By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Bangalore: A very sensitive incident involving the throwing of pig’s carcass inside the J C Nagar Jame Masjid in central Karnataka, led to violent demonstration after the Friday prayer yesterday. But the situation is under control now.
According to the sources, at the crack of dawn on Friday July 11, 2008, the mosque authorities found pig’s carcass inside the mosque. In order to avoid any unfortunate incident the president of the Masjid Committee handled the serious matter quite delicately.
The mosque was cleaned and the mosque authorities decided to complain to the Police Commissioner about the matter. But there was no public announcement of the incident.
The Friday prayer was performed very peacefully.
It was only after the prayer when some people got to know about the incident that the people turned violent.
Although the official figure is 200, as per some eyewitness account around 2,000 people took part in the demonstration. But soon the tension that was simmering spilled over and the peaceful demonstration took an ugly turn. The unruly mob blocked the road, burned tyres, and pelted stones on vehicles.
To control the agitators, the police resorted to lathi charge. Four people sustained injury in the police action. The police cordoned off the roads of the area immediately after the incident. According to an eyewitness it took the police around one and half hour to disperse the public, and bring the situation under control. The police have arrested around 30 people.
By late evening peace talks between the police and some Muslim social organizations were concluded at J C Nagar police station. A “Peace Committee” was constituted. Most of the arrested people were freed. The police, however, have imposed section 144 of IPC in the area.
There was no riot like situation as some section of media reported it, because there was no fight or polarization between the Hindus and the Muslims, Hindus didn’t figure any where in the picture.
It was the expression of anger of the Muslims only against the police for what they see as an assault on the popular sentiments of the community.
TwoCircles.net talked to Mukhtar Ahmad, state president of Muslim Muttahida Tahrik, a social organization.
He said that the police have beaten the agitators mercilessly, including the elderly and comparatively frail people. So a good number of people have been hurt.
He termed the incident as the “inauguration” of the BJP government in the state. “This is ideologically a suitable beginning of the BJP government,” he said.
Pointing out the possible reasons of the trouble mongers behind this provocative assault on the popular sentiments of Muslims, he said there is a considerable population of Muslims in J C Nagar area with also a good population of Hindus. But unlike the north Karnataka, Mangalore Uduipi where the RSS has poisoned the relationship of the two communities, in this part of Bangalore the two communities have been living in the area peacefully.
The unfortunate incident might appear a usual episode. But it had the seeds which could well have taken the form of a full fledged riot. It could have ended up polarizing the two communities. And this is where its political aspect emerges.
From the methods a prominent political party of India used to raise its political fortunes, one of the lessons that the Indian political parties have learnt that communal politics and communal riot are easy gateway to power.
The unfortunate incident was just an experiment of that idea and formula which has become so popular now that the new term “Hindutva laboratory” was coined and entered the political lexicon of India.
The local body elections in the state are just three months away. And this was just an attempt to flare up the communal feelings of the two communities in order to encash it electorally.
At this moment in history from the point of view of the secular India, Karnataka needs every thing but a communal riot. It would be an assault on the secular fabric of the state and the disaster for the entity called secular India.