started sloganeering against
the protestors. Circle officer Ravi Shankar Prasad, SDM Vagish Kumar
Shukla and the police asked the protestors to back off. As a result,
there was stone pelting. The police charged with batons and fired tear
gas to disperse the crowd. A police vehicle was also destroyed in the
violence. The police accused 34 people of the violence and arrested 18.
None of them were from the Hindu Samaj Party. On May 8, when those
arrested were granted bail by the sessions court, three of them were
slapped with National Security Act. They were Asif, Raquib and Sharib. Support journalism that is unafraid to ask the right questions. Just Rs 7 per day from readers like you will keep The Wire going.
All young boys and men near Raquib’s house have funky hairstyles.
Fohawk, pompadour, floppy quaff with streaks of brown, burgundy and what
not. Of course, they don’t know the names of their hairstyle but they
know how they want their hair now because of Raquib. His father passed
away 15 years back. He along with his other five brothers was raised by
his mother, Salma Bano, who did odd jobs to make a living. In the last
few years, Raquib emerged as a competent barber and hairstylist locally.
First, he opened his salon in a small rented shop and within two years
saved enough money to buy a wooden kiosk to shift his salon there. “He
was self-taught. While watching films, all he would notice was the
hairstyles of various actors and then practice it on neighbours,
cousins, nephews – whoever he could get hold off,” says Danish, his
nephew.
On the day of the incident, he was still at the shop. “When violence
broke out, he shut the kiosk and came home for lunch thinking that in a
few hours things would calm down,” says Salma Bano. He was picked up
from his home by the police. She has now been running from police
station to lawyers and had spent close to two lakh rupees by mortgaging
her only patch of land. “We don’t know how to get by any longer. We have
even sent his wife back to her parents’ house since there is no way to
ensure two square meals here,” she says.
Iftekhar Asif’s father, Azamgarh.
Asif, a 23-year-old tailor had worked in Malaysia earlier and for the
past two years had set up shop in Sarai Mir. Magazine and newspaper
cuttings of clothes designs neatly adorned his shop for women to choose
their style. April was the busiest month, just before Eid. He had
received numerous orders to stitch clothes for women for Eid. At about
6.30 in the evening on April 28, the police not only arrested him but
also seized all the clothes, stitched and unstitched from his shop.
“They have not been returned till date,” says Iftekar Ahmed, his father.
After a pause, he says, “The police did not even return his new mobile
phone, the one he saved money for over years and bought for Rs 12,000.”
At the time of the arrest, Asif’s son was only three months old.
“What I don’t understand is that if he was one of the people throwing
stones, why was he still sitting in his shop threading needles and
cutting cloth at the time of the arrest? He was an easy target for the
police. They did not arrest the Hindu Samaj members who are on the run.
Only they can explain if they were biased or under political pressure,”
he says.
Azamgarh: Anjum, Hasan Sharib’s mother.
Sharib, a 24-year-old farmer, got married just 20 days before his
arrest. “By selectively arresting these young boys under the NSA who are
just starting off their lives, the police and administration is trying
to convey that young Muslims will always remain second class citizens.
How come Amit Sahu is out on bail and these boys are no?” says Shahid,
Sharib’s father. He says that Hindu Samaj Party members have been
spreading rumours that Sarai Mir Muslims are emulating ‘Kashmiri stone
pelters who support terrorists.’
Many believe that the violence – and the free hand to the Hindu Samaj
Party – has a connection with the upcoming 2019 elections. “The idea is
that if you instigate a riot in Azamgarh, there will be trouble in the
entire Poorvanchal belt. And Sarai Mir, with a notorious reputation
created by the media, is an easy starting point,” says Tarique Alam, a
local activist. National security for whom?
When the National Security Act was introduced in 1980 by Indira
Gandhi, she assured legislators that the law would only be used against
black marketeers and smugglers. However, the first few arrests
made were that of trade unionists. People were detained not for their
actions but for criticising the government, for participating in public
meetings, for giving a call for non-cooperation with the government, for
demanding the payment of arrears, as in the case of the Dalli-Rajahara
incident, for appealing against a five days’ salary cut by the
government in Assam.
Ravi Nair of the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Centre, which
has done extensive research on the NSA, says, “Preventive detention is
bad in law. India is one of the few countries that uses laws like this.
It is mostly used by dictatorships. Even quasi-democratic countries
review preventive detention laws in parliament every few years. India
doesn’t do that.”
An SAHRDC internal review of habeas corpus petitions showed
that the police often rely on the NSA when they are unwilling or unable
to make an appropriate criminal case under the strictures of
constitutional and statutory law. It found that there is a regular
pattern of using preventive detention, for instance, to address the
current activities of repeated offenders and organised crime; to bypass a
trial when witnesses were unwilling to testify; and to prevent release
on bail. Essentially, the police appear to regularly use preventive
detention in more difficult criminal law cases when inefficiency or
ineptitude might make its task difficult.
Says Nair, “Most catch-all laws like the NSA do not follow any due
process. The only clause that has not been ratified till date since the
introduction of the law is that the advisory board review NSA cases
should have judicial officers. Right now, the advisory boards only have
revenue officers who have no training in the judiciary or the law.”
In the normal course of criminal law, a person accused of a crime is
guaranteed the right to legal counsel, the right to be informed of
charges as soon as possible, to appear before a magistrate within 24
hours, to cross-examine any witnesses and question any evidence
presented and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt in a court of law. The NSA, however, does not apply any
of these rights to preventive detention cases. It permits the
extra-judicial detention of individuals if the government is
subjectively “satisfied” that an individual is a threat to foreign
relations, national security, India’s defence, state security, public
order, or the maintenance of essential supplies and services. This is
convenient for the government and police because it allows them to
escape the strictures of the Criminal Procedure Code and the courts of
the land.
