Indian Express
Hindu-Muslim couples scarred
New Delhi | Posted: November 11, 2014 11:05 am
There was always someone who stood in their way. Five years ago, it was their families, dissuading them, for their religions were different. They married nonetheless. Two weeks ago, they faced questions anew. This time too, they stood their ground. For Mohd Akram and Aisha Akram, who was earlier Anuradha Verma, the riots two weeks ago were only reminiscent of what they faced five years ago. When the riots broke out, Akram’s family asked him to rush to safety with their three children to a relative’s place in Noida.
But Akram knew if their marriage was past, this too shall pass. “When we married, no one was willing to attend our marriage. Our parents dissuaded us. They told us we would never be compatible. Today, we are a happy family of five,” says Akram, a garments store owner in Block 25, Trilokpuri.
“Each time is a test,” says Mohd Wasim, a barber whose wife Sujatha sustained injuries in the stone-pelting. Wasim was away at the time. But the guilt that his own could inflict harm is visible. “My own relatives were involved in the desecration of the mata ki chowki. My wife has read the Quran and offers namaz, and I like attending the jagrans in the area. I can’t understand how people can bring religion into everything.”
Sujatha adds, “Nothing has changed between us. I never converted and my in-laws have never once complained. We want the mata ki chowki to be reinstated as the sounds of bhajans keep the place lively.” Wasim agrees.
A few metres from Wasim’s house live Kausar and Azgar Ali. Kausar was a Hindu who converted to Islam after marriage. The couple left the area when violence broke out and returned only ten days later. “Our neighbours call us traitors. But we ran away to protect our daughter,” she says.
Kausar feels there is no time to take a chance. The family plans to relocate to Laxmi Nagar soon to ensure a better future for their daughter Sana. Kausar recalls how after the violence, her relatives and neighbours called them, asking them to be careful and seek protection if they had to. “Protection from whom? I have lived both lives. No one can protect us except us ourselves.”
(Abhishek Angad & Devi Singh are students of EXIMS)
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/hindu-muslim-couples-scarred/
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Showing posts with label Tirlokpuri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tirlokpuri. Show all posts
November 11, 2014
November 10, 2014
India: A pattern of Violence - The troubles in Delhi (Mukul Kesavan)
The Telegraph, 10 Nov 2014
A PATTERN OF VIOLENCE
- The troubles in Delhi
by Mukul Kesavan
There seems to be a pattern to the communal troubles in Delhi in the run up to the Delhi state elections. After the Trilokpuri violence, there was a mahapanchayat in Bawana, where, according to the Indian Express, in the presence of the local Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, Gugan Singh, Muslims were warned about leading the Muharram procession along the traditional route. They were told to confine the procession to ‘their’ areas. The warning was backed up by a barely veiled threat: if the procession did pass down the customary route, the Muslims and the State machinery would be responsible for the consequences. A few days later, India Today reported that a dead pig was found in the mosque at Madanpur Khadar in Okhla, a south Delhi district with a substantial Muslim population. Next to the desecrated Gausiya Masjid stands a makeshift mata ki chowki that has come up in the last month.
So: two mata ki chowkis set up cheek by jowl with two mosques, a mahapanchayat that issues peremptory instructions to Muslims and the local law-and-order machinery, two local BJP leaders, one each in Trilokpuri and Bawana, who let it be known which side they are on, a mosque defiled with the corpse of a slaughtered pig… you could be forgiven for thinking that someone was looking for trouble. Madanpur Khadar is, like Trilokpuri, a poor slum neighbourhood. The troubles are evenly spread over Delhi: Bawana in the north, Trilokpuri in the east and Madanpur Khadar in the south.
In the aftermath of Trilokpuri, local Muslim leaders in Bawana and Okhla have been careful about keeping the peace. Muslims in Bawana had volunteered to confine the route of the Muharram procession before the mahapanchayat met. The mahapanchayat’s threats were unnecessary; its resolutions were a form of bullying triumphalism. In Madanpur Khadar, the Muslim response to the desecration was restrained. There was no retaliation; the local Aam Aadmi Party leader, Amanatullah, led a joint delegation of local Hindus and Muslims to the police station to file a complaint about the desecration as an attempt to stir up communal trouble in the area.
The BJP’s Delhi leadership has either been silent about these incidents or openly partisan. This is unsurprising; the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh confirmed a correlation between communal consolidation and electoral success, and the BJP seems to have taken the lesson to heart. Its local notables and cadre, even when they aren’t responsible for the violence, seem happy to keep the pot boiling.
The Hindu reports that of the 48 men arrested in Trilokpuri, 37 were Muslims and 11 were Hindus. The majority of those who left the riot-hit areas of Trilokpuri, though, were Muslims, mainly Muslim women. One reason for this was the threat of sexual violence. A college-going Muslim girl told The Hindu’s correspondent that the terraces around her house were crowded with men wearing helmets and vests who took off their trousers to threaten her family with rape. According to the paper, Sunil Vaid, who used to be the BJP MLA from Trilokpuri before he lost the last election to the AAP, instructed the area’s ACP to remove the investigating officer appointed by the Mayur Vihar police station. The reason? The investigating officer was a Muslim; that was reason enough for Vaid.
Is it reasonable to expect the National Democratic Alliance as a government to rein in the BJP and its cadre in the afterglow of a famous electoral victory? Specially when there are state elections to be won in Delhi? Perhaps not. The BJP, which runs the Central government on the strength of an absolute majority in Parliament, is an explicitly Hindutvavadi party. The consolidation of the Hindu vote is its political bread-and-butter. Orthodox communist parties reflexively invoke the proletariat; the BJP instinctively invokes a Hindu rashtra. To expect the party (or the government that it runs) to do otherwise is probably unrealistic.
But to accept that the BJP will respond to communal trouble in a partisan way is to accept that the BJP is a sectarian party indistinguishable in principle from the Akali Dal or the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. The difference between these parties is demographic, not ideological. The Akalis and the MIM set out to represent religious communities. The BJP has the advantage of ventriloquizing for a community that constitutes roughly four-fifths of India’s population. It can, therefore, muddle majoritarianism with nationalism and claim political respectability in a way in which demographically littler communalisms cannot.
The prospect of the BJP transforming itself into a non-feral, Centre-Right party in government, rested on Mr Modi’s bland promise: “sabka saath, sabka vikas”. To read it as a new commitment to inclusiveness was always a stretch given the political histories of the party and its prime minister. The BJP’s project in office turned out to rest on a basic division of labour. The prime minister performed playlets on the theme of the purposeful nation while his party president made sure that the Hindu rashtra of parivar lore was consolidated into an electoral reality.
The contest in Delhi is broadly seen as a battle between a demoralized Congress, a waning AAP and a resurgent BJP, galvanized by Modi’s electoral drawing power. The urban middle class, that amorphous yet real and powerful constituency in a megapolis like Delhi, has, according to most commentators, moved on from its passing infatuation with the AAP and its war on political privilege and corruption. Ashok Malik, in an acute piece on the imminent assembly elections in Delhi, suggests that the AAP, given the electoral vacuum left by the Congress, will be left with “Muslims and sections of the urban underclass”. He underestimates the BJP’s ambition: the party wants the social groups that constitute this “underclass” (also known as the urban poor) and its cadre’s response to Trilokpuri and its aftermath tells us something about how it plans to get them.
Anumeha Yadav’s fine report in The Hindu on the Trilokpuri violence has another college student in Trilokpuri, a Dalit this time, examining his response to the pitched battles around the mata ki chowki in Trilokpuri. “I am a follower of Babasaheb (Ambedkar),” he said, “I understand how caste and religion operate. But that night when I saw the goddess’ crown had fallen and the stones thrown on the shrine, I felt angry. These people have no mercy, they will stop at nothing.” The self-aware Dalit pushed into taking religious sides by the violence of a communal riot... this is a textbook outcome for the majoritarian project. If you’re committed to the construction of a denominational State, even a riot can be a nation-building exercise.
A PATTERN OF VIOLENCE
- The troubles in Delhi
by Mukul Kesavan
There seems to be a pattern to the communal troubles in Delhi in the run up to the Delhi state elections. After the Trilokpuri violence, there was a mahapanchayat in Bawana, where, according to the Indian Express, in the presence of the local Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, Gugan Singh, Muslims were warned about leading the Muharram procession along the traditional route. They were told to confine the procession to ‘their’ areas. The warning was backed up by a barely veiled threat: if the procession did pass down the customary route, the Muslims and the State machinery would be responsible for the consequences. A few days later, India Today reported that a dead pig was found in the mosque at Madanpur Khadar in Okhla, a south Delhi district with a substantial Muslim population. Next to the desecrated Gausiya Masjid stands a makeshift mata ki chowki that has come up in the last month.
So: two mata ki chowkis set up cheek by jowl with two mosques, a mahapanchayat that issues peremptory instructions to Muslims and the local law-and-order machinery, two local BJP leaders, one each in Trilokpuri and Bawana, who let it be known which side they are on, a mosque defiled with the corpse of a slaughtered pig… you could be forgiven for thinking that someone was looking for trouble. Madanpur Khadar is, like Trilokpuri, a poor slum neighbourhood. The troubles are evenly spread over Delhi: Bawana in the north, Trilokpuri in the east and Madanpur Khadar in the south.
In the aftermath of Trilokpuri, local Muslim leaders in Bawana and Okhla have been careful about keeping the peace. Muslims in Bawana had volunteered to confine the route of the Muharram procession before the mahapanchayat met. The mahapanchayat’s threats were unnecessary; its resolutions were a form of bullying triumphalism. In Madanpur Khadar, the Muslim response to the desecration was restrained. There was no retaliation; the local Aam Aadmi Party leader, Amanatullah, led a joint delegation of local Hindus and Muslims to the police station to file a complaint about the desecration as an attempt to stir up communal trouble in the area.
The BJP’s Delhi leadership has either been silent about these incidents or openly partisan. This is unsurprising; the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh confirmed a correlation between communal consolidation and electoral success, and the BJP seems to have taken the lesson to heart. Its local notables and cadre, even when they aren’t responsible for the violence, seem happy to keep the pot boiling.
The Hindu reports that of the 48 men arrested in Trilokpuri, 37 were Muslims and 11 were Hindus. The majority of those who left the riot-hit areas of Trilokpuri, though, were Muslims, mainly Muslim women. One reason for this was the threat of sexual violence. A college-going Muslim girl told The Hindu’s correspondent that the terraces around her house were crowded with men wearing helmets and vests who took off their trousers to threaten her family with rape. According to the paper, Sunil Vaid, who used to be the BJP MLA from Trilokpuri before he lost the last election to the AAP, instructed the area’s ACP to remove the investigating officer appointed by the Mayur Vihar police station. The reason? The investigating officer was a Muslim; that was reason enough for Vaid.
