The Messages From The Bahraich Riots

The way the Bahraich riot has played out should worry the BJP.
The party has emboldened Hindu youngsters to such an extent that its MLAs feel the need to go to the police against their party members.
Is this what the BJP wants, asks Jyoti Punwani.

What took place in Bahraich on and after October 13 can be summed up in 6 images.

1. The viral video of a youth uprooting a green flag atop a house with such force that the metal railing to which it was tied breaks; he then waves a huge saffron flag as the mob below, part of a Durga visarjan procession, cheers.

2. The body of 22-year-old Ram Gopal Mishra lying in front of his house and his weeping mother talking about his wounds. Mishra had uprooted the green flag.

3. A young Muslim asking a reporter how can he look into the eyes of his children's hungry faces. His entire life's capital has been burnt to avenge the killing of Mishra, which took place in some other village. 'We had nothing to do with what happened there, the only thing in common is that we are Muslim too.'

4. The state's highest authority, the CM, sitting with the family of Ram Gopal Mishra.

5. Cops returning from an 'encounter' with those accused of killing Mishra; two of the accused limping from gunshots.

6. Muslims preparing to shift, even destroying part of their homes, in anticipation of their homes being demolished.

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These images tell the story of riots in 'New India'.

The chronology is usually the same: A mob provokes Muslims by dancing to abusive songs blared in front of a mosque; some Muslims get provoked into attacking the procession; some Hindus succumb to their wounds; then starts the 'Hindu backlash' with the police looking away or abetting it.

This was the common pattern of riots in pre-2014 India too. Muslims would suffer the brunt both of mob action and police firing, yet face the maximum arrests. Hindus would say: 'We didn't start it, they did.'

But there were significant differences too.

Howsoever apathetic they may have been while the violence was on, CMs didn't give audiences to families of rioters, even those who'd been killed brutally. Nor did they declare that a religious procession interrupted by communal violence would be resumed, come what may. This was Yogi Adityanath's first reaction to the violence that resulted in Mishra's death during a Durga visarjan procession that stopped outside a mosque.

Pre-2014, while the police often indulged in reckless and unprovoked firing on Muslims, there were no 'encounters' of rioters. And while the state sometimes gave compensation to those who lost properties, demolition of suspected rioters' homes was unheard of.

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As is evident from the photographs of Muslims in Bahraich emptying their homes in anticipation of the bulldozer -- despite the matter pending in court -- everyone, Muslims more so, knows the changed pattern of riots in 'New India'. That's the reason elders in the community have been advising youngsters to restrain themselves even in the face of provocation.

This advice has been given from the time mob lynchings began in 2015, and their videos went viral, bringing images of the savagery with which unarmed Muslims were killed into every home.

But it wasn't just lynchings. The CAA-NRC; the surveys and excavations in the Mathura and Kashi mosques; the harassment of Muslim vendors and calls to boycott them; the incendiary speeches of so-called holy men and politicians; the ban on the hijab, on namaaz in public and the attack on madrasas; the insistence on Muslim vendors displaying their identity; the amendments to the Wakf Act -- it's been a continuous assault on Muslim identity and citizenship rights over the last nine years, amplified many times over by social media.

Given this, how long can youngsters in the community be expected to restrain themselves?

How long can we close our eyes to the regularity with which such insults to the religious symbols of Muslims are being indulged in as happened in Bahraich?

It has become routine for mosques to cover themselves with cloth during Holi in some parts of North India. Over the last two years, specially in small towns in North India, Hindu festivals -- from Ganesh visarjan to Durga visarjan to Ram Navami -- have seen the same scenario play out.

The rage that's natural when you are taunted by a mob for no fault of your own can be controlled if you know that this is an aberration, or that after a few minutes, those supposed to protect you -- the police -- will force the mob to move. Or that the local leader will intervene.

None of these hold true.

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In Mumbai, this reporter was witness to two processions taken out by Hindutva organisations, one in Malad, north Mumbai, in December 2022, the other in Mira Road, a township north of Mumbai, this year. Both rallies took place when the BJP's Devendra Fadnavis was Maharashtra's home minister.

Both times, mosques that fell en route had heavy police presence; the police formed a protective barrier between the processionists and the mosque.

What stops the UP police from doing the same? Shortage of staff? Not quite. If a sting operation by Dainik Bhaskar is to be believed, the police in Bahraich gave the mob the freedom to riot for two hours after Mishra was shot.

This sting operation by a mainstream newspaper only confirms what commissions of inquiry into communal riots have inevitably found: Police complicity with Hindu rioters. Will the CM act against these policemen?

Adityanath has suspended the policemen who allowed the violent situation that climaxed in Mishra's death to build up. Will the policemen who allowed his death to be avenged by attacks on innocent Muslims be similarly punished?

It is significant that a former DGP of UP, Sulkhan Singh, has described Mishra's actions as 'criminal', and asked for action against those who were egging him on. But in the same interview, Singh commented that the police in UP are under pressure not to act against Hindu rioters, pointing to police inaction against violent kanwariyas during the just-concluded kanwar yatra, as well as the suspension of two policemen who acted against Hindu miscreants in Kaushambi recently.

While the Bahraich police's 14 FIRs for the violence against Muslim properties (including a hospital) following Mishra's death are all against 'unidentified' accused, the 15th FIR names 8 Hindu miscreants, one of them head of the party's Yuva Morcha. The police had no choice but to file this FIR because the complainant was the local BJP MLA, Sureshwar Singh.

Singh told the media that he was attacked by a mob who was angered when he stopped them making political capital out of Mishra's death and personally took Mishra's body, that had been kept on the road outside the hospital, to the mortuary. As he was leaving, his car was stoned and fired upon, he said.

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The way the Bahraich riot has played out should worry even the BJP. How long will they continue baiting Muslims? Have they thought of the desperation that can engulf a community when it is pushed against the wall?

The party has emboldened Hindu youngsters to such an extent that its own MLAs feel the need to go to the police against their party members. Is this what the BJP wants?

What will be the logical end to the practice of instant 'justice' by the party's most popular CM? Mishra's wife told the media she wants 'khoon ke badley khoon (blood for blood)'. Random Hindus told news television channels that they want those who shot Mishra to be killed and their homes demolished.

In this atmosphere, one lawyer has had the courage to challenge the demolition notices that appeared on 23 houses overnight. To show that the demolitions were not completely one-sided, 3 Hindus were served notices along with 20 Muslims.

Thanks to the efforts of advocate Mahfuzur Rahman Faizi of the APCR (Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, an all-India body), the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has stayed the bulldozer, giving residents 15 days' time to reply to the notices, and asking Bahraich authorities to explain the rationale behind the proposed demolitions.

Another petition has been filed in the Supreme Court, which recently held that demolitions cannot be used to punish an accused.

Using the law when the system is stacked against you sends a powerful message to victims. When judges frown at just 3 days' notice given for demolition, and question the actions of the powerful officers who send such notices, a message goes down to those who've lost everything.

Now, if only Hindus could force the State to compensate those whose livelihoods were destroyed while police looked the other way, and collect funds for them, those -- both Muslims and Hindus -- who paid the price for the criminality of a few of their compatriots, might again feel there's hope.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com