Since the NSA does not allow lawyers for the accused, adequate
representation of their cases becomes a major hurdle. Shakeel Ahmed
says, “What happens to those accused who are illiterate? How are they
going to present their case with the required technical and legal
evidence before the advisory board?”
The record shows that advisory boards are reluctant to act against
the state and set aside orders of detention, primarily on the ground
that it is the executive that is best positioned to assess threats to
public order. Evidently, the advisory board has not released anyone in
UP till date of its own volition.
Nair says that according to his research, most people arrested under
NSA are poor. “There have been several NSA cases in Bihar, Telangana and
Orissa where NSA has been used mostly against tribals or the
vulnerable. These are people who have no access to the advisory
committees because of lack of resources. And state legal aid such as
those in Uttar Pradesh are nonexistent.”
Rajiv Yadav of the Rihai Mqnch is of the opinion that the recent NSA
detentions in Uttar Pradesh and the opaque criteria for release is
partisan in nature. “How come BJP members Sangeet Som and suresh Rana,
accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, were released within a few months of their detention under NSA? And how come working class Muslims who have had no criminal past are still under detention?”
Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaisingh is of the opinion that misuse is
built into the structure of the National Security Act. She says, “Under
this Act, there is incarceration without informing the accused despite
no criminal case against them. It is a clear violation of the right to
life and liberty. This kind of law is prone to be used as a political
tool and not as a law.”
The misuse of the law and the dereliction of responsibility by the
police in the eastern UP cases reported above is evident from the fact
that the police has relied on FIRs filed by complainants from the Hindu
Samaj Party, Hindu Yuva Vahini and locals. As a rule, the police must
file a separate FIR detailing its own account but that has been given a
miss in all the four incidents above. Yadav says this has been done so
that that the “Hindu nationalists are protected.” Police response
Praveen Kumar, DIG (law and order), UP police, denies the charge. He
says, “We do not discriminate between Hindus and Muslims. All the
arrests are individual in nature against people who are disturbing the
peace and harmony of the area.”
Responding to the unprecedented increase in the number of NSA cases
in one year in UP, he says, “Actually, if you look at the last 10 years,
the number is not so high. It has only increased by 10 to 15%. The
crime rate in UP is very high, which is why in cases of communal
clashes, disturbances or in cases of fake currency, we have empowered
the district magistrates to impose NSA.”
Since the National Crime Records Bureau does not publish data on NSA
detentions, it is impossible to use official data for an actual
year-on-year calculation.
Asked why only Muslim working-class people have been detained despite
the involvement of the Hindu Yuva Vahini and Hindu Samaj Party, he
said, “I do not have details of specific districts and incidents but we
are not acting against specific castes or communities.”
Supreme Court lawyer, Rebecca John says, “Preventive detention has
now become ‘political and social detention’ and it has institutionalised
the arbitrary use of state power to detain without trial those citizens
who are seen as ‘inconvenient’ to the political establishment.”
In the 15 cases above, all of them were slapped with NSA as soon as
they got bail from the sessions court. The same pattern in evident in
Chandrashekar’s case and also in the Kasganj case
where three brothers were arrested. Yadav argues, “It is important to
note that the court is granting them bail on the same charges as the
ones the police is using against them to slap NSA. The court is
granting bail so that the accused can take their fight to the judiciary
and get a free trial but the police is taking that constitutional right
away by slapping NSA with no justification.”
Retired IPS officer S.R. Darapuri is of the view that the National
Security Act cases are part of Hindutva project to victimize Muslims and
Dalits in Uttar Pradesh. He says, “Chief minister Yogi has turned Uttar
Pradesh into a police state. This is because he lacks administrative
experience. The claim of Yogi Adityanath’s government to control crime
has been proven wrong. For the first time in Indian history, this law is
being misused so much. This is part of the BJP policy to rule through
terror. They are using the police as their power arm to overawe the
Dalits and minorities. If there are clashes like those in Bahraich,
Barabanki, Azamgarh and Kanpur, the police proceedings should be against
both parties but that hasn’t happened deliberately.”
Kranti L.C., executive director of the Human Rights Law Network,
argues that many of such cases should be able to come to the judiciary.
“It is clear that there is a slant to the investigation because all the
arrests are from the marginalized communities. This has to be looked at
constitutionally. The court should be able to see these slants.”
Activists argue that Yogi government is trying to prove that a large
number of Muslims are a threat to National Security. “This is a Manuwadi
trend. The RSS and Hindu Nationalist parties do not think of Muslims
and Dalits as part of the Hindu rashtra project. Before the 2019
elections, the NSA is being imposed selectively to show them as a threat
to national security and consolidate vote banks locally on communal
lines,” says Rajiv Yadav. This article is part of a fellowship from the Commonwealth Human
Rights Initiative (CHRI) to undertake field-based investigative research
on issues relating to the marginalised communities in India Neha Dixit is an independent journalist based out of New Delhi. She covers politics, gender and social justice in South Asia.
On August 22, the Supreme Court of India struck a significant blow for women’s rights. The court scrapped
the practice of instant triple talaq, which gave Muslim men arbitrary
powers to end a marriage. The move bought India in line with much of the
rest of the world, where most Muslim legal systems have already barred the practice.
It is therefore a curious irony that the same court had also struck a blow against women’s rights just a week before the triple talaq judgement. On August 16, the Supreme Court ordered
the National Investigation Agency to inquire into the religious
conversion and marriage of Hadiya, a 24-year old woman from Kerala. In
this, it backed an earlier judgement of the Kerala High Court. While
Hadiya has converted to Islam and then married of her own choice in
2016, both courts seemed to disregard her own thoughts on the matter,
preferring instead to let her father decide for her.
Some media
reports have presented this as a case of “love jihad”, the conspiracy
theory that Muslim men woo Hindu women with the express purpose of
pressuring them to convert them to Islam. This is a misrepresentation.