Is it reasonable to expect the National Democratic Alliance as a government to rein in the BJP and its cadre in the afterglow of a famous electoral victory? Specially when there are state elections to be won in Delhi? Perhaps not. The BJP, which runs the Central government on the strength of an absolute majority in Parliament, is an explicitly Hindutvavadi party. The consolidation of the Hindu vote is its political bread-and-butter. Orthodox communist parties reflexively invoke the proletariat; the BJP instinctively invokes a Hindu rashtra. To expect the party (or the government that it runs) to do otherwise is probably unrealistic.
But to accept that the BJP will respond to communal trouble in a partisan way is to accept that the BJP is a sectarian party indistinguishable in principle from the Akali Dal or the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. The difference between these parties is demographic, not ideological. The Akalis and the MIM set out to represent religious communities. The BJP has the advantage of ventriloquizing for a community that constitutes roughly four-fifths of India’s population. It can, therefore, muddle majoritarianism with nationalism and claim political respectability in a way in which demographically littler communalisms cannot.
The prospect of the BJP transforming itself into a non-feral, Centre-Right party in government, rested on Mr Modi’s bland promise: “sabka saath, sabka vikas”. To read it as a new commitment to inclusiveness was always a stretch given the political histories of the party and its prime minister. The BJP’s project in office turned out to rest on a basic division of labour. The prime minister performed playlets on the theme of the purposeful nation while his party president made sure that the Hindu rashtra of parivar lore was consolidated into an electoral reality.
The contest in Delhi is broadly seen as a battle between a demoralized Congress, a waning AAP and a resurgent BJP, galvanized by Modi’s electoral drawing power. The urban middle class, that amorphous yet real and powerful constituency in a megapolis like Delhi, has, according to most commentators, moved on from its passing infatuation with the AAP and its war on political privilege and corruption. Ashok Malik, in an acute piece on the imminent assembly elections in Delhi, suggests that the AAP, given the electoral vacuum left by the Congress, will be left with “Muslims and sections of the urban underclass”. He underestimates the BJP’s ambition: the party wants the social groups that constitute this “underclass” (also known as the urban poor) and its cadre’s response to Trilokpuri and its aftermath tells us something about how it plans to get them.
Anumeha Yadav’s fine report in The Hindu on the Trilokpuri violence has another college student in Trilokpuri, a Dalit this time, examining his response to the pitched battles around the mata ki chowki in Trilokpuri. “I am a follower of Babasaheb (Ambedkar),” he said, “I understand how caste and religion operate. But that night when I saw the goddess’ crown had fallen and the stones thrown on the shrine, I felt angry. These people have no mercy, they will stop at nothing.” The self-aware Dalit pushed into taking religious sides by the violence of a communal riot... this is a textbook outcome for the majoritarian project. If you’re committed to the construction of a denominational State, even a riot can be a nation-building exercise.
November 03, 2014
India: Thirty Years After - The Trilokpuri Riots (Mukul Kesavan in: The Telegraph, 27 Oct 2014)
The Telegraph, 27 October 2014
THIRTY YEARS AFTER
- The Trilokpuri riots in Delhi
by Mukul Kesavan
The Hindu-Muslim violence that began on Friday in Trilokpuri in East Delhi, is trivial compared to the riots and pogroms that disfigure India’s recent history. A couple of bullet wounds, a dozen or so injuries, pitched street fights where young men and boys threw stones and bricks at each other and dispersed, seems to be the extent of the violence. While the area is still tense, prohibitory orders and riot police seem to have brought the violence under some sort of control.
But Trilokpuri isn’t just any neighbourhood in Delhi. Exactly thirty years ago, almost to the week, Trilokpuri was one of the two most gruesome killing fields in the pogrom of the Sikhs organized by the Congress and its goons after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The other murderous basti, also in East Delhi, was Kalyanpuri.
Kalyanpuri and Trilokpuri have something in common. They are both resettlement colonies created by Mrs Gandhi to house people displaced by the slum ‘clearances’ that the Congress government masterminded during the Emergency under the direction of Jagmohan and Sanjay Gandhi. Many of the Muslims in Trilokpuri were resettled there when the Turkman Gate bastis were violently cleared. As John Dayal and Ajoy Bose wrote in their book, Delhi Under the Emergency, these resettlement colonies weren’t model neighbourhoods with neat plots, drainage, water supply, schools, playgrounds, parks and electricity as Sanjay Gandhi claimed: they were tracts of empty land where people literally bulldozed out of their slums were dumped. The thing to remember about these hardscrabble neighbourhoods is that given their origins, their residents weren’t citizens, they were desperately poor clients dependent on the State and its political operatives for every basic facility and amenity. Nothing was theirs by right; even more than in the rest of India, their lives depended on the vagaries of local politics and their access (or lack of it), to patronage and ‘protection’.
Old urban neighbourhoods where communities have lived adjacently or intermingled over many generations sometimes develop inter-community networks that help their residents negotiate communal flashpoints without violence, as Ashutosh Varshney has shown in his book, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life. But in urban settlements created by bureaucratic fiat as holding pens for Delhi’s poor, life is a Hobbesian zero-sum game where common sense consists of staying on the right side of Leviathan and its grubbing agents.
This dependency, this permanent state of clientage is why the Congress-directed pogrom of 1984 was bloodiest in the resettlement colonies. Contrary to the durable urban myth that riots are engineered by ‘outsiders’, the Sikh residents of Trilokpuri and Kalyanpuri were killed by their neighbours, by people they lived with and recognized. Their killers weren’t inherently evil: their urban circumstance had made them creatures of a vicious State apparatus and they jumped to do its bidding.
Which is why we ought to pay attention to these stirrings in Trilokpuri. The history of communal violence in India demonstrates that it is closely connected with turning points in high politics. In 1937, for example, the Congress came to power in several states in India. In U.P. (then the United Provinces), the Congress government was led by Govind Ballabh Pant and it served for two years, till 1939. This period saw a measurable uptick in communal rioting in the province’s towns and cities. The Muslim League made political capital out of this violence by arguing that the Hindu bias of the Congress government had led to local disputes and rioting.
While Pant’s government was not communally partisan, it was vulnerable to the accusation of bias simply because apart from a couple of ministers, every Congress MLA in U.P. was a Hindu. It was also true that local Hindu notables and organizations felt emboldened by their first experience of a democratically elected government that seemed made up principally of their own kind. This sometimes encouraged local Hindu groups — like Ram Lila committees for example — to assert themselves over procession routes or customary practice in ways they hadn’t done before. And when Hindu and Muslim festivals coincided on the calendar, the ‘right’ to march through a Muslim neighbourhood, or the ‘right’ to play music before mosques, could lead to confrontations that end in rioting and murder.
The violence in Trilokpuri centres on a temporary religious construction called the Mata ki Chowki, built opposite a mosque in early October. The chowki was built for a jagaran but left in place after it was over. Twenty per cent or so of Trilokpuri’s population is made up of Muslims, most of whom live in and around Block 20. Muslims in the neighbourhood interviewed by the Indian Express, complained that after the chowki was established, local Hindu activists pressed Muslims not to sacrifice goats on Eid, which happened to occur close to Diwali this year. Local Hindus in turn accused Muslims of ‘desecrating’ the chowki.
The parallels with the riots that occurred between 1937 and 1939, are striking. The Mata ki Chowki is built right in the heart of the Muslim ghetto in Trilokpuri, next to a mosque. This happens during the first festival season that follows a general election decisively won by the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi, a man seen by friend and foe alike as a Hindu strongman. This isn’t to argue that the BJP is behind the violence. It is to point out that Hindu activists could be testing the waters, testing precedent, testing the limits of the politically possible in the wake of an election that has brought to power ‘their’ sarkar. Like the Congress in U.P. in 1937, the BJP’s parliamentary majority in 2014 reinforces its image as a ‘Hindu’ party; its MPs are overwhelmingly Hindu and not one of them is Muslim.
Unlike the Congress in 1937, which was both rhetorically and substantively pluralist in its politics, the BJP, both historically and under the direction of its current president, Amit Shah, has consistently identified itself as a Hindu nationalist party, happy to consolidate the Hindu vote by ‘othering’ Muslims. The local BJP MP for East Delhi in whose constituency Trilokpuri falls, Maheish Girri, hasn’t wasted any time in specifying who he thinks is at fault. He told the Indian Express, “I called up the SHO asking him to bring the situation under control. However, it worsened when Muslim youth threw something into the area, again triggering stone pelting.”
So, what we are seeing here is local ‘Hindu’ assertion in the form of the Mata ki Chowki, following up on the election of Modi sarkar and in anticipation of possible assembly elections in Delhi, given that the suspension of the present assembly can’t extend beyond January. Three-quarters of Trilokpuri’s population is Dalit. A substantial part of this electorate voted for the winning Aam Aadmi Party candidate the last time round. Given the way the Muzaffarnagar riots led to the consolidation of the Jat vote in the BJP’s favour in the general elections, the communal polarization that invariably follows upon rioting wouldn’t harm the BJP’s chances in the Trilokpuri assembly constituency. There’s reason, therefore, for local Hindu activists to believe that their belligerence has the implicit sanction of the new powers-that-be, even if the BJP has nothing to do with the staging of the confrontation.
Newspapers have begun to report that families, mainly Muslim, have begun leaving the neighbourhoods in anticipation of further trouble. There are the customary complaints of the police singling out Muslim men as responsible for the troubles. One middle-aged Muslim woman, old enough to remember 1984, is haunted by her memories of the scale of the Indira-kaand.
With even-handed policing and political prudence, these fears will blow over and Trilokpuri will return to whatever passed for normalcy before the recent violence. But the BJP, both as a government and as a party, needs to be careful about fishing in troubled waters in Trilokpuri. Delhi’s resettlement colonies aren’t the best places to experiment with ‘controlled’ polarization. These are neighbourhoods debauched by politics, where the lives of residents depend upon how well they read political prevailing winds. The people who built the Mata ki Chowki, who pressed Muslims not to offer qurbani, who led noisy Kanwariya processions through crowded Muslim neighbourhoods, are looking to the various avatars of the State as it manifests itself in Trilokpuri — the police, the local administration, the BJP, Modi sarkar — for a sign. Everyone who lived through 1984 in Delhi and looked into the abyss, will pray that they don’t get one.
