By Sushil Kutty
Five Sambhal residents, alive and kicking till yesterday (November 24), are now dead, from bullet wounds, in violence that raged at Sambhal in western Uttar Pradesh over a mosque-over-mandir dispute. This mandir is said to be that of ‘Bhagwan Kalki’, the next god avatar of Lord Vishnu, and was called Shri Hari Har Mandir. But this violence wasn’t ‘danga’ as Hindi newsreaders are prone to christen all and sundry “clashes” in Muslim-dominated pockets of India that is Bharat.
These weren’t riots, called ‘danga’ in Hindi, and definitely not ‘Hindu-Muslim’. The Hindu community had no role to play unless ‘Bhagwan Kalki’ is taken as representative of ‘Hindu’. None of the 33 or 36 million Hindu gods and goddesses have ever come on record to claim to be gods and goddesses. Not even the deities, supposed to be different from gods.
The violence in Sambhal, which primarily involved local Muslim youth (young men and two women, both of whom are now in police custody) stoning policemen who had arrived in big numbers to provide security to a team of ASI surveyors tasked with ascertaining whether there existed a temple beneath the mosque. But the young Muslims didn’t want to find out whether Babar had committed yet another of his demolitions in Sambhal.
When the police arrived, escorting the team of surveyors, the Muslim youth were already on to the police’s game. Or, shall we say, to the surveyor’s mission. What happened next supports the police claim that the Muslim youth were waiting for the surveyors with deadly intent. They knew there was a court order to carry out the survey and that the court wanted the survey completed before November 29.
And the police cannot be blamed for providing security to the surveyors and ensuring that there was no law and order problem. Now, Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has come down on the Yogi Adityanath government like a ton of bricks when all that can be seen, if one cared to look at pictures and videos of Sambhal, would be the broken remains of red-baked bricks strewn here, there and everywhere.
It is called brick-batting and the favourite pastime of young Muslim youth venting their anger on police if it wasn’t a Hindu-Muslim ‘danga’. Bricks can hurt, bricks can break bones, bricks can maim, and bricks can kill. Videos of Sambhal on Sunday show police warning the youth not to get provoked by their good for nothing leaders.
“Begone,” the cops actually shouted into their megaphones at the young and provoked Muslims again and again, but who was listening? And then, the cops alleged, a bullet was fired, then another, and yet another.
Five dead and counting, said a journalist, roaming the brick-bat-strewn streets after the brick-batting stopped and there was the quiet of the grave in Sambhal. Except for the wailing of a mother, whose twenty-something son had taken a bullet to his head and died on the spot.
There was no way he could not have died with a bullet in his head. “He wasn’t among the dangais,” the mother claimed. “Who toh market gaya tha….uska ‘Bullet’ abhi bhi wahin par parked hai, police walon ne maar dala.” A picture of a youth sprawled on his back at the brick-strewn entrance to an alley told a story.
Was it of the same youth? There was no sign of a motorbike nor of a market, for that matter? The body wore a pair of blue denims wired to the waist by a brown belt. An olive-green T-shirt and leather footwear, finished the getup.
The Sachar Committee report had spoken of poverty stalking Muslim youth in the Muslim ghettos. This wasn’t validation. The sprawling body of the dead youth at the brick-strewn alley entrance wasn’t that of poverty.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi marked the Yogi Adityanath government for criticism. He held the Uttar Pradesh regime accountable for the violence in the “clashes”. But they were clashes involving Muslim youth throwing stones and firing bullets on policemen, who were relatively restrained.
Rahul Gandhi charged the state’s BJP government of using the police to create a rift between Hindu and Muslim. “The biased and hasty attitude of the state government on the recent dispute in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh is extremely unfortunate. My deepest condolences to those who lost their loved ones in the violence and firing,” Rahul Gandhi said. “The administration’s insensitive action without listening to all parties further vitiated the situation…the BJP government is directly responsible.”
Rahul Gandhi went directly to the last resort. He asked for the urgent intervention of the Supreme Court for justice to the Muslims in this repetition of the Ayodhya mosque/mandir playbook. “BJP’s use of power to create rift and discrimination between Hindu-Muslim communities is neither in the interest of the state nor the country. I request the Supreme Court to intervene in this matter as soon as possible and provide justice.”
Off-late, the LoP in the Lok Sabha was too busy in Wayanad campaigning for his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to spare time for Uttar Pradesh politics. In fact, the Congress hadn’t even contested any of the nine UP bypolls, leaving the field to Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. And Priyanka Gandhi Vadra won from Wayanad, too.
“My appeal is to maintain peace and mutual harmony. We all have to join together to ensure that India moves forward on the path of unity and constitution, not communalism and hatred,” Rahul Gandhi said, not sure how the people of Uttar Pradesh will take it, particularly the Muslims of western Uttar Pradesh. The violence in Sambhal is a warning to the INDI-Alliance after the losses suffered by the Samajwadi Party in the bypolls.
A theory doing the rounds in political circles is that the Sambhal violence is about the rift between two Muslim sects, one of them linked to “Turkey” and the other to “India”. The Turkey Muslims are led by Samajwadi Party’s Sambhal MP Zia ur Rahman Barq. The Samajwadi Party blames the “India” Muslims for the poor showing in the UP bypolls.
What’s worrying is the loss of lives in the violent clashes over the Jama Masjid survey. Over 20 policemen were injured and several police vehicles were set ablaze; the stoning reminded people of the Jammu & Kashmir of before Article 370 was abrogated. And the Kashmir issue remains a festering sore. Also, the Ram Mandir issue, which took its toll over 500 years. With Bhagwan Kalki waiting in the queue, only Bhagwan Ram will know how long this dispute will take to resolve! (IPA Service)
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