Hadiya had converted to Islam long before her marriage. The main issue
here is: does India believe an adult woman has a mind of her own?
From Akhila to Hadiya
Hadiya
– Akhila before her conversion – is from Kottayam in Kerala. She left
home in 2011 to study for a bachelor’s degree in homeopathy in Salem,
Tamil Nadu. Here she made Muslim friends and started to follow Islam.
Matters
soon reached a head. Akhila complained that her family forced her to
perform rituals relating to her grandfather’s death in November, 2015.
In January, 2016, Hadiya left her home and moved to Satya Sarani, a
Muslim educational non-governmental organisation, in the Malappuram
district of Kerala.
Akhila’s father, Ashokan, filed a writ of
habeas corpus with the Kerala High Court, asking it to locate his
daughter. On January 19, Hadiya presented herself to the court. As a
consequence, on January 25, the Kerala High Court dismissed Ashokan’s
petition, noting that Hadiya was not under illegal detention and was
staying in Satya Sarani of her own free will.
Forced confinement
Given
that it had been established that Hadiya had converted of her own free
will, the matter should have ended here. But in August, 2016, Ashokan
filed another writ of habeas corpus in the Kerala High Court, alleging
that Hadiya was likely to be taken to Syria to fight for the Islamic
State. This allegation of a link with the Islamic State was backed up
with little proof. Moreover, Hadiya argued in court that since she did
not possess a passport, leaving the country was impossible. Yet,
curiously, Ashokan’s writ was not dismissed.
It is here that
things start to get extremely convoluted as the Kerala High Court
started to restrict Hadiya’s liberty. On August 17, the court ordered
the Kerala Police to put her under surveillance. On August 22, the
court tried to convince the young woman to accompany her parents to
their home. When she refused, the Kerala High Court did something
astonishing: it ordered her to be taken out of Satya Sarani and put into
a hostel for women. A month later, on September 27, Hadiya complained
in writing that for no fault of hers, she was “in the custody of the
court without being permitted to interact with anyone else”.
In
itself, this forced confinement is the most egregious misstep in this
astonishing case. Without taking recourse to law or precedent, the court
had proceeded to take away the liberty of an adult citizen of India.
Three months later, Hadiya complained of “living a life of isolation in
the hostel where she is accommodated as per the orders of this Court”.
She pleaded with the court to be “set at liberty”, a plea that the court
refused since “she has proved to be unworthy of such trust by her
conduct”.
Infantalisation
The
court now completely took over Hadiya’s life. On December 19, 2016, it
ordered her to complete a course as a house surgeon while living in a
girl’s hostel in Tamil Nadu. Her own wishes were disregarded and the
court says this move is in the “best interests of Akhila”.
On
December 19, however, there is another twist to the case: Hadiya married
Shafin Jahan, whom she met through a matrimonial website. The fact that
this marriage was conducted without informing the court enraged the
judges, who described this action as a “subterfuge”. Remarkably, the
court decided not to ask Hadiya what she wanted. On December 21, 2016,
her lawyers pleaded with the court to simply ask Hadiya about the nature
of her marriage and whether she was coerced into it. The court refused,
simply stating, “We shall interact with the detenue, at the appropriate
time. We are not satisfied that it is necessary to interact with her at
present.”
Faced with the marriage and, as the court put it, the
“continued obstinance of the detenue to return to her parents”, the
bench decided to take matters into its own hands. On December 21, 2016,
the court ordered Hadiya to be confined to a girl’s hostel in Ernakulam,
Kerala. She was barred from meeting anybody other than her mother and
father and even her mobile phone was taken away from her. Hadiya married Shafin Jahan on December 19, 2016. Photo credit: Special arrangement
Taking liberties
How
did the court justify taking away the liberty of an adult woman given
that no crime had been committed? “It is necessary to bear in mind the
fact that the detenue who is a female in her twenties is at a vulnerable
age,” argued the court. “As per Indian tradition, the custody of an
unmarried daughter is with the parents, until she is properly married.”
The
final verdict of the Kerala High Court was declared on May 25, 2017.
Hadiya’s marriage to Jahan was scrapped by the court, citing undue
influence of Muslim organisations. She was directed to go her parent’s
home under police custody – where she is today.
In response, Jahan
filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. Rather than fix the errors of the
High Court, the Supreme Court also continued to treat Hadiya as a
non-entity. Drawing an analogy with the Blue Whale Challenge – a game rumoured to push depressed children to suicide – the court argued,
“Nowadays you can persuade people to do anything.” Like the High Court,
the Supreme Court simply refused to ask the individual in question,
Hadiya, for what she wanted, but instead ordered a National
Investigation Agency – an organisation formed to combat terror – to
inquire into the matter.
On August 17, an activist named Rahul
Eswar interviewed Haidya in Ashokan’s house. A video of the conversation
showed Hadiya being shadowed by a policewoman, complaining that her
mother stops her if she reads the namaaz. “Is this how I should live, is
this my life,” Hadiya asks her mother resentfully. Hadiya’s house is guarded by the Kerala police and Ashokan controls entry and exit from the premises. Hadiya
continues to cover her head. Here, seen with her father, Ashokan Mani
(right), and activist Rahul Easwar (left). Photo: Special arrangement.
In the name of tradition
The
ability of women to do what they want in India is severely curtailed.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the matter of love and marriage.
In many parts of India, so-called honour killings often have parents
murder their own daughters for marrying against caste norms. The bogey
of love jihad is based on the premise that women are unable to actually
make informed decisions about whom to love – a decision that the men in
the family need make for them to protect their chastity and preserve the
community’s honour.