THIRTY YEARS AFTER
- The Trilokpuri riots in Delhi
by Mukul Kesavan
The Hindu-Muslim violence that began on Friday in Trilokpuri in East Delhi, is trivial compared to the riots and pogroms that disfigure India’s recent history. A couple of bullet wounds, a dozen or so injuries, pitched street fights where young men and boys threw stones and bricks at each other and dispersed, seems to be the extent of the violence. While the area is still tense, prohibitory orders and riot police seem to have brought the violence under some sort of control.
But Trilokpuri isn’t just any neighbourhood in Delhi. Exactly thirty years ago, almost to the week, Trilokpuri was one of the two most gruesome killing fields in the pogrom of the Sikhs organized by the Congress and its goons after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The other murderous basti, also in East Delhi, was Kalyanpuri.
Kalyanpuri and Trilokpuri have something in common. They are both resettlement colonies created by Mrs Gandhi to house people displaced by the slum ‘clearances’ that the Congress government masterminded during the Emergency under the direction of Jagmohan and Sanjay Gandhi. Many of the Muslims in Trilokpuri were resettled there when the Turkman Gate bastis were violently cleared. As John Dayal and Ajoy Bose wrote in their book, Delhi Under the Emergency, these resettlement colonies weren’t model neighbourhoods with neat plots, drainage, water supply, schools, playgrounds, parks and electricity as Sanjay Gandhi claimed: they were tracts of empty land where people literally bulldozed out of their slums were dumped. The thing to remember about these hardscrabble neighbourhoods is that given their origins, their residents weren’t citizens, they were desperately poor clients dependent on the State and its political operatives for every basic facility and amenity. Nothing was theirs by right; even more than in the rest of India, their lives depended on the vagaries of local politics and their access (or lack of it), to patronage and ‘protection’.
Old urban neighbourhoods where communities have lived adjacently or intermingled over many generations sometimes develop inter-community networks that help their residents negotiate communal flashpoints without violence, as Ashutosh Varshney has shown in his book, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life. But in urban settlements created by bureaucratic fiat as holding pens for Delhi’s poor, life is a Hobbesian zero-sum game where common sense consists of staying on the right side of Leviathan and its grubbing agents.
This dependency, this permanent state of clientage is why the Congress-directed pogrom of 1984 was bloodiest in the resettlement colonies. Contrary to the durable urban myth that riots are engineered by ‘outsiders’, the Sikh residents of Trilokpuri and Kalyanpuri were killed by their neighbours, by people they lived with and recognized. Their killers weren’t inherently evil: their urban circumstance had made them creatures of a vicious State apparatus and they jumped to do its bidding.
Which is why we ought to pay attention to these stirrings in Trilokpuri. The history of communal violence in India demonstrates that it is closely connected with turning points in high politics. In 1937, for example, the Congress came to power in several states in India. In U.P. (then the United Provinces), the Congress government was led by Govind Ballabh Pant and it served for two years, till 1939. This period saw a measurable uptick in communal rioting in the province’s towns and cities. The Muslim League made political capital out of this violence by arguing that the Hindu bias of the Congress government had led to local disputes and rioting.
While Pant’s government was not communally partisan, it was vulnerable to the accusation of bias simply because apart from a couple of ministers, every Congress MLA in U.P. was a Hindu. It was also true that local Hindu notables and organizations felt emboldened by their first experience of a democratically elected government that seemed made up principally of their own kind. This sometimes encouraged local Hindu groups — like Ram Lila committees for example — to assert themselves over procession routes or customary practice in ways they hadn’t done before. And when Hindu and Muslim festivals coincided on the calendar, the ‘right’ to march through a Muslim neighbourhood, or the ‘right’ to play music before mosques, could lead to confrontations that end in rioting and murder.
The violence in Trilokpuri centres on a temporary religious construction called the Mata ki Chowki, built opposite a mosque in early October. The chowki was built for a jagaran but left in place after it was over. Twenty per cent or so of Trilokpuri’s population is made up of Muslims, most of whom live in and around Block 20. Muslims in the neighbourhood interviewed by the Indian Express, complained that after the chowki was established, local Hindu activists pressed Muslims not to sacrifice goats on Eid, which happened to occur close to Diwali this year. Local Hindus in turn accused Muslims of ‘desecrating’ the chowki.
The parallels with the riots that occurred between 1937 and 1939, are striking. The Mata ki Chowki is built right in the heart of the Muslim ghetto in Trilokpuri, next to a mosque. This happens during the first festival season that follows a general election decisively won by the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi, a man seen by friend and foe alike as a Hindu strongman. This isn’t to argue that the BJP is behind the violence. It is to point out that Hindu activists could be testing the waters, testing precedent, testing the limits of the politically possible in the wake of an election that has brought to power ‘their’ sarkar. Like the Congress in U.P. in 1937, the BJP’s parliamentary majority in 2014 reinforces its image as a ‘Hindu’ party; its MPs are overwhelmingly Hindu and not one of them is Muslim.
Unlike the Congress in 1937, which was both rhetorically and substantively pluralist in its politics, the BJP, both historically and under the direction of its current president, Amit Shah, has consistently identified itself as a Hindu nationalist party, happy to consolidate the Hindu vote by ‘othering’ Muslims. The local BJP MP for East Delhi in whose constituency Trilokpuri falls, Maheish Girri, hasn’t wasted any time in specifying who he thinks is at fault. He told the Indian Express, “I called up the SHO asking him to bring the situation under control. However, it worsened when Muslim youth threw something into the area, again triggering stone pelting.”
So, what we are seeing here is local ‘Hindu’ assertion in the form of the Mata ki Chowki, following up on the election of Modi sarkar and in anticipation of possible assembly elections in Delhi, given that the suspension of the present assembly can’t extend beyond January. Three-quarters of Trilokpuri’s population is Dalit. A substantial part of this electorate voted for the winning Aam Aadmi Party candidate the last time round. Given the way the Muzaffarnagar riots led to the consolidation of the Jat vote in the BJP’s favour in the general elections, the communal polarization that invariably follows upon rioting wouldn’t harm the BJP’s chances in the Trilokpuri assembly constituency. There’s reason, therefore, for local Hindu activists to believe that their belligerence has the implicit sanction of the new powers-that-be, even if the BJP has nothing to do with the staging of the confrontation.
Newspapers have begun to report that families, mainly Muslim, have begun leaving the neighbourhoods in anticipation of further trouble. There are the customary complaints of the police singling out Muslim men as responsible for the troubles. One middle-aged Muslim woman, old enough to remember 1984, is haunted by her memories of the scale of the Indira-kaand.
With even-handed policing and political prudence, these fears will blow over and Trilokpuri will return to whatever passed for normalcy before the recent violence. But the BJP, both as a government and as a party, needs to be careful about fishing in troubled waters in Trilokpuri. Delhi’s resettlement colonies aren’t the best places to experiment with ‘controlled’ polarization. These are neighbourhoods debauched by politics, where the lives of residents depend upon how well they read political prevailing winds. The people who built the Mata ki Chowki, who pressed Muslims not to offer qurbani, who led noisy Kanwariya processions through crowded Muslim neighbourhoods, are looking to the various avatars of the State as it manifests itself in Trilokpuri — the police, the local administration, the BJP, Modi sarkar — for a sign. Everyone who lived through 1984 in Delhi and looked into the abyss, will pray that they don’t get one.
Made in India - Violence-torn Trilokpuri is the latest victim of manufactured communal riots (Harsh Mander)
The Hindu, November 1, 2014
Barefoot
Made in India
by Harsh Mander
PTI Brickbats on the streets of Trilokpuri.
Violence-torn Trilokpuri is the latest victim of manufactured communal riots.
In 1984, in a working class slum colony in East Delhi Trilokpuri, more than 300 Sikh men were slaughtered during the frenzy of hate killing that swept India’s capital city. This colony across the Yamuna was first settled with working class refugees from Pakistan after Partition. In 1976, its ranks swelled with households uprooted by Sanjay Gandhi’s slum demolition carnage during the Emergency. Since the 1984 Sikh massacre, this suburb has swelled with working class people from diverse faiths and regions and, like the rest of Delhi, witnessed three decades of communal peace.
However, 30 years later, almost to the day, its crowded settlements are once again in the throes of communal violence, its streets littered with brickbats, its minorities have begun to flee, and children peep from shuttered windows as clusters of policemen stand guard at street-corners to restore brittle peace.
The violence, which racked Trilokpuri, follows a standard template that recurs whenever organisations choose to organise riots for political gains. The first step is to create a context for the conflict. And the most reliable staple of communal riots since the Partition has been to stir a dispute around a place of worship. In Trilokpuri, just across from a local mosque, a mata ki chowki or temporary temple is assembled for the first time, and loud prayers relayed round the clock through a loudspeaker directed towards the mosque. Tempers are further frayed when word spreads that — contrary to tradition — this makeshift temple would not be dismantled after the festival, but converted into a permanent structure.
With communal tempers sufficiently inflamed, the actual flashpoint is created near the temporary temple with a drunken brawl on Diwali night between young men of two communities inebriated with the hooch freely sold in the colony. Word quickly spreads that a Muslim young man had desecrated the chowki, and crowds gather as brickbats begin to fly. Some firing is also reported and, though around 70 people were injured, there was no loss of life.
Meanwhile, more rumours quickly fly, mainly suggesting that the Muslim residents are arming themselves for a large attack. Some shops are burnt. Piles of bricks appear in by-lanes, and large-scale stone pelting on Muslim homes ensues, combined with slogans and taunts. Some Muslims also retaliate. The narrow lanes of the colony are soon littered with brickbats.
This small communal fire could have been firmly and swiftly doused by the local police, with speedy dispersal of rioting crowds and immediate enforcement of curfew. But, as in all manufactured riots, police response was initially muted, allowing violence to continue for two to three days until prohibitory orders and curfew were finally enforced.
We spoke to many local residents who sense a conspiracy behind the violence. Ramesh, a tea stall owner, accused the RSS of instigating the violence. “It is the first time that I have witnessed that during Diwali, idols were placed outside a mosque,” he declared to my colleague Asad Ashraf. “It was intended to create trouble to polarise voters before the forthcoming elections.” Shafaque Khan pointedly asked, “I wonder how come brickbats were made available to the rioters in such a short period of time? Is that not a hint of something?”
Arrests followed but, again true to pattern, three times as many Muslim youth were arrested as Hindu men. The colony soon emptied of its Muslim young men, who fled in fear of further arrests. The image of impartiality of the police was further compromised because members of the ruling party were seen sitting in the police station through the days of the violence, but hapless relatives of the detained Muslim men, mostly women — desperately worried about the fate of their brothers, sons and husbands — were turned away. Those detained were not presented before a magistrate in the prescribed 24 hours and only after peace groups petitioned were they finally produced before a magistrate on Sunday night, three days after the violence had begun. Human rights activists present in the court found that the young men bore unmistakable marks of torture, and subsequently petitioned the National Human Rights Commission.
