Abdul Hameed shot Ram Gopal dead. Bahraich, in Uttar Pradesh, got engulfed in communal flames. As a digression, can we do a little etymology here? In Arabic, Abdul means servant and Hameed means “praiseworthy” or “lauded”. Hameed is a variation of the name Muhammad and is derived from Al-Hamid, one of the 99 names of Allah. In a modern nation-state that has persistently lauded its secularism defining it as the brotherhood of “Ram and Rahim”, how did an Abdul Hameed kill a Ram Gopal, and that too because the latter was present at a Durga Puja visarjan?
Last year, this author wrote about the demographic dimensions of “sensitive areas”. (Organiser, April 10, 2023). The question was why are many Muslims hyper-sensitive, barbed and violent to the Hindu yatras? Why has the Indian state not done anything to transform the “sensitive areas” to make them “normal”? While that discussion was still alive and kicking in the backdrop of Sri Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti Shobha Yatras last year, we encountered the repetition of the same phenomenon with an ever increasing vehemence during Durga Puja visarjan this year.
Last year we were concerned about an undying political innuendo that “Muslim areas” must be avoided as ‘Ramazan’, is on! ‘Ramazan’ which supposedly stands for peace and forgiveness, witnessed several attacks on Shobha Yatras. These attacks and subsequent rioting were reported from West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, and Telangana, among several other States. This year during Durga Puja with no Ramazan around, violent attacks and clashes were seen again in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and other places. The emergent Islamic Bangladesh reported 35 cases of violence during Durga Puja. Moreover, a hand-crafted golden mukut gifted by PM Narendra Modi was also stolen from a temple in Bangladesh’s Satkhira district.
Living Communal Crescendo
While Bahraich burns today, let us go back in time to understand why. On October 28, 1917, a Muslim mob in the town heckled and pelted stones on the administration officials because the mob wasn’t allowed to carry two tazias by cutting down a certain peepal tree. Sub-divisional officer Abdur Qadir Alvi declined to lop the tree, but allowed to dig the roadway for tazias to pass. However, even when the roadway was dug, as the contemporary records narrate, “a mob of Mohemmadans armed with bamboos and lathis… proceeded to send men armed with axes up the tree to cut the bough.”
On June 30, 1927, an Arya Samaj leader of Jarwal, Lala Badri Shah along with his aid Bharose were murdered in Bahraich. Few months back, Jarwal had witnessed a communal riot which saw the conviction of a few “Mohemmadans”, and the murder of the leader was one of its consequence. As the Hindus protested, and the local Arya Samaj announced for the funeral procession, the local colonial administration did exactly what we witness in independent India today. On July 2, two orders from Moulvi Saiyed Ejaz Ali (District Magistrate) and the officiating Deputy Commissioner of Bahraich were promulgated under Section 144 imposing many prohibitions. Further, as the contemporary records narrate, “…the number following the funeral procession was to be strictly limited and there was to be no music.” No Music!
Again in Baharaich, in May 1985, it came to light that more than 100 out of 500 families of nomadic tribes in the town, such as Nats, Kanjars and Mahawats were suddenly converted to Islam. Even though the numbers were underreported by the Home department, nothing was done about it. The administration and the political power kept belittling it as everyday matters.
Let us fast forward to 2006. A team of Delhi police’s special cell arrested Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Abrar Ahmed alias Mohammad Issa from the New Delhi railway station on August 12, 2006. He was taken as one of the many suspects arrested after 7/11. Subsequently, a joint team of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police raided Abrar’s ancestral house in Baharaich and it came to know that all of his family members are alleged terrorists. Abrar’s sister Saba (16) was also involved with LeT. Abrar’s father Irfan was also a suspected LeT terrorist. Irfan who was a resident of Nazirpura mohallah of Bahraich was the main accused in the RDX blast in Rajdhani Express at Kanpur railway station in 1993.
In 2009, Majid Manihar who was located in Bahraich was killed by ISI. Manihar was the kingpin of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) racket and was the said link in the bordering Nepal area for ISI’s fake currency operation. It can be deduced that many in border towns like Bahraich have acted as ISI handlers but have been protected by the Indian state because they belong to “Muslim Area”.
Blindness to Destruction
While many secularist-liberals have celebrated Syed Salar Masud and how his afterlife in Bahraich and beyond is a testimony of a syncretic culture, they have never cared to look to the other side. If Bahraich and many other safe haven “Muslim Areas” have a syncretic culture, how do we keep seeing the cold-blooded murders of Hindus from Lala Badri Shah and Ram Gopal? How do we keep meeting families where father, son, daughter, and everyone is a LeT terrorist? Why has this syncretic culture failed to produce inter-generational hard working and nationally committed Indians, rather succeeded in producing inter-generational terrorists and kingpins?
The few instances that have been shared above are just a scratch on the surface. They are instructional. They are indicative. From Gandhi to Ambedkar, everyone wrote about the problems of communal crescendo. They knew that music before the mosque irks many Muslims and somehow make them pick their lathis, stones and guns. However, perhaps nobody really cared to ask why? What is it that provokes Muslims so easily? Are they hyper-intolerant towards the “Other”?
These are some of the questions that require urgent answers. Since violence during Hindu festivities and Shobha Yatras is the “new normal” now, the state and the administration also needs to rethink its protocols. For how long, Hindus in their own country won’t be allowed to cherish the musicality of their festivities just because the state and a community has marked their own “sensitive areas” in the geography of the public sphere.
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