What is astonishing is that the Kerala High
Court supported this view. The court order calls Hadiya a “gullible
person” and explicitly argues that that it was not safe to “let Ms
Akhila free to decide what she wants in her life”. The court reached to
“Indian tradition” to back it up, according to which, the court argued
that the custody of an unmarried daughter lies with her parents, even
after she had attained majority. “A girl aged 24,” argued the court –
desisting from even using the word “woman” – “is weak and vulnerable,
capable of being exploited in many ways”.
In doing so, the court
invoked the colonial concept of “parens patriae” jurisdiction, under
which the monarch in Britain was considered the parent and the protector
of all his subjects. This concept is usually invoked when courts
conclude that an individual is not in a position to defend themselves.
In other words, the court assumes the role of a parent-guardian.
However, Hadiya showed no manifest disability. She was not a minor. She
had nearly graduated as a doctor and was represented by a lawyer. Why
did the court, in the name of securing her rights, take away her
freedom?
Courts in India are supposed to protect the individual
liberties enshrined in the Constitution. Yet, as this case shows, there
is a rather large gap between theory and practise if an adult woman can
be forcefully confined against her will for a year and her marriage
annulled because she violated “Indian tradition”. Read our ground report from Kerala: How Akhila became Hadiya – and why her case has reached the Supreme Court.
Three years after Muzaffarnagar riots, gang-rape survivors face death threats, trial delays
A new Amnesty report reveals how
seven rape survivors who chose to report their sexual assaults were let
down by the police, government and the courts.
Image credit:
'Losing Faith' - Amnesty report
In
September 2013, communal riots in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar and
Shamli districts killed 60 people and displaced thousands of Muslim
families. While the riots were widely reported across the country, it
took a while for the stories of sexual violence to emerge.
In the
days after the riots, journalists and human rights activists working in
relief camps came across scores of Muslim women who spoke of being raped
or gang-raped by Hindu men during the clashes, but were unwilling to
file police complaints because of the social stigma attached to sexual
violence.
After a few days, seven women approached the police and
reported being gang-raped by Jat men during the riots. They were
promised swift justice and the Uttar Pradesh government set up a special
investigative team to look into their cases.
More than three
years later, swift justice seems like a pipe dream for these women. A
new report by Amnesty India, the human rights organisation, reveals that
ever since they approached the police, all seven women have faced
threats, harassment and pressure to change their statements or withdraw
their cases.
The report, titled Losing Faith: The Muzaffarnagar gang rape survivors’ struggle for justice,
points out that the state government has failed to protect the women
from threats and intimidation and has not even kept them informed about
the status of their cases. [. . .]
Rather than fighting for those displaced by the Muzaffarnagar riots, it appears to be parroting majoritarian, communal stereotyping.
Written by Harsh Mander | Published: October 5, 2016
It is highly unfortunate that the NHRC report plays into the communal stereotype that dates back to Partition — of Muslim young men sexually harassing Hindu girls.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is India’s highest statutory body constituted for the defence of the human rights of vulnerable people. Since it was created by a statute of Parliament in 1993, it has had a mixed and chequered record in the performance of duties that are critical in a country of such vast historical inequalities and embedded systems of oppression. Its finest hour was in the aftermath of the Gujarat communal riots in 2002, when it actively held the state government to account for relief, reparations and justice for the survivors. But for much of its tenure, the NHRC has often been criticised for inaction during human rights violations in contexts of communal, caste and gender violence and discrimination, extra-judicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.
However, a recent report by the NHRC, for the first time, opens it up to grave criticism not just of inaction, but of actively contributing to a majoritarian, communally-charged discourse. Its team visited the Muslim-majority township of Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh in which some Muslim survivors of the communal violence in 2013 had migrated after being uprooted because their homes and families had been attacked and they felt it was unsafe to return. The report, in effect, regards these Muslim migrants not as victims deserving the defence of the NHRC but as people responsible for contributing to raised levels of crime and the harassment of women which resulted in the “exodus” of law-abiding Hindu residents from Kairana.
The NHRC states that it acted on the basis of a complaint by Supreme Court advocate Monika Arora, but the charge of a Hindu “exodus” from Kairana because of the alleged criminal activities of riot-affected migrants was first raised by BJP MP Hukam Singh. His complaint was part of an old strategy of majoritarian communalists to paint the Hindu community as victims even when Hindu communalists perpetrate communal attacks. His communally explosive charges were disproved by investigations by The Indian Express, The Hindu and NDTV, which demonstrated that most of the 346 Hindus alleged to have left Kairana did so much earlier in search of better opportunities, or were dead or still living in the town.
The NHRC still felt it fit to reinvestigate the same communally motivated charges that had been publicly disproved. It concurs in its report that because of “the post-rehabilitation scenario resulting in resettlement of about 25-30,000 members of Muslim community in Kairana town from district Muzaffarnagar, UP, the demography of Kairana town has changed in favour of the Muslim community becoming the more dominating and majority community”. The report agrees with “witnesses” and “victims” that “the rehabilitation in 2013 has permanently changed the social situation in Kairana town and has led to further deterioration of law and order situation.”
There is much that is extraordinary about these NHRC findings. In a recent report Living Apart: Communal Violence and Forced Displacement in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, Akram Chaudhary, Zafar Eqbal, Rajanya Bose and I documented the exodus forced by communal attacks of around 50,000 Muslims, of whom around 30,000 were living in poorly resourced and self-settled refugee colonies. We described the enormous suffering of these displaced persons, forced forever to leave the villages of their birth in a continuing climate of hate and fear, moving from camps to tiny tenements, with education, livelihoods and social relationships destroyed. This exodus, caused by communal violence, spurred no action in support of the displaced persons by the NHRC. The thousands of Muslims forced to leave their villages because of targeted communal attacks are not “victims” or “witnesses” for the NHRC. They are, instead, the problem. The “victims” are the Hindu residents of Kairana town where the riot-displaced persons took refuge. It is also noteworthy that since 2013, the NHRC has taken no significant initiatives to assist riot victims.