I return from violence-scarred Trilokpuri with a deep sense of sickness in my soul. The police are now in control of the situation. No doubt, life will start again for the working class residents and elections will be fought and won in a newly polarised electorate, but the bitterness of communal distrust will take a long time to be erased. I worry about how long communal hatred will be deployed as an instrument of political triumph through manufactured violence. How are we so easily able to divide our people at will and spur them into hate violence, people who otherwise left to themselves would live together with peace and amity?
Barefoot
Made in India
by Harsh Mander
PTI Brickbats on the streets of Trilokpuri.
Violence-torn Trilokpuri is the latest victim of manufactured communal riots.
In 1984, in a working class slum colony in East Delhi Trilokpuri, more than 300 Sikh men were slaughtered during the frenzy of hate killing that swept India’s capital city. This colony across the Yamuna was first settled with working class refugees from Pakistan after Partition. In 1976, its ranks swelled with households uprooted by Sanjay Gandhi’s slum demolition carnage during the Emergency. Since the 1984 Sikh massacre, this suburb has swelled with working class people from diverse faiths and regions and, like the rest of Delhi, witnessed three decades of communal peace.
However, 30 years later, almost to the day, its crowded settlements are once again in the throes of communal violence, its streets littered with brickbats, its minorities have begun to flee, and children peep from shuttered windows as clusters of policemen stand guard at street-corners to restore brittle peace.
The violence, which racked Trilokpuri, follows a standard template that recurs whenever organisations choose to organise riots for political gains. The first step is to create a context for the conflict. And the most reliable staple of communal riots since the Partition has been to stir a dispute around a place of worship. In Trilokpuri, just across from a local mosque, a mata ki chowki or temporary temple is assembled for the first time, and loud prayers relayed round the clock through a loudspeaker directed towards the mosque. Tempers are further frayed when word spreads that — contrary to tradition — this makeshift temple would not be dismantled after the festival, but converted into a permanent structure.
With communal tempers sufficiently inflamed, the actual flashpoint is created near the temporary temple with a drunken brawl on Diwali night between young men of two communities inebriated with the hooch freely sold in the colony. Word quickly spreads that a Muslim young man had desecrated the chowki, and crowds gather as brickbats begin to fly. Some firing is also reported and, though around 70 people were injured, there was no loss of life.
Meanwhile, more rumours quickly fly, mainly suggesting that the Muslim residents are arming themselves for a large attack. Some shops are burnt. Piles of bricks appear in by-lanes, and large-scale stone pelting on Muslim homes ensues, combined with slogans and taunts. Some Muslims also retaliate. The narrow lanes of the colony are soon littered with brickbats.
This small communal fire could have been firmly and swiftly doused by the local police, with speedy dispersal of rioting crowds and immediate enforcement of curfew. But, as in all manufactured riots, police response was initially muted, allowing violence to continue for two to three days until prohibitory orders and curfew were finally enforced.
We spoke to many local residents who sense a conspiracy behind the violence. Ramesh, a tea stall owner, accused the RSS of instigating the violence. “It is the first time that I have witnessed that during Diwali, idols were placed outside a mosque,” he declared to my colleague Asad Ashraf. “It was intended to create trouble to polarise voters before the forthcoming elections.” Shafaque Khan pointedly asked, “I wonder how come brickbats were made available to the rioters in such a short period of time? Is that not a hint of something?”
Arrests followed but, again true to pattern, three times as many Muslim youth were arrested as Hindu men. The colony soon emptied of its Muslim young men, who fled in fear of further arrests. The image of impartiality of the police was further compromised because members of the ruling party were seen sitting in the police station through the days of the violence, but hapless relatives of the detained Muslim men, mostly women — desperately worried about the fate of their brothers, sons and husbands — were turned away. Those detained were not presented before a magistrate in the prescribed 24 hours and only after peace groups petitioned were they finally produced before a magistrate on Sunday night, three days after the violence had begun. Human rights activists present in the court found that the young men bore unmistakable marks of torture, and subsequently petitioned the National Human Rights Commission.
I return from violence-scarred Trilokpuri with a deep sense of sickness in my soul. The police are now in control of the situation. No doubt, life will start again for the working class residents and elections will be fought and won in a newly polarised electorate, but the bitterness of communal distrust will take a long time to be erased. I worry about how long communal hatred will be deployed as an instrument of political triumph through manufactured violence. How are we so easily able to divide our people at will and spur them into hate violence, people who otherwise left to themselves would live together with peace and amity?
Text of Statement on Recent Disturbances in Trilokpuri by People's Alliance for Democracy and Secularism
STATEMENT ON THE RECENT COMMUNAL DISTURBANCES IN TRILOKPURI
BY
PEOPLE'S ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SECULARISM
NOVEMBER 2, 2014
(Members of P.A.D.S. have been interacting with and visiting residents of Trilokpuri ever since the communal disturbances started on Oct 23. Along with many other citizens we are involved in efforts to re-establish peace and in providing legal aid to those wrongfully arrested. This statement is based on our experiences.)
The inhabitants of Trilokpuri, a densely populated neighbourhood of working people in Delhi, went through a harrowing week after Diwali night on 23 October. A brawl around two places of worship that night proved to be the first event. Although the situation appears to have settled down that night, some motivated planning and mobilisation must have taken place that night itself, because the next day it was a full scale communal clash. Armed mobs from outside the locality are reported to have joined the rioting that involved brick throwing. Firearms were also used and two boys suffered critical bullet injuries. Inhabitants are emphatic that the police fired into the crowd. The police first denied firing at all. Its latest claim is that it fired only in self defense. One apparel show room owned by a Muslim resident was gutted. Police intervened in force only two days after the clashes started. It turned the neighbourhood into an occupied war-zone. More than fifty men and minor boys were arrested randomly, many picked up forcibly from their houses amid verbal abuse and physical violence. Road intersections were barricaded and entry and exit points were closely monitored. Drones were used in surveillance and houses systematically searched. Essential supplies were in short supply. Daily wage earners, contract workers, and self employed who could not go out lost their source of livelihood. Seriously wounded and ill had no access to medical aid. While the entire neighbourhood suffered in one form or another, inhabitants of three blocks in particular, nos 15, 27 and 28, and attached jhuggi clusters, mainly occupied by citizens who are Muslims bore the brunt of police action.
All this happened at a distance of less than ten kilometers as the crow flies from the center of state power in India's capital. National elections five months ago were won by Mr Narendra Modi who projected a 'strong man' image and promised that he would provide 'achhe din' of decisive and effective governance. In reality, the face of the Indian state in Trilokpuri these days is ugly. First, institutions of the state, its police, bureaucracy, and all political parties associated with it failed to prevent a localised scuffle from flaring into a violent riot. And second, when the state did show up, only its authoritarian jack boots were seen on the ground. It further terrorised people already battered by rioting and public violence. It did not take any steps to initiate dialogue between affected communities, and provided no relief or medical aid. Its social institutions like schools, anganwadis, health centers, or the police organised peace committee, etc. simply collapsed. Three fourths of the arrested people are Muslim citizens. Some of them are migrant workers. Arrested people were abused and beaten up while in police lock up. Many of them had visible injuries when presented in front of a Magistrate in the Karkardooma court on 26th October. They were not provided any medical aid or food for nearly two days.
The Trilokpuri neighbourhood has a traumatic past. It was established in the mid seventies of the last century during Emergency. It is a so-called resettlement colony, in which people forcibly displaced from inner city were settled and given land titles. The displacement and settlement process was often violent. The most gruesome massacres of Sikh citizens in Delhi in 1984 took place in Trilokpuri and neighbouring Kalyanpuri. Despite the fast economic growth and massive urbanization in the past two decades in India, settlement patterns in cities continue to be segregated by religion. Most of Trilokpuri is inhabited by Balmikis, a scheduled caste, classified as untouchables in the orthodox Hindu varna order. After the Sikhs migrated out, Muslims are the other community, who are concentrated mainly to three out of thirty blocks. Recent migrants in search of work form a significant part of the population. They are also settling along community lines. The twenty five square yard plots originally alloted have now risen to three-four storey pucca structures, providing a decent rental income to original owners. There are also occasional cars parked in narrow streets. The little prosperity that has trickled into this neighbourhood has however not brought secure peace. Residents often complain of brawls and other forms of every day violence. The area reportedly also suffers from petty crime syndicates operating under police protection. Nevertheless, for thirty years since 1984, the neighbourhood escaped communal violence. Even the weeks following demolition of Babri mosque in 1992 passed peacefully.
Recent events in Trilokpuri reveal the character of Indian society and state that do not portend well at all. All experiments in Fascism, that involved selective violence against minorities to consolidate a nation, have relied upon mass support. The India of 2014 can not be said to be impervious to such schemes. The political success of BJP in the national elections has emboldened Hindutva elements to openly target religious minorities and mobilise aggressively around sectarian demands. The ex-MLA from the BJP is reported to be part of the communal organising in Trilokpuri. Communal polarisation is proving to be a successful electoral strategy for the BJP. It is exploiting economic, political, gender and caste anxieties in a fast changing society which has not developed a strong popular democratic consciousness. The tragedy of politics at the moment in India is that none of the competitors of the BJP have a clue about how to counter its dangerous mix of religion and politics with a leader enjoying mass support. The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi had succeeded in getting the support of Muslim and Dalit voters in the last assembly elections and currently holds the Trilokpuri seat, but it is afraid to come out publicly against communal violence lest it disturbs its electoral calculations. Congress is in severe decline and absent from the scene. No mainstream political party in India has had the wisdom and ideological clarity to realise that treating society in terms of the majority- minority framework actually validates communal agenda, and that the counter to communalisation of politics is an unequivocal assertion of citizenship rights of every one.
It is also obvious that the Indian state, while seemingly democratic in some aspects, is also undemocratic in some fundamental ways. It does not consider the protection of democratic rights of its citizens as its prime responsibility. It regularly attacks rights of the poor and socially marginal, which at present also include religious minorities. Indian state still follows the colonial authoritarian policy of treating moments of deep social strife like riots as a 'law and order' issue, and its first action is to enforce its brutal authority over people, rather than help the victims. Further, over time the Indian state institutions have been communalised. None of the victims of communal riots in India, including the most gruesome ones, of 1984 in Delhi, 1992-3 in Mumbai and 2002 in Gujarat have received justice. Commission after commission on riots in India have found the police and administration to be authoritarian and partisan. Yet, if nothing has changed, there obviously are powerful social and political forces that wish to use this character of Indian state for their own ends.
