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Umh!, Whats this?

Riot politics

The Nashik riots had more to do with politics than communalism

BY AFTAB KHAN
The communal riots which rocked the city of Nashik on January 30 and continued to 
simmer for a few days have thrown up two significant lessons: One, politicians from even avowedly secular parties can, and do, engineer riots for political gain; and, two, political will can quell or prolong disturbances. 
That the riot had more to do with politics than communalism was evident from the meticulous precision with which it began. Within minutes of the Congress (I) ruled Nashik Municipal Corporation authorities demolishing a portion of a madrassa in Rajiv Nagar that was unauthorisedly being used as a masjid, miscreants who arrived in auto-rickshaws, started smashing shop windows and passing vehicles near Mumbai Naka and on Main Road, one and three kms away respectively from the demolition site.
By evening, the intensity of the riots had increased, one person was injured in police firing and the city was placed under curfew.
If politics can trigger a riot, it can also be quickly brought under control, given the political will. None less than the state’s director general of police, Subhash C Malhotra, rushed to Nashik the next day. He took over command, curfew was enforced with an iron hand and the DGP camped in the city till normalcy was restored. It would be difficult to think of other riot situations in Maharashtra or elsewhere in the country where the state police chief acts with such alacrity.
But once started, the internal logic of a communal riot tends to take over. By the time the conflict in Nashik was brought under control, the city had numerous complaints about police excesses and biased conduct against Muslims. During the rigidly enforced curfew period, even women were not allowed to go to the public toilets for 24 hours; nor were they permitted even to fill drinking water. 
There are also numerous complaints of SRP jawans and police constables indiscriminately beating, arresting and locking up innocent persons. Even children aged 12 years and less was not spared, with cases of attempted murder and robbery being filed against them. 
The DGP who toured the affected areas may have been satisfied by the effective manner in which the police had imposed the curfew. But this did not take into account the fact that a pilot police car that preceded the DGP’s tour warned Muslims not to peep through windows leave alone come out of their homes. As a result, ordinary Muslims were denied the means to communicate their grievances to the police chief. Worse, in one instance, defying curfew, a thousand-strong women’s morcha converged on the Bhadrakali police station specifically to put their grievances before the visiting DGP. But the DGP went away without meeting the agitated women.
A team of the Maharashtra Minorities Commission, led by chairman MA Khandwani, that toured Nashik on February 6 found the police guilty on two counts: it failed to act promptly in the initial hours of the disturbances; and, as so often in the past, it acted against Muslims in a biased way. If Muslims and the state minorities commission accuse the police of anti-Muslim bias, local Shiv Sena and BJP leaders allege the police failed to defend Hindus and their property.
Significantly, district authorities in Nashik were unable to explain to the minorities commission why they failed to take the directly concerned trustees of the Noorani Arbi Urdu Anjuman Kabrastan Trust and other local Muslims into confidence before the demolition action. This is particularly surprising given the Nashik corporation’s own conduct in this regard in the recent past. Less than a year ago, when it wanted to demolish the boundary wall of a mosque in Satpur area of Nashik, the civic authorities called a meeting of Muslims to explain why this was necessary for road widening work. Following the meeting, Muslims themselves broke the wall and there was no tension. Several such instances can be cited from Nashik where the authorities successfully took the community likely to be affected into confidence. 
Why then did the Nashik Municipal Corporation not take the same elementary step this time? The large majority of people from Nashik have a one-word answer to the question – “politics!” 
A three-day Akhil Bharatiya Muslim Marathi Sahitya Parishad was scheduled to be held at Nashik from February 1-3. Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who holds the home portfolio, was to be the chief guest at the Parishad’s valedictory function. (Thanks to the riots, Bhujbal did not show up). More importantly, to impress his boss and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief, Sharad Pawar, with his mass following in his hometown, Bhujbal had organised a Samta Parishad in Nashik on February 11. The consensus in Nashik is that the NCP’s senior partner in the coalition government in Maharashtra – the Congress (I) – resorted to the demolition ploy to checkmate friend-and-foe Bhujbal. 
Obviously, none can prove that manipulative politics was what caused the riots. But is it not damning enough that the people of Nashik believe that both the Congress (I) and the NCP are more than capable of acting in such cynical fashion?