Further, the figure of 25-30,000 persons having come into Kairana town after 2013 is a gross exaggeration. Our survey, reported in Living Apart, had found around 200 riot-affected families in Kairana. After the NHRC report, Akram Akhtar and his colleagues undertook a fresh survey in case they had missed any resettled families and found another 70 stray Muslim families in the outskirts of the town. Even if we assume an average family size of seven, this would still amount to around 2,000 persons, a far distance from the irresponsible figure quoted by the NHRC.
The 2011 census showed that Kairana had a population of 89,000 persons, of who more than 80 per cent were Muslim. It is difficult to see then how an addition of 2,000 persons had so drastically altered the demography of Kairana “in favour of the Muslim community becoming the more dominating and majority community”, as stated by the NHRC, when it was already an overwhelmingly Muslim majority town. What is even more regrettable is that this small increase of Muslim people internally displaced by hate-violence is stated by the NHRC to have resulted in a deterioration of the law and order situation in Kairana town. Once again, this conclusion is not based on any crime figures or other data presented by the NHRC; instead, this is based on the statements of the Hindu “victims” that its team chose to speak with. The NHRC report states: “At least 24 witnesses stated that the youths of the specific majority community (Muslims) in Kairana town pass lewd/taunting remarks against the females of the specific minority community in Kairana town. Due to this, females of the specific minority community (Hindus) in Kairana town avoid going outside frequently. However, they could not gather courage to report the matter to the police for the legal action.”
Our enquiries with the local police revealed that there were no complaints of so-called “eve-teasing” or lewd remarks by Muslim youth made to them over the last year. It is highly unfortunate that the NHRC report plays into the communal stereotype that dates back to Partition — of Muslim young men sexually harassing Hindu girls. This is even more irresponsible because it was precisely this charge against Muslim youths that sparked off the 2013 communal massacre that led to the killings, arson and forced exodus of Muslims from mixed villages in the region. For the NHRC to accept these conclusions, without any credible independent evidence, reflects its unacceptable complicity in communal rumour-mongering and stereotyping.
This is a precipitous fall for the NHRC, from the heights it attained under the leadership of Justice J.S. Verma — after the Gujarat 2002 communal riots, it chose the mantle of the principal defender of the rights of a survivors of the gruesome attacks. The NHRC was unflinching and uncompromising as it documented the many failings of the state and central government in ensuring the protection, relief, compensation, rehabilitation and access to legal justice for the survivors. It was the NHRC which itself moved the Supreme Court to oversee the investigation and trial of the major massacres. From these heights, the NHRC slipped later to a record largely of wilful passivity during subsequent communal and caste massacres. But it has today allowed itself to echo communal majoritarian labelling of the victims. We have seen many public institutions enfeebled and compromised in recent years. The NHRC is too important a public institution, created as it was for the defence of the rights of the weak and oppressed, to be destroyed in this way.
Mander is a human rights worker and writer.
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.
Fake encounters are seen as normal, legitimate and justified
Mar 03, 2016, 11.22 PM IST Gopal Pillai was not the home secretary when the operation against Ishrat Jehan and others was undertaken in 2004.
By Amitabha Pande
The most perverse aspect of the revelations by two former home
secretaries and a former Intelligence Bureau (IB) special director is
not that the politicians who were in power manipulated intelligence
inputs to serve narrow political ends. It is that the use of extra-legal
methods to 'get rid' of persons perceived as threats to national
security is seen as normal, legitimate and justified, as long as it can
be established that there was an official basis for suspicion.
No one is horrified, least of all former public servants, that
governments in power should routinely turn a blind eye to, or even
bless, such operations.
Gopal Pillai was not the home secretary when the operation against Ishrat Jehan
and others was undertaken in 2004. Nor was RK Singh who succeeded
Pillai in 2011. It is doubtful whether the home ministry was majorly
involved in the planning of an operation undertaken at the state-level.
So obviously none of the home secretaries involved would have been
complicit in the operation itself, or in the decision to 'eliminate' the
suspected terrorists.
Yet their eagerness to show that there
was credible information -- and some of them go far enough to call such
information 'evidence' -- to 'prove' that Ishrat was a Lashkar-e-Tayeba
(LeT) operative and that the operation was undertaken on the basis of
these credible inputs is as intriguing as it is shocking.
Intriguing, because the normal tendency of a civil servant, particularly
one retiresd, is to distance himself from controversial decisions taken
in his time in office unless it shows him as a knight in shining
armour. So why this unexpected fit of loquaciousness, especially on the
part of Pillai who was known for his reticence and quiet competence? His
revelations imply the following:
One, that he was not party to his minister's attempt to use the home ministry affidavit to buttress the case against the Gujarat Chief Minister and that his political neutrality needs to be taken note of.
Two, that he was aware that the IB
officers now being charged were acting on credible information they had
and, therefore, had legitimate reasons for planning an operation to
lure and entrap known LeT operatives.
Three, that skulduggery
of this kind on the part of security agencies carries a moral (though
not legal) justification if it is undertaken in the larger interests of
'national security'. And that even as getting caught in the process of
an operation gone awry is an occupational hazard, the government should
try and protect the officers involved in the interests of maintaining
their morale.
What is shocking here is the ethical ambivalence
that seems to have embedded itself in the culture, the ideology of
governance. While the Indian police forces (and the military when used
as a police force) have been known for long for their scant respect
towards concepts like human rights -- the domain of 'bleeding heart left
liberals' -- the civil services and the magistracy were expected to be
the fierce protectors of the Rule of Law, of fundamental rights, of
Constitutional propriety, and of ethical conduct.
Most of us
who were part of the civil services saw this as our primary
responsibility. (Conducting an inquiry into a fake police encounter was
one of my first tasks as a sub-divisional magistrate.) Not only has one
witnessed an erosion of these values, but now it seems that even the
pretence of maintaining these values can be given up without inviting
any public opprobrium. Ethical ambivalence is now legitimate policy.