The social ideological environment of neoliberalism has encouraged religiosity and public assertion of religious identities, while weakening mass based mobilisations against oppression and exploitation. This is happening in all communities. Right wing political forces claiming to represent specific religious communities are using the opportunity to develop new kinds of aggressive religious practices that lead to social strife and communalise the society. This is a new challenge which democratic and secular forces have to contend with. Barring a few exceptions, the media in the capital has played a partisan role during recent developments in Trilokpuri. English language newspapers and TV channels that cater essentially to consumerist aspirations of urban propertied and professionals have spread the police version of rioting, which blames Muslim residents of the neighbourhood. They are more interested in sustaining a consumerist utopia unencumbered by social disturbances, rather showing the sufferings of the marginal and the physical abuse of people arrested by the police. Many residents of Trilokpuri work as maids, drivers, security guards and provide other services to the upper middle class residents of neighbouring Mayur Vihar. Yet life in the latter went on as usual.
P.A.D.S. appeals to the citizens of Delhi to disregard aggressive sectarian demands, provocations and rumours by communal forces and defeat their plans to communalise society. Secularism of the state and society is necessary for everyone, believers of different religions and non-believers, to lead a peaceful life without discrimination and persecution. Before succumbing to calls for their so-called 'community' interests all citizens should ponder over what kind of society they wish to live in. The one based on hatred, religious discrimination, national chauvinism, or the one which is inclusive and respects citizenship rights of everyone. We appeal to the working people of the city, who constitute the overwhelming majority of its population, to organise and fight together against their economic exploitation, caste oppression, price rise, police extortion, and deplorable condition of public services like hospitals, schools, and transport, rather than against each other.
P.A.D.S. demands following from Delhi state administration.
All administrative and police officials who failed in their duty to prevent rioting, made random and wrongful arrests, and physically abused citizens should be punished.
All residents who suffered physical injury, mental trauma, wrongful arrest and loss of livelihood and property during riots and subsequent police occupation of the neighbourhood should be adequately compensated.
All citizens arrested should be granted immediate bail. Cases against those arrested wrongfully withdrawn immediately, and other cases settled expeditiously so that arrested people and their families can lead a normal life as soon as possible.
A judicial commission of inquiry should be constituted immediately to find out culpability of state administration, and of the political leadership of any party in fanning the communal violence.
The 'official' peace committee established by the police has proved completely ineffective. It should be revamped and representatives of the organisations working in the area should be included in it. Its meetings should be held regularly and publicly.
Many areas in Delhi are potential flash points for communal violence. There are many reports of aggressive sectarian demands made by 'panchayats' and 'mahapanchayats'. All those making illegal demands and spreading false propaganda about others should be dealt with firmly, so that citizens of other parts of the city do not suffer what Trilokpuri residents are going through.
BY
PEOPLE'S ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SECULARISM
NOVEMBER 2, 2014
(Members of P.A.D.S. have been interacting with and visiting residents of Trilokpuri ever since the communal disturbances started on Oct 23. Along with many other citizens we are involved in efforts to re-establish peace and in providing legal aid to those wrongfully arrested. This statement is based on our experiences.)
The inhabitants of Trilokpuri, a densely populated neighbourhood of working people in Delhi, went through a harrowing week after Diwali night on 23 October. A brawl around two places of worship that night proved to be the first event. Although the situation appears to have settled down that night, some motivated planning and mobilisation must have taken place that night itself, because the next day it was a full scale communal clash. Armed mobs from outside the locality are reported to have joined the rioting that involved brick throwing. Firearms were also used and two boys suffered critical bullet injuries. Inhabitants are emphatic that the police fired into the crowd. The police first denied firing at all. Its latest claim is that it fired only in self defense. One apparel show room owned by a Muslim resident was gutted. Police intervened in force only two days after the clashes started. It turned the neighbourhood into an occupied war-zone. More than fifty men and minor boys were arrested randomly, many picked up forcibly from their houses amid verbal abuse and physical violence. Road intersections were barricaded and entry and exit points were closely monitored. Drones were used in surveillance and houses systematically searched. Essential supplies were in short supply. Daily wage earners, contract workers, and self employed who could not go out lost their source of livelihood. Seriously wounded and ill had no access to medical aid. While the entire neighbourhood suffered in one form or another, inhabitants of three blocks in particular, nos 15, 27 and 28, and attached jhuggi clusters, mainly occupied by citizens who are Muslims bore the brunt of police action.
All this happened at a distance of less than ten kilometers as the crow flies from the center of state power in India's capital. National elections five months ago were won by Mr Narendra Modi who projected a 'strong man' image and promised that he would provide 'achhe din' of decisive and effective governance. In reality, the face of the Indian state in Trilokpuri these days is ugly. First, institutions of the state, its police, bureaucracy, and all political parties associated with it failed to prevent a localised scuffle from flaring into a violent riot. And second, when the state did show up, only its authoritarian jack boots were seen on the ground. It further terrorised people already battered by rioting and public violence. It did not take any steps to initiate dialogue between affected communities, and provided no relief or medical aid. Its social institutions like schools, anganwadis, health centers, or the police organised peace committee, etc. simply collapsed. Three fourths of the arrested people are Muslim citizens. Some of them are migrant workers. Arrested people were abused and beaten up while in police lock up. Many of them had visible injuries when presented in front of a Magistrate in the Karkardooma court on 26th October. They were not provided any medical aid or food for nearly two days.
The Trilokpuri neighbourhood has a traumatic past. It was established in the mid seventies of the last century during Emergency. It is a so-called resettlement colony, in which people forcibly displaced from inner city were settled and given land titles. The displacement and settlement process was often violent. The most gruesome massacres of Sikh citizens in Delhi in 1984 took place in Trilokpuri and neighbouring Kalyanpuri. Despite the fast economic growth and massive urbanization in the past two decades in India, settlement patterns in cities continue to be segregated by religion. Most of Trilokpuri is inhabited by Balmikis, a scheduled caste, classified as untouchables in the orthodox Hindu varna order. After the Sikhs migrated out, Muslims are the other community, who are concentrated mainly to three out of thirty blocks. Recent migrants in search of work form a significant part of the population. They are also settling along community lines. The twenty five square yard plots originally alloted have now risen to three-four storey pucca structures, providing a decent rental income to original owners. There are also occasional cars parked in narrow streets. The little prosperity that has trickled into this neighbourhood has however not brought secure peace. Residents often complain of brawls and other forms of every day violence. The area reportedly also suffers from petty crime syndicates operating under police protection. Nevertheless, for thirty years since 1984, the neighbourhood escaped communal violence. Even the weeks following demolition of Babri mosque in 1992 passed peacefully.
Recent events in Trilokpuri reveal the character of Indian society and state that do not portend well at all. All experiments in Fascism, that involved selective violence against minorities to consolidate a nation, have relied upon mass support. The India of 2014 can not be said to be impervious to such schemes. The political success of BJP in the national elections has emboldened Hindutva elements to openly target religious minorities and mobilise aggressively around sectarian demands. The ex-MLA from the BJP is reported to be part of the communal organising in Trilokpuri. Communal polarisation is proving to be a successful electoral strategy for the BJP. It is exploiting economic, political, gender and caste anxieties in a fast changing society which has not developed a strong popular democratic consciousness. The tragedy of politics at the moment in India is that none of the competitors of the BJP have a clue about how to counter its dangerous mix of religion and politics with a leader enjoying mass support. The Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi had succeeded in getting the support of Muslim and Dalit voters in the last assembly elections and currently holds the Trilokpuri seat, but it is afraid to come out publicly against communal violence lest it disturbs its electoral calculations. Congress is in severe decline and absent from the scene. No mainstream political party in India has had the wisdom and ideological clarity to realise that treating society in terms of the majority- minority framework actually validates communal agenda, and that the counter to communalisation of politics is an unequivocal assertion of citizenship rights of every one.
It is also obvious that the Indian state, while seemingly democratic in some aspects, is also undemocratic in some fundamental ways. It does not consider the protection of democratic rights of its citizens as its prime responsibility. It regularly attacks rights of the poor and socially marginal, which at present also include religious minorities. Indian state still follows the colonial authoritarian policy of treating moments of deep social strife like riots as a 'law and order' issue, and its first action is to enforce its brutal authority over people, rather than help the victims. Further, over time the Indian state institutions have been communalised. None of the victims of communal riots in India, including the most gruesome ones, of 1984 in Delhi, 1992-3 in Mumbai and 2002 in Gujarat have received justice. Commission after commission on riots in India have found the police and administration to be authoritarian and partisan. Yet, if nothing has changed, there obviously are powerful social and political forces that wish to use this character of Indian state for their own ends.
The social ideological environment of neoliberalism has encouraged religiosity and public assertion of religious identities, while weakening mass based mobilisations against oppression and exploitation. This is happening in all communities. Right wing political forces claiming to represent specific religious communities are using the opportunity to develop new kinds of aggressive religious practices that lead to social strife and communalise the society. This is a new challenge which democratic and secular forces have to contend with. Barring a few exceptions, the media in the capital has played a partisan role during recent developments in Trilokpuri. English language newspapers and TV channels that cater essentially to consumerist aspirations of urban propertied and professionals have spread the police version of rioting, which blames Muslim residents of the neighbourhood. They are more interested in sustaining a consumerist utopia unencumbered by social disturbances, rather showing the sufferings of the marginal and the physical abuse of people arrested by the police. Many residents of Trilokpuri work as maids, drivers, security guards and provide other services to the upper middle class residents of neighbouring Mayur Vihar. Yet life in the latter went on as usual.
P.A.D.S. appeals to the citizens of Delhi to disregard aggressive sectarian demands, provocations and rumours by communal forces and defeat their plans to communalise society. Secularism of the state and society is necessary for everyone, believers of different religions and non-believers, to lead a peaceful life without discrimination and persecution. Before succumbing to calls for their so-called 'community' interests all citizens should ponder over what kind of society they wish to live in. The one based on hatred, religious discrimination, national chauvinism, or the one which is inclusive and respects citizenship rights of everyone. We appeal to the working people of the city, who constitute the overwhelming majority of its population, to organise and fight together against their economic exploitation, caste oppression, price rise, police extortion, and deplorable condition of public services like hospitals, schools, and transport, rather than against each other.
P.A.D.S. demands following from Delhi state administration.
All administrative and police officials who failed in their duty to prevent rioting, made random and wrongful arrests, and physically abused citizens should be punished.
All residents who suffered physical injury, mental trauma, wrongful arrest and loss of livelihood and property during riots and subsequent police occupation of the neighbourhood should be adequately compensated.