The pity is that we do not any longer even notice that there is a
complete perversion of values. The security of citizens is conflated
with the security of the state, the state apparatus and those who
control the state apparatus. The sovereignty of the people is conflated
with the sovereignty of the state and its territorial integrity.
Security is conflated with public order and democracy. And the exercise
of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are seen as threats to achieving
that order.
Security, instead of being a means to achieve certain ends, becomes an end in itself. And no one knows what that end is.
A second set of perversions is achieved by the appropriation of
security as a concern not of the citizenry or the community but as a
concern of the mandarinate, the police and the military. The citizen can
question neither the arrogation of this power by the authorities nor
the decisions taken ostensibly on his behalf.
At its most
benign, it becomes a justification for a nanny state which takes away
from a citizen the most fundamental of his fundamental rights. At its
most malevolent, it becomes a justification for brutality and
repression.
If the IB and the National Investigation Agency ( NIA)
has decided that a 20-year-old Home Science student trying to make ends
meet for her family by working is in fact a deadly LeT operative who
does not deserve to live, who are we old-fashioned civil servants,
sticking to some outmoded notions of protecting human rights as a part
of our essential duty, to question their verdict?
We live in perverse times.
The writer is a former Secretary, Government of India
Human
Rights Defenders Alert - India has issued urgent appeal to the National
Human Rights Commission, and its Focal point of Human Rights Defenders,
Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Chief Minister of Delhi, Chief Secretary
of Delhi, Commissioner of Police, Delhi, on our grave concern over the
brutal beating of the protesters mainly students and women protestors in
Delhi by the Delhi police who were peacefully protesting before the
headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in New Delhi on 30
January, 2016. In the police action unarmed students and woman were
dragged and “brutally beaten together by the Delhi police and
unidentified goons allegedly members of RSS.
We
request you to address solidarity appeals to the authorities in your
organisational / individual capacities immediately. If you choose to use
a model appeal that we have created, please feel free to do the same.
It is appended – use after filling the portions in red. Beneath the
model appeal are the addresses of the authorities. Please send copies of
your urgent appeals to hrda.india@gmail.com, hrda.ict@gmail.com,hrda.scc@gmail.com
Thanks and Regards
Secretariat - HRDA India
o o o
Human Rights Defenders Alert - India
National Coordination Office
6, Vallabai Road, Chokkikulam, Madurai 625 002.
Tamil Nadu, INDIA
Tel: +91-9994368540 Email: hrda.india@gmail.com
3 February, 2015
To,
Shri A. K. Parashar,
National Focal Point - Human Rights Defenders & Joint Registrar National Human Rights Commission,
Manav Adhikar Bhawan,
Block-C, GPO Complex, INA,
New Delhi – 110 023 Email: hrd-nhrc@nic.in
Dear Sir,
Sub: HRD Alert - India - Urgent Appeal for Action – Delhi: Brutal beating and ill treatment of the students and women protestors in Delhi by Delhi police/ denying their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association to register their protest before the headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing Hindu nationalist organisation in Delhi – Regarding
Greetings from Human Rights Defenders Alert - India!
HRD Alert - India is a forum of Human Rights Defenders for Human Rights Defenders. It endeavours to initiate actions on behalf of Human Rights Defenders under threat or with security concerns.
We are writing to express our grave concern over the brutal beating of the protesters mainly students and women protestors in Delhi by the Delhi police who were peacefully protesting before the headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in New
Delhi on 30 January, 2016. In the police action unarmed students and woman were dragged and “brutally beaten together by the Delhi police and unidentified goons allegedly members of RSS.
Status of Human Rights Defender:
The defenders are young students including women students from All India Students Association (AISA), the student wing of the CPI-ML, All India Students Federation (AISF), the student wing of the CPI and other students from various colleges and universities of Delhi.
Source of Information on the Incident:
Regional Coordinator of HRDA for North of India Media Reports
Date of incident:
January 30, 2016
Place of incident:
Near Keshav Kunj, headquarters of RSS in Jhandewalan in central Delhi
The Perpetrators:
Delhi Police
Unknown persons allegedly members of RSS
Details of the Incident
According to sources on 30 January, 2016, the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, a student group representing the protestors in Hyderabad including students from
universities and colleges across Delhi organized a protest march to the headquarters of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in Jhandewalan, Delhi. The call for protest was given by the All India Students Association (AISA), the student wing of the CPI-ML, among others, including the All India Students Federation (AISF), the student wing of the CPI. The students’ groups were purportedly protesting for justice for Rohith Vemula of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA), a Dalit research scholar at Hyderabad University whose suicide last month triggered anger and protests among students and HRDA has already appealed to the NHRC to investigate the matter. The students were demanding punishment to those who led the harassment and victimisation at the behest of the RSS- BJP which led to the death of Rohith. The students were demanding action against Hyderabad Central University Vice Chancellor Mr. Appa Rao and Union Ministers Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya and Ms. Smriti Irani.
The protesters had gathered outside the RSS office at Keshav Kunj, Jhandewalan in central Delhi with placards demanding justice for Rohith.The protesting students were trying to march towards the RSS office; the police blocked all roads leading to Keshav Kunj. Protesting students were stopped by several officers of Delhi police. The police filmed the students on their cameras, “for the record” and took down the names of the organisations protesting. Almost every student who had come there to protest was being slapped, kicked and pounded with police lathis. The police was soon joined by members of public (alleged RSS workers), who too began to assault the student and they were reportedly standing with the police on the other side of the barricades. The police didn't even try to prevent these "civilians" from thrashing other people. Even the media persons covering the event were not spared. Two journalists, who have alleged that they were beaten up and their cameras smashed while covering the protest, claimed that the police action was “unprovoked”.
Following the protest, videos surfaced showing personnel of the Delhi police beating up students, including girls, in a brutal manner. Videos shot on January 30 shows the police hovering around the placard-waving and chanting students before suddenly beating them with wooden sticks and their fists. In the short video clip, a constable is seen dragging a female protester by her hair and pushing her down. Though female police constables were around, they just sat back and watched.
Appeal:
We, therefore urge you to immediately take necessary steps and :
Orders an immediate, thorough, transparent, effective and impartial investigation into the above-mentioned incident of brutal beating of student human rights defenders;
Takes immediate legal action on the perpetrators in this case personnel of Delhi police and unidentified persons allegedly members of RSS for the brutal assault and denial of the right to assemble and associate freely to all the student human rights defenders who participated in the peaceful assembly and protest;
Ensures provision of reparation, compensation, apology to each of the defenders for the physical and psychological sufferings they underwent because of the use of brutal force and ill - treatment and provide a re-assurance of not engaging in such acts against student HRDs;
Puts an end to all acts of harassment against all human rights defenders in general in Delhi to ensure that in all circumstances they carry out their activities without any hindrances;
Take steps to ensure the provisions contained in the Code of Conduct for Police In India under Sec 4 which says, ‘In securing the observance of law or in maintaining order, the police should as far as practicable, use the methods of persuasion, advice and warning. When the application of force becomes inevitable, only the irreducible minimum of force required in the circumstances should be used.’ The provisions should also be ensured in conformity with Art 4 and 5 of the UN Basic Principles on the use of force and firearms.
Take steps to ensure the provisions contained in the Human Rights Council resolution 15/21 adopted in October 2010 which reaffirms that everyone has the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association free of restrictions that is subject only to the limitations permitted by international law, in particular international human rights law;
Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially:
- Article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in
association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels;
- Article 12.2, which provides that “"the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”;
Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint, the SHRC in Delhi to also take necessary steps to establish a focal point for HRDs in Delhi in order to ensure that HRDs in Delhi have a new protection mechanism for them;
Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint, the NHRC to convene a meeting of all state human rights institutions in the state [the SHRC, the SCW, the SCPCR, the SCM, the SIC, State Commissioner for PWDs, etc.] to ensure that a coordinated strategy is developed within the State of Delhi for the protection of the rights of human rights defenders;
Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint, the Government of Delhi in collaboration with the NHRC Focal Point on HRDs to provide sensitization training to law enforcement and security forces on the role and activities of human rights defenders as a matter of priority, with technical advice and assistance from relevant United Nations entities, NGOs and other partners;
Recommend urgently and speedily during the pendency of this complaint, the Governments of Delhi and Union of India, to publicly acknowledge the importance and legitimacy of the work of human rights defenders, i.e. anyone who, “individually and in association with others, ... promote[s] and ... strive[s] for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels” (Art.1 of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders);
More generally, ensure in all circumstances the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and with international human rights instruments ratified by India is strictly adhered to in Delhi.
Looking forward to your immediate action in this regard,
Yours sincerely,
(Henri Tiphagne)
Honorary National Working Secretary
Hakim Khan, 35, worked with the Sahara group as an insurance agent
and has been part of several peace and communal harmony initiatives in
the area. On October 1, when the Tazia procession was stopped, he had
stepped in to broker peace between the two sides and returned home after
the police arrived on the spot. “He would participate in temple
festivities, food camps on Tuesdays for Lord Hanuman and even mop the
temple stairs,” says Ram Prakash, his neighbour. He was picked up by the
police in the early hours of October 2 from his house. “He was thrashed
with belts and the police also said to him ‘You say Islam zindabad a
lot, isn’t it?’” says Mohammed Kasim, his elder brother.
After Farkun Siddiqui’s arrest, his 12-year-old daughter faced jibes
at school. Her teacher called her ‘the daughter of a criminal.’ Her
classmates would regularly tell her, ‘Muslims are terrorists.’ Fed up of
the daily reprimands, she stopped going to school mid-way through the
academic year. Last month, she took admission in another school and is
repeating her class. “He worked as a contractor for the municipal
corporation for years. An income tax payer is suddenly a threat to
national security and has been behind bars for 10 months now. Tell me
how to interpret it if it’s not religious discrimination?” asks Sophia,
Farkun’s wife, who says all their savings will soon be exhausted.
Mansoor Tent house was the only shop owned by a Muslim on the Dalit
side of the locality. It was owned by Salim, also known as Pappu. His
house was adjacent to the shop. “We have lived there for several years
and there has never been a threat in the past on the basis of our
religion,” says Ruki, his wife. On the day when the violence broke out,
first his shop was set on fire and then his house. “There were lots of
people in the Durga idol procession that I had never seen before. They
were the ones who first started ransacking the shop and then set the
shop and the house ablaze,” she says. Her two young children had
fainted during this three-hour long ordeal before they were rescued by
relatives. Her 12-year old son, Babbu, says, “There were two-three from
the neighbourhood too. Take me to the police, I will identify them all.”
Strangely, Mohammad Salim was arrested by the police despite his house
and shop being set on fire and his family stranded on the streets. Two
days after this incident, the Maa Durga tent house was inaugurated just
next to Salim’s shop with a temple on the pavement right in front. Since
Salim’s arrest, the family has been living at various relative’s houses
with no means of income.
Even though the BJP won the last general and assembly elections
comfortably, party representation in civic local bodies across Uttar
Pradesh remains a sore point. In the December 2017 civic polls too, it received only 29% of the votes.