All citizens arrested should be granted immediate bail. Cases against those arrested wrongfully withdrawn immediately, and other cases settled expeditiously so that arrested people and their families can lead a normal life as soon as possible.
A judicial commission of inquiry should be constituted immediately to find out culpability of state administration, and of the political leadership of any party in fanning the communal violence.
The 'official' peace committee established by the police has proved completely ineffective. It should be revamped and representatives of the organisations working in the area should be included in it. Its meetings should be held regularly and publicly.
Many areas in Delhi are potential flash points for communal violence. There are many reports of aggressive sectarian demands made by 'panchayats' and 'mahapanchayats'. All those making illegal demands and spreading false propaganda about others should be dealt with firmly, so that citizens of other parts of the city do not suffer what Trilokpuri residents are going through.
November 01, 2014
Makeshift temple removed from Trilokpuri - Over 1,000 riot police and almost 30 police vans and water cannons were deputed for the Mata ki Chowki
Makeshift temple removed from Trilokpuri
Kritika Sharma
The makeshift temple or Mata ki Chowki in Trilokpuri, where the trouble first started, was removed on Saturday.
The Delhi Police said that the locals agreed to remove the structure after they organised a jagran there on Friday, followed by a feast on Saturday morning. “The structure was removed after a four-hour jagran – a night prayer on Friday night. Over 1,000 riot police and almost 30 police vans and water cannons were deputed in the 36 blocks of Trilokpuri for the function,” said a police officer.
Meanwhile, prohibitory orders were relaxed for 13 hours in the area and people were able to move freely. The security in the area continues to be tight.
In a bid to ward off any further trouble, the police also organised a community meeting between the Hindus and Muslims in the wake of a Muharram procession on Tuesday. “Security will be maintained in the area for the entire month of Muharram. Though we are assuming that the situation will be better after Tuesday,” the police officer added.
source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/makeshift-temple-removed-from-trilokpuri/article6556258.ece?homepage=true
Kritika Sharma
The makeshift temple or Mata ki Chowki in Trilokpuri, where the trouble first started, was removed on Saturday.
The Delhi Police said that the locals agreed to remove the structure after they organised a jagran there on Friday, followed by a feast on Saturday morning. “The structure was removed after a four-hour jagran – a night prayer on Friday night. Over 1,000 riot police and almost 30 police vans and water cannons were deputed in the 36 blocks of Trilokpuri for the function,” said a police officer.
Meanwhile, prohibitory orders were relaxed for 13 hours in the area and people were able to move freely. The security in the area continues to be tight.
In a bid to ward off any further trouble, the police also organised a community meeting between the Hindus and Muslims in the wake of a Muharram procession on Tuesday. “Security will be maintained in the area for the entire month of Muharram. Though we are assuming that the situation will be better after Tuesday,” the police officer added.
source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/makeshift-temple-removed-from-trilokpuri/article6556258.ece?homepage=true
October 31, 2014
[India - Violence in Trilokpuri, Delhi] Minu Jain on Prism of intolerance
http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-prism-of-intolerance-2030713
Prism of intolerance
Friday, 31 October 2014 - 5:00am IST Updated: Thursday, 30 October 2014 - 9:15pm IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
Minu Jain
1984-2014: It's the same stage,Trilokpuri, only the characters are different this time
There are few comparisons on the face of it. One a revengeful pogrom that saw scores of unsuspecting Sikhs being pulled out of their homes and slaughtered on the streets, right in front of their mothers, wives and sisters. And the other a communal ‘clash’ 30 years on that saw shops gutted, frenzied stone pelting and many injured, some seriously. But the twin echoes of intolerance and impunity in Trilokpuri ring just as loud as they did in 1984 — stretching thin the fabric of oneness so tenuously woven together over the years.
The scruffy east Delhi locality of narrow lanes and cheek-by-jowl houses that scream aloud the daily livelihood struggles of its residents is once again in the news. For riots that broke out just before Diwali and for the clouds of distrust that hang heavy over its volatile bylanes. And that its residents once again cower in uncertainty, three decades to the day after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 led to an estimated 3,000 Sikhs being killed in the national capital, can only be irony of the most savage kind.
Trilokpuri — amongst the resettlement colonies set up during Emergency by Indira Gandhi where slum dwellers were forcibly moved to after their homes elsewhere in the city were demolished — became perhaps the bloodiest chapter of that terrible autumn of 1984 when Sikhs were targeted not just in New Delhi but also in towns like Kanpur to avenge the assassination of the Prime Minister by her Sikh bodyguards.
More than 320 Sikhs were killed in Block 32 of Trilokpuri alone. “It was just like some place where you slaughter animals except in this case they slaughtered the Sikhs -- 320 of them in these two very, very narrow lanes. There was hair lying all over the place, there was blood, there were fingers, arms, legs and heads,” senior journalist Rahul Bedi, one of the first journalists to enter Trilokpuri on the evening of November 1, 1984, wrote on the 25th anniversary of the massacre.
Words that chill, a descriptive that shakes the very fundamentals of humanity and humaneness. But this is not about Trilokpuri alone, of course. The flashback into the past – prompted by the eerie coincidence of a 30-year anniversary of the worst sectarian violence since Partition and an outbreak of communal tension in the very same lanes at the exact same time – is also a mirror to the present India of polarisation and continuing governmental negligence in prosecuting the guilty.
In their meticulously documented report, Who Are The Guilty, the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) had said at the time that the murderous attacks on the Sikh community in Delhi and its suburbs “far from being a spontaneous expression of ‘madness’ and of popular ‘grief and anger’ at Mrs. Gandhi's assassination as made out to be by the authorities, were the outcome of a well organised plan marked by acts of both deliberate commissions and omissions by important politicians of the Congress (I) at the top and by authorities in the administration”.
In the decades since, there has been little justice for the victims of the carnage. Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, estimates that the total number of convictions for the main charge of murder is “no more than 30 in a dozen cases”. He has also pointed out that Parliament is yet to pass a resolution on the carnage!
Add to this the fact that Congress leaders like Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler still walk free despite allegations and eyewitness accounts that they actively incited the rioters and the picture of impunity and indeed, insouciance, to a mass tragedy is pretty much complete. The story of other riots in the country has been tragically similar with the guilty most often getting away with murder.
And it is in the otherwise nondescript Trilokpuri that the past and the present have segued together seamlessly, its urban sprawl just one of the playing grounds of polarised politics in communal times.
For Charanjeet Singh, one of the 10 families left behind in Trilokpuri from then, it was like a cruel joke being replayed. He was just a teenager then but the memories are vivid. Then too, the 45-year-old shopkeeper told a reporter, they had been confined to their homes and it was the same now. Part of an aspirational India looking to move ahead to a prosperous tomorrow, Charanjeet Singh must wonder at the twist of fate that saw his neighbourhood return as the centre of a communal cauldron.
There are several theories on how the violence broke out. A mata ki chowki that had come near a mosque seems to have sparked tensions between Muslims in the locality and the predominantly Valmiki Hindus. Be it a drunken brawl, as some reports suggest, deliberate desecration or tensions that had been building up since Eid when some Muslims were asked not to sacrifice animals… it really doesn’t matter.
What matters is how dangerously on the edge a society can be, how easily a neighbour can turn on another with murderous intent, destroying in an instant the years of amity, however fragile, forged through common circumstance. That is what happened in 1984 and that’s what happened now.
The police used drones and found houses that had stocked bricks, bottles and other missiles. In the days of prohibitory orders and curfew that followed, Muslims stayed inside and so did Hindus, staying away from each other and coming out warily to stock up on essentials. The ghettoisation of a neighbourhood, in the works for years perhaps, seemed complete.
Urging the National Commission of Minorities to intervene, a group of lawyers documented police atrocities and said a “disproportionately higher number of Muslims have been arrested and brutally assaulted by the police”.
While Muslim women, particularly in areas where there are fewer Muslim houses, are apprehensive of sexual violence, those Hindus who came forward to help their Muslim neighbours are also vulnerable.
Who is the custodian of their safety? The question still hangs in the air, as it does each time clashes break out, each incident further straining the bonds of a secular, syncretic India.
The author is consulting editor, dna
Prism of intolerance
Friday, 31 October 2014 - 5:00am IST Updated: Thursday, 30 October 2014 - 9:15pm IST | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
Minu Jain
1984-2014: It's the same stage,Trilokpuri, only the characters are different this time
There are few comparisons on the face of it. One a revengeful pogrom that saw scores of unsuspecting Sikhs being pulled out of their homes and slaughtered on the streets, right in front of their mothers, wives and sisters. And the other a communal ‘clash’ 30 years on that saw shops gutted, frenzied stone pelting and many injured, some seriously. But the twin echoes of intolerance and impunity in Trilokpuri ring just as loud as they did in 1984 — stretching thin the fabric of oneness so tenuously woven together over the years.
The scruffy east Delhi locality of narrow lanes and cheek-by-jowl houses that scream aloud the daily livelihood struggles of its residents is once again in the news. For riots that broke out just before Diwali and for the clouds of distrust that hang heavy over its volatile bylanes. And that its residents once again cower in uncertainty, three decades to the day after the assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 led to an estimated 3,000 Sikhs being killed in the national capital, can only be irony of the most savage kind.
Trilokpuri — amongst the resettlement colonies set up during Emergency by Indira Gandhi where slum dwellers were forcibly moved to after their homes elsewhere in the city were demolished — became perhaps the bloodiest chapter of that terrible autumn of 1984 when Sikhs were targeted not just in New Delhi but also in towns like Kanpur to avenge the assassination of the Prime Minister by her Sikh bodyguards.
More than 320 Sikhs were killed in Block 32 of Trilokpuri alone. “It was just like some place where you slaughter animals except in this case they slaughtered the Sikhs -- 320 of them in these two very, very narrow lanes. There was hair lying all over the place, there was blood, there were fingers, arms, legs and heads,” senior journalist Rahul Bedi, one of the first journalists to enter Trilokpuri on the evening of November 1, 1984, wrote on the 25th anniversary of the massacre.
Words that chill, a descriptive that shakes the very fundamentals of humanity and humaneness. But this is not about Trilokpuri alone, of course. The flashback into the past – prompted by the eerie coincidence of a 30-year anniversary of the worst sectarian violence since Partition and an outbreak of communal tension in the very same lanes at the exact same time – is also a mirror to the present India of polarisation and continuing governmental negligence in prosecuting the guilty.
In their meticulously documented report, Who Are The Guilty, the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) had said at the time that the murderous attacks on the Sikh community in Delhi and its suburbs “far from being a spontaneous expression of ‘madness’ and of popular ‘grief and anger’ at Mrs. Gandhi's assassination as made out to be by the authorities, were the outcome of a well organised plan marked by acts of both deliberate commissions and omissions by important politicians of the Congress (I) at the top and by authorities in the administration”.