Bahraich also has a large Dalit population and the Lok Sabha
constituency is a reserved seat for SC candidates. In the run up to the
2017 UP assembly elections, the BJP and RSS had also started making
concerted efforts to start representing Dalit icons as Hindu figures in
order to polarise votes on communal lines. One of the booklets
distributed by the Sangh contained a story
titled “The Badshah and the Raja,” about an 11th century battle near
what is now Bahraich. The battle pitted a Muslim king, Ghazi Saiyyad
Salar Masud, against Suheldev, a chieftain who many believe was a Pasi.
Currently, the Pasis form the second-largest Scheduled Caste group in
Uttar Pradesh, after Jatavs. According to the booklet, Masud invaded
India early in the second millennium, and waged an aggressive campaign
till he encountered Suheldev. Ahead of the battle, Masud decided to
place a herd of cows at the head of his army, aiming to disrupt any
attack by his Hindu opponent, who considered the animals sacred. But,
the legend goes, Suheldev and his army freed the cows under the cover of
night, and saved them. The booklet states that Suheldev then went on to
kill Masud – a claim that some historians have challenged. Harbans
Mukhia told The Wire, “There is written evidence that he finally couldn’t stop Masud’s army from advancing further into UP.”
“It was 10-11 in the morning and it is true that the procession did
deviate from the designated route. As soon as it reached the village
intersection, there was stone pelting by members of the Hindu Samaj
Party and Bajrang Dal from the other side. There were a couple of rounds
fired in the air that led to commotion.” Bystanders say that there was
religious sloganeering from both sides. A couple of roadside kiosks were
damaged. The police arrived along with the Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) and
the situation was brought under control. Between that day and the next,
altogether 38 people were held from all over the village. “In the name
of controlling the tensions, the SSB took away our poultry and goats.
Some even asked us to cook them for the SSB to eat,” says Kanhaiya, a
local resident. Finally, nine people were arrested and charged under the
Prevention of Atrocities against SC/ST Act. Eventually, the nine were
granted bail but soon after, five of them were slapped with the National
Security Act. All of them were Muslims.
It had only been an hour since Aslam had opened his bangle shop on
the day of the procession when tensions escalated. Looking at how the
adjacent kiosks were being destroyed by a frenzied mob, he stayed at the
shop to protect it. “He had just bought a new stock of bangles,” says
Sammo, his 30-year-old wife. “The police picked him up from the shop
itself,” she says. Aslam, 35, had rented the shop and would make up to
Rs 4,000 a month. Sammo works as a farm labourer too to feed her six
children. “Seven small size burnt rotis is all he gets in the prison. He
has not had a stomach full of food in these nine months,” she says. She
too has paid Rs 40,000 to a lawyer for Aslam’s release with no real
updates on the review of the NSA charges against him.
Similarly, Maqsood Raza, 32, also earned Rs 4,000 as a madrassa
teacher and was picked up by the police. His two-year-old daughter has
been ailing for the past few months and the family has no money for
treatment. “I have run from office to office. I will have to go to my
parents’ house since there is no money to survive,” says Saifuneesa, his
wife.
Lodheshwar Mahadev temple is an hour away from Dewa Sharif on the
banks of Ghagra river in Mahadeva village of Ramnagar tehsil, Barabanki.
It is believed that the Pandavas from the Mahabharata performed a yagya
for Lord Shiva here. A well by the name of Pandav Kup exists and the
water is considered holy. The temple is also known for its syncretic
culture. For centuries, shops outside the temple premises selling
offerings, material required for rituals, crafts, crockery, utensils,
toys have been owned and run by both Hindus and Muslims. In fact, the
two annual fairs held at this temple, one on the occasion of Shivratri
in the month of March-April and the other a cattle fair in the month of
October-November, are a major contributor to the village’s economy. Both
Hindus and Muslims participate with equal enthusiasm. In the past, the
presiding priests of the temple have been instrumental in ensuring
communal harmony.
The temple management has a curious method of designating the chief
priest. Every four years, the contract for the presiding rights over
Lodheshwar is handed over by the temple trust to the top bidder. It is
widely believed that this is the method adopted by most temple
managements in North India. Last year, Mahant Adityanath Tiwari, who in
his late 30s and fashions himself after Yogi Adityanath, was handed over
the contract for Rs five lakhs. Since then, he has been constructing a
temple complex dedicated to several Hindu deities on the lines of the
Gorakhnath math presided over by Yogi Adityanath. He has also started a
construction material enterprise called ‘Shiva traders’ just next to the
under-construction temple complex.
Rizwan, 25 and Mumtaz, 35, worked as ‘bisati walas.’ This is a common
term used for street hawkers who sell imitation jewellery, toys,
clothes and housekeeping items in villages. Both ran their own shops
outside the Lodheshwar temple. At the time of the arrest, Rizwan’s
father, who ran a cycle repair shop, suffered a paralytic stroke. His
other brother, Taj, who was incapacitated because of polio in his
childhood is now running the shop. “There is no means of livelihood. The
entire family was dependent on him,” says Shakeela, his mother. The
Ramnagar police station’s report to to the police superintendent
describes Rizwan as ‘Yeh nihayat dabang, hinsak evam uttejak pravrati ka vyakti hai’ (He is extremely dominant, violent and aggressive) as an explanation for why he should be detained under the NSA.
Zubair, 40, and Ateek, 25, worked at local tent houses. Salma,
Zubair’s wife has moved to her parents’ house for lack of two square
meals. Habib Ahmed, his father says, “They have now imposed restrictions
on meeting him in jail. I was recently told that not more than two
meetings in a month are allowed.”
Sharib, a 24-year-old farmer, got married just 20 days before his
arrest. “By selectively arresting these young boys under the NSA who are
just starting off their lives, the police and administration is trying
to convey that young Muslims will always remain second class citizens.
How come Amit Sahu is out on bail and these boys are no?” says Shahid,
Sharib’s father. He says that Hindu Samaj Party members have been
spreading rumours that Sarai Mir Muslims are emulating ‘Kashmiri stone
pelters who support terrorists.’