In the decades since, there has been little justice for the victims of the carnage. Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, estimates that the total number of convictions for the main charge of murder is “no more than 30 in a dozen cases”. He has also pointed out that Parliament is yet to pass a resolution on the carnage!
Add to this the fact that Congress leaders like Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler still walk free despite allegations and eyewitness accounts that they actively incited the rioters and the picture of impunity and indeed, insouciance, to a mass tragedy is pretty much complete. The story of other riots in the country has been tragically similar with the guilty most often getting away with murder.
And it is in the otherwise nondescript Trilokpuri that the past and the present have segued together seamlessly, its urban sprawl just one of the playing grounds of polarised politics in communal times.
For Charanjeet Singh, one of the 10 families left behind in Trilokpuri from then, it was like a cruel joke being replayed. He was just a teenager then but the memories are vivid. Then too, the 45-year-old shopkeeper told a reporter, they had been confined to their homes and it was the same now. Part of an aspirational India looking to move ahead to a prosperous tomorrow, Charanjeet Singh must wonder at the twist of fate that saw his neighbourhood return as the centre of a communal cauldron.
There are several theories on how the violence broke out. A mata ki chowki that had come near a mosque seems to have sparked tensions between Muslims in the locality and the predominantly Valmiki Hindus. Be it a drunken brawl, as some reports suggest, deliberate desecration or tensions that had been building up since Eid when some Muslims were asked not to sacrifice animals… it really doesn’t matter.
What matters is how dangerously on the edge a society can be, how easily a neighbour can turn on another with murderous intent, destroying in an instant the years of amity, however fragile, forged through common circumstance. That is what happened in 1984 and that’s what happened now.
The police used drones and found houses that had stocked bricks, bottles and other missiles. In the days of prohibitory orders and curfew that followed, Muslims stayed inside and so did Hindus, staying away from each other and coming out warily to stock up on essentials. The ghettoisation of a neighbourhood, in the works for years perhaps, seemed complete.
Urging the National Commission of Minorities to intervene, a group of lawyers documented police atrocities and said a “disproportionately higher number of Muslims have been arrested and brutally assaulted by the police”.
While Muslim women, particularly in areas where there are fewer Muslim houses, are apprehensive of sexual violence, those Hindus who came forward to help their Muslim neighbours are also vulnerable.
Who is the custodian of their safety? The question still hangs in the air, as it does each time clashes break out, each incident further straining the bonds of a secular, syncretic India.
The author is consulting editor, dna
October 29, 2014
India: Who Failed Trilokpuri ?
Indian Express - 29 October 2014
[editorial] Who failed Trilokpuri?
Express News Service
Who lit the communal fire in Trilokpuri, a Delhi neighbourhood, which can be reached in half an hour by road from Parliament? The fire raged for three days. Three teenagers were critically injured when mobs shot at each other over the Diwali weekend, straining communal relations in this working-class locality precariously. A few miscreants have been arrested but the Centre — Delhi police is under the Union home ministry — owes the people an explanation. How is it that the officials failed to prevent the violence when there were signs of communal unrest visible in the area for over a month?
Trilokpuri has been here before. Mobs killed over 300 people in the locality during the anti-Sikh violence of 1984. Then, too, the police didn’t act and three decades later, the scars of that shameful state failure have still to fade. Riots are not entirely spontaneous or autonomous events. Often, what seem to be isolated conflagrations draw upon building tensions and insecurities that a disconnected politics may have turned a blind eye to, or worse, that a motivated political agenda may have stoked and instigated. The mob takes control of the street when all political and institutional checks fail. By all accounts, the rioters in Trilokpuri were mostly local residents driven by rumours and fear. An alert and independent police force could have ensured that trouble-makers did not get to control the information flow.
In his Independence Day address from the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for a 10-year moratorium on caste and communal violence. But that exhortation calls, first, for a more sensitive and responsive politics and then a firm and vigilant state. The plotters and executors of the violence in Trilokpuri must be brought to justice but officials should also ensure that community elders talk and allay insecurities between religious groups. Mohalla committees could be set up to ensure that petty fights do not flare into communal conflict in the future. At stake is the people’s faith and trust in the Modi government’s promise of a more forward looking and development-centric politics.
See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/who-failed-trilokpuri/
[editorial] Who failed Trilokpuri?
Express News Service
Who lit the communal fire in Trilokpuri, a Delhi neighbourhood, which can be reached in half an hour by road from Parliament? The fire raged for three days. Three teenagers were critically injured when mobs shot at each other over the Diwali weekend, straining communal relations in this working-class locality precariously. A few miscreants have been arrested but the Centre — Delhi police is under the Union home ministry — owes the people an explanation. How is it that the officials failed to prevent the violence when there were signs of communal unrest visible in the area for over a month?
Trilokpuri has been here before. Mobs killed over 300 people in the locality during the anti-Sikh violence of 1984. Then, too, the police didn’t act and three decades later, the scars of that shameful state failure have still to fade. Riots are not entirely spontaneous or autonomous events. Often, what seem to be isolated conflagrations draw upon building tensions and insecurities that a disconnected politics may have turned a blind eye to, or worse, that a motivated political agenda may have stoked and instigated. The mob takes control of the street when all political and institutional checks fail. By all accounts, the rioters in Trilokpuri were mostly local residents driven by rumours and fear. An alert and independent police force could have ensured that trouble-makers did not get to control the information flow.
In his Independence Day address from the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called for a 10-year moratorium on caste and communal violence. But that exhortation calls, first, for a more sensitive and responsive politics and then a firm and vigilant state. The plotters and executors of the violence in Trilokpuri must be brought to justice but officials should also ensure that community elders talk and allay insecurities between religious groups. Mohalla committees could be set up to ensure that petty fights do not flare into communal conflict in the future. At stake is the people’s faith and trust in the Modi government’s promise of a more forward looking and development-centric politics.
See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/who-failed-trilokpuri/
India: NDTV report on Trilokpuri - प्राइम टाइम : त्रिलोकपुरी दंगों का क्या है सच?
प्राइम टाइम : त्रिलोकपुरी दंगों का क्या है सच?
Published On: October 27, 2014 | Duration: 46 min, 25 sec
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/prime-time/prime-time-truth-behind-trilokpuri-violence/342895?hphin
Published On: October 27, 2014 | Duration: 46 min, 25 sec
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/prime-time/prime-time-truth-behind-trilokpuri-violence/342895?hphin
October 28, 2014
India: Toilets, temples and the Trilokpuri riots (Aman Sethi)
Business Standard - October 27, 2014
Toilets, temples and the Trilokpuri riots
Aman Sethi | New Delhi
Four days after a scuffle between intoxicated young men on Diwali night in Trilokpuri's Block 20 spiralled into a diffused communal riot that resulted in scores of injuries, dozens of arrests, and the incineration of at least one Muslim-owned shop, the violence appears to have abated but tension and suspicion persist.
Over the weekend, many Muslim women and children fled this east Delhi settlement in fear; even as Hindu residents have read this flight as a sign that their Muslim neighbours are planning an attack. "My wife and children are at my relative's house," said Mohammed Akram, an electrician in Block 27, "The Hindus can attack at any time; the police are on their side."
"The Muslims have sent away their children and wives," said Surinder Singh, a resident of Block 20, "It is clear they will attack the moment the police are withdrawn."
Orders prohibiting the assembly of crowds are in force, markets remain shut, and policemen continue to patrol the streets of this working class residential colony barely 30 minutes from the heart of the national capital.
The unrest is the most recent instance of a communal clash in the increasingly restive Delhi-West Uttar Pradesh belt. The immediate trigger - a brawl at a roadside shrine - is reminiscent of many a riot, but behind the all the shouting lies a tale of temples, toilets and Trilokpuri's chequered history.
Trilokpuri was settled in 1976, when thousands were evicted from slums across south and central Delhi and resettled across 36 blocks. "Every block had about 500 houses, and space set aside for a central park, six smaller parks and two sets of common toilets and dustbins," said Shakil Raza, a resident, "Each block also has temples and mosques depending on the population."
The religious composition of the slums was replicated in Trilokpuri; five of which - 15, 20, 27, 32 and 36 - have significant Muslim populations, while the remaining blocks are largely dominated by Dalits. Block 32 was a Sikh block until the October of 1984, when many Sikh families either fled or died in the course of the horrific anti-Sikh riots that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination on October 31 that year.
Memories of 1984 were perceptible in Trilokpuri this weekend, except coloured by 30 years of Hindutva politics. "Muslims are attacking us just like in 1984," said Surinder Singh, in contradiction of documented evidence by Sikh groups that the Sikhs were killed by Hindu mobs allegedly led by prominent Congressmen. The 'Butcher of Trilokpuri', Kishore Lal, a Hindu, was convicted for murdering eight Sikhs. "The Hindus and Sikhs are the same religion."
A few years ago, the municipal authorities finally laid out a proper sewage system in the settlement and the public toilets were demolished, leaving behind unclaimed vacant spaces that were used for community functions.
In September this year, a section of the Hindu residents of Block 20 in Trilokpuri decided to set up a Mata-ki-chowki, a temporary roadside shrine, in the space vacated by the toilets.
"A public dustbin had been installed in the vacant spot and the Muslims used to park all their vehicles there. At Eid, they would sacrifice animals," said Sujata Naidu, a Block 20 resident, "We removed the dustbin and put up the chowki to keep the place clean."
Naidu said Sunil Vaidya, the Bharatiya Janata Party's former MLA from Trilokpuri, had encouraged them to set up the chowki, a stone's throw from the local mosque, and assured them of his support in getting permissions from authorities. The chowki was supposed to stand for 40 days till October 31.
On Diwali night, Naidu and her younger brother Deepu, said they spotted a group of men drinking in the area.
"When I told them they couldn't drink near the chowki, they hit me and cut my scalp," Deepu said, claiming that at least some of the men were Muslims, "They then ran towards the mosque and started stoning the chowki." In the ensuing confusion, Naidu said, the donation box placed before the idols was stolen.
"This is a fight between foolish young men, which has been turned into a religious conflagration," said Haji Abrar, a Muslim community elder in Block 20, who said the fight began between a group of Hindu and Muslim boys who were drinking together, "The Hindus near the dustbin have poured a lot of money into building new homes, and now they want to remove the dustbin. There are rumours they want to build a temple."
A day after the stoning, the Naidus and their neighbours met the Vaidya. "Vaidyji told us to spread the news of the incident on Facebook, and WhatsApp. He said he would help build support for us," said a resident who attended the meeting but asked for anonymity.
Many of the boys, Deepu said, had recorded the stone-pelting on their phones, "The videos have been WhatsApped to everyone." Deepu, who drives a garbage-collection van for a living, said he didn't own a phone.
In an interview, Vaidya dismissed these allegations as false and motivated by his political opponents.
"There is no truth to these allegations," Vaidya said, "On Friday, the resident of Block 20 came to me at 7 in the evening and requested me to call the police as they felt under threat," he said, "I did not ask them to share anything on WhatsApp or Facebook." Vaidya said he had not even visited the chowki and denied any plans to build a temple at the spot.
The day after the meeting, on Saturday, crowds gathered around the Muslim-dominated pockets of the settlement. "We were under attack from all sides," said Rehanna Begum, a resident of Pocket 27, "The boys throwing stones came prepared, they all wore helmets. Then the police came, and they were worse. They arrested our boys and beat our women."
On Saturday night, A-to-Z Collections, a Muslim-owned garments and accessories emporium, was set alight. Thus far, no Hindu-owned shop has been burnt.
"The police was patrolling every corner, so how was our shop set on fire," asked Tarana Khan, as she held back tears, "My father invested his provident fund in this shop." Tarana said she was one of six sisters and three brothers, "We invested everything in this shop. We still have loans to pay."
In the meantime, prayers continue apace at the chowki at Block 20. The night-long function on October 31 is scheduled to proceed as planned, but there is now a section of Hindus who want to turn the temporary shrine into a permanent temple.
"We will never allow a dustbin to be put back where the chowki is," said Sujata Naidu, "Ma Kali has entered this space, and now she will not leave. We want a temple on this block."
Toilets, temples and the Trilokpuri riots
Aman Sethi | New Delhi
Four days after a scuffle between intoxicated young men on Diwali night in Trilokpuri's Block 20 spiralled into a diffused communal riot that resulted in scores of injuries, dozens of arrests, and the incineration of at least one Muslim-owned shop, the violence appears to have abated but tension and suspicion persist.
Over the weekend, many Muslim women and children fled this east Delhi settlement in fear; even as Hindu residents have read this flight as a sign that their Muslim neighbours are planning an attack. "My wife and children are at my relative's house," said Mohammed Akram, an electrician in Block 27, "The Hindus can attack at any time; the police are on their side."
"The Muslims have sent away their children and wives," said Surinder Singh, a resident of Block 20, "It is clear they will attack the moment the police are withdrawn."
Orders prohibiting the assembly of crowds are in force, markets remain shut, and policemen continue to patrol the streets of this working class residential colony barely 30 minutes from the heart of the national capital.
The unrest is the most recent instance of a communal clash in the increasingly restive Delhi-West Uttar Pradesh belt. The immediate trigger - a brawl at a roadside shrine - is reminiscent of many a riot, but behind the all the shouting lies a tale of temples, toilets and Trilokpuri's chequered history.
Trilokpuri was settled in 1976, when thousands were evicted from slums across south and central Delhi and resettled across 36 blocks. "Every block had about 500 houses, and space set aside for a central park, six smaller parks and two sets of common toilets and dustbins," said Shakil Raza, a resident, "Each block also has temples and mosques depending on the population."
The religious composition of the slums was replicated in Trilokpuri; five of which - 15, 20, 27, 32 and 36 - have significant Muslim populations, while the remaining blocks are largely dominated by Dalits. Block 32 was a Sikh block until the October of 1984, when many Sikh families either fled or died in the course of the horrific anti-Sikh riots that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination on October 31 that year.
Memories of 1984 were perceptible in Trilokpuri this weekend, except coloured by 30 years of Hindutva politics. "Muslims are attacking us just like in 1984," said Surinder Singh, in contradiction of documented evidence by Sikh groups that the Sikhs were killed by Hindu mobs allegedly led by prominent Congressmen. The 'Butcher of Trilokpuri', Kishore Lal, a Hindu, was convicted for murdering eight Sikhs. "The Hindus and Sikhs are the same religion."
A few years ago, the municipal authorities finally laid out a proper sewage system in the settlement and the public toilets were demolished, leaving behind unclaimed vacant spaces that were used for community functions.
In September this year, a section of the Hindu residents of Block 20 in Trilokpuri decided to set up a Mata-ki-chowki, a temporary roadside shrine, in the space vacated by the toilets.
"A public dustbin had been installed in the vacant spot and the Muslims used to park all their vehicles there. At Eid, they would sacrifice animals," said Sujata Naidu, a Block 20 resident, "We removed the dustbin and put up the chowki to keep the place clean."
Naidu said Sunil Vaidya, the Bharatiya Janata Party's former MLA from Trilokpuri, had encouraged them to set up the chowki, a stone's throw from the local mosque, and assured them of his support in getting permissions from authorities. The chowki was supposed to stand for 40 days till October 31.
On Diwali night, Naidu and her younger brother Deepu, said they spotted a group of men drinking in the area.
"When I told them they couldn't drink near the chowki, they hit me and cut my scalp," Deepu said, claiming that at least some of the men were Muslims, "They then ran towards the mosque and started stoning the chowki." In the ensuing confusion, Naidu said, the donation box placed before the idols was stolen.
"This is a fight between foolish young men, which has been turned into a religious conflagration," said Haji Abrar, a Muslim community elder in Block 20, who said the fight began between a group of Hindu and Muslim boys who were drinking together, "The Hindus near the dustbin have poured a lot of money into building new homes, and now they want to remove the dustbin. There are rumours they want to build a temple."
A day after the stoning, the Naidus and their neighbours met the Vaidya. "Vaidyji told us to spread the news of the incident on Facebook, and WhatsApp. He said he would help build support for us," said a resident who attended the meeting but asked for anonymity.
Many of the boys, Deepu said, had recorded the stone-pelting on their phones, "The videos have been WhatsApped to everyone." Deepu, who drives a garbage-collection van for a living, said he didn't own a phone.
In an interview, Vaidya dismissed these allegations as false and motivated by his political opponents.
"There is no truth to these allegations," Vaidya said, "On Friday, the resident of Block 20 came to me at 7 in the evening and requested me to call the police as they felt under threat," he said, "I did not ask them to share anything on WhatsApp or Facebook." Vaidya said he had not even visited the chowki and denied any plans to build a temple at the spot.
The day after the meeting, on Saturday, crowds gathered around the Muslim-dominated pockets of the settlement. "We were under attack from all sides," said Rehanna Begum, a resident of Pocket 27, "The boys throwing stones came prepared, they all wore helmets. Then the police came, and they were worse. They arrested our boys and beat our women."
On Saturday night, A-to-Z Collections, a Muslim-owned garments and accessories emporium, was set alight. Thus far, no Hindu-owned shop has been burnt.
"The police was patrolling every corner, so how was our shop set on fire," asked Tarana Khan, as she held back tears, "My father invested his provident fund in this shop." Tarana said she was one of six sisters and three brothers, "We invested everything in this shop. We still have loans to pay."
In the meantime, prayers continue apace at the chowki at Block 20. The night-long function on October 31 is scheduled to proceed as planned, but there is now a section of Hindus who want to turn the temporary shrine into a permanent temple.
"We will never allow a dustbin to be put back where the chowki is," said Sujata Naidu, "Ma Kali has entered this space, and now she will not leave. We want a temple on this block."
India: Trilokpuri riots may be an attempt to polarise Dalits as Delhi polls seem likely
COMMUNAL CLASHES
Trilokpuri riots may be an attempt to polarise Dalits as Delhi polls seem likely
Residents wonder why violence flared up on Saturday, two days after rumours about the desecration of a temporary place of worship began to do the rounds.
by Dhirendra K Jha
http://scroll.in/article/685458/trilokpuri-riots-may-be-an-attempt-to-polarise-dalits-as-delhi-polls-seem-likely/
Trilokpuri riots may be an attempt to polarise Dalits as Delhi polls seem likely
Residents wonder why violence flared up on Saturday, two days after rumours about the desecration of a temporary place of worship began to do the rounds.
by Dhirendra K Jha
http://scroll.in/article/685458/trilokpuri-riots-may-be-an-attempt-to-polarise-dalits-as-delhi-polls-seem-likely/
October 25, 2014
India: Communal Violence in Trilokpuri, New Delhi - Scores injured, Four shot at, close to hundred arrested, curfew imposed
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Delhi/Tension-in-Trilokpuri-two-men-shot-at/articleshow/44928246.cms
Four shot at in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri over rioting, 33 arrested
IANS | Oct 25, 2014, 09.10 PM IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Four-shot-at-in-east-Delhis-Trilokpuri-over-rioting-33-arrested/articleshow/44934358.cms
Hindu-Muslim clash in Trilokpuri: 70 miscreants arrested, Section 144 imposed
PTI New Delhi, October 25, 2014 | UPDATED 22:16 IST
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/hindu-muslim-clash-trilokpuri-violence-section-144-stone-pelting-gunshot-injuries/1/397542.html
NEW DELHI, October 25, 2014
Trilokpuri tense for the third day
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/trilokpuri-tense-for-the-third-day/article6533503.ece
Delhi's Trilokpuri on boil, curfew imposed
Raj Shekhar,TNN | Oct 26, 2014, 03.04 AM IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/events/delhi/Delhis-Trilokpuri-on-boil-curfew-imposed/articleshow/44936297.cms
Photos:
Communal violence grip's East Delhi's Trilokpuri after Diwali
See more at: http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/communal-violence-in-trilokpuri-after-diwali/3/
Four shot at in east Delhi’s Trilokpuri over rioting, 33 arrested
IANS | Oct 25, 2014, 09.10 PM IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Four-shot-at-in-east-Delhis-Trilokpuri-over-rioting-33-arrested/articleshow/44934358.cms
Hindu-Muslim clash in Trilokpuri: 70 miscreants arrested, Section 144 imposed
PTI New Delhi, October 25, 2014 | UPDATED 22:16 IST
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/hindu-muslim-clash-trilokpuri-violence-section-144-stone-pelting-gunshot-injuries/1/397542.html
NEW DELHI, October 25, 2014
Trilokpuri tense for the third day
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/trilokpuri-tense-for-the-third-day/article6533503.ece
Delhi's Trilokpuri on boil, curfew imposed
Raj Shekhar,TNN | Oct 26, 2014, 03.04 AM IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/events/delhi/Delhis-Trilokpuri-on-boil-curfew-imposed/articleshow/44936297.cms
Photos:
Communal violence grip's East Delhi's Trilokpuri after Diwali
See more at: http://indianexpress.com/photos/picture-gallery-others/communal-violence-in-trilokpuri-after-diwali/3/
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