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From the complaining eyes of Azamgarh

By Sadiq Zafar for TwoCircles.net,

Azamgarh has been the land of oriental learning since the colonial times and a center of religious excellence in the eastern part of the then United Province and the present Uttar Pradesh. Allama Shibli Nomani established an institute to facilitate research and to mobilize the youth of the region to get into the mainstream of the British society, which today serves as a major educational hub nurturing young minds from various sections of the society. Visits of national leaders during the freedom struggle and the mobilization of youth towards the movement also highlight the importance of the political centre that Azamgarh was.

A prominent center for handloom and weaving industry on one side and an indigenous producer of Black Pottery on the other, Azamgarh has also been a center for local trade of both of these products. And where there is trade, there exist unions and where there is union, there exists communism. Thus, once a communist stronghold, Azamgarh has also produced eminent figures in the field of literature and poetry. Poets, thinkers, writers and intellectuals, Azamgarh has given enormous think tanks to serve the nation.

Every child in Azamgarh remembers this couplet from a famous Urdu poet, Iqbal Suhail, as a source of motivation and inspiration for young minds.

“Iss Khitta-e-Azamgarh pe magar faizan-e-tajalli hai yeksar,
“Jo zarreh yehan se uthta hai woh naiyr-e-taban hota Hai”
“There is some divine blessing on Azamgarh that even a particle that rises from here becomes a shining star”
– Iqbal Suhail, famous Urdu Poet from Azamgarh

But these shining stars of Azamgarh are on target since the infamous L18 Batla House encounter in Delhi in which two youths from Azamgarh were shot dead on September 18, 2008 by the bullets of Delhi Police’s Special Cell. Since then the whole ethos of mysticism seems lost and the divine blessings seem missing from the region as the youths outside Azamgarh were targeted, detained and arrested. Flat owners refused to rent out their flats to the natives of Azamgarh in cities like Delhi and Lucknow. Muslim flat owners in Okhla (the locality in which Batla House lies and one of the Muslim ghettos of the national capital) didn’t just refused to rent out their apartments to the residents of Azamgarh but they also forced them to vacate their rented flats.

Those were difficult times for students and working professionals of Azamgarh to live a peaceful life even in the Muslim localities outside Azamgarh. Every night was passed in fear and insecurity. Among all the known neighbors no one wanted to recognize Azmis (natives of Azamgarh). In the sea of humanity those who’re singled out, excluded and discriminated were the youths of Azamgarh who had stepped out of their homes in search of better education and opportunities in life.

And in all this, Okhla’s MLA at the time of encounter was gifted with a seat in the Upper house of the Parliament within few months. Why was he rewarded? A question which still comes to the minds of those who faced the heat after the encounter which uprooted youths from the city of intellectuals. Inevitably on target of the Police, the state and the fellow citizens.

Many got to know the fact of the atrocious state after reading books which uncovered the truth of the witch hunting. Many still believe the version of the state. But in all this the mothers of Azamgarh have faced brutalities of life with their sons being made captives and tortured. Some are those who stepped out but never returned, others are those who’re picked up from their homes and shown as captured from some transit node of a metropolis. Being deprived of their constitutional rights, detained, tortured and traumatized without being charge sheeted.

Intellectual property of witch hunting

The recommendations of Justice Sachar’s minority report are about to complete its ten years, yet the report awaits implementation. It seems the report was never meant to be implemented as it served as a score card showcasing the ‘achievements’ of the Congress during its years of rule in the country since independence, pushing the minorities specially Muslims to the lowest strata of the society, making them the most vulnerable and economically stagnant. It seems as if it was meant to appease the Congress’ bosses in ‘Nagpur’ who define anti-Muslim as part of the State Policy of the nation and gave Congress another five years to rule and ruin the nation by projecting a weak opposition in the face of LK Advani, the man who led the demolition of Babri Masjid.

Thus, next five years became tough to survive as a Muslim professional and work or study outside Azamgarh. By this, Congress led UPA government has inevitably given a message to the youths of Azamgarh that witch hunting, detentions and illegal arrests, torture are the ‘Intellectual Property’ only of the Congress party. During ten years of its rule at the national stage, Congress’ creation of minds such as innovations in arrest theories, invention of scientifically advanced torturing machinery, torture precedents as the literary work, articulated facts, a design network to terrorize youths, targeting names and religious symbols used in witch hunting, have pushed the intellectual landscape of Azamgarh to the margins where it lies in the ruins of history.

“Yeh Maana Tumko Talwaro.n Ki Tezi Aazmani Hai,
Hamari Gardano.n Pe Hoga Iska Imtehaa.n Kab Tak”
“How long will you cut our throats to test the sharpness of your blade??”
– Iqbal Suhail

The ‘Intellectual Property’ which the Congress and its UPA hold is its invention to target a certain Muslim population, the population which struggles to survive as it bears the lifeline of ‘Asphalt in Steel’. Marginalization, vulnerability, economic stagnancy, unemployment and deprivation are some of the terms from the lexical resource which highlight the ground realities of the young minds of Azamgarh.

This Intellectual Property of Witch Hunting has been protected in by laws framed by the lawmakers of the Congress and its UPA, resulting in patent killings, copyright arrests and detentions and trademark encounters which enabled Police officers to earn recognitions, out of turn promotions and awards in cash for what they created as terror stories to ruin Muslim households of Azamgarh. With a well established statutory administrative and judicial framework to safeguard the Police officers involved in unearthing ‘terror modules’ in Azamgarh, the achievements of this Intellectual Property of Witch hunting have been recorded in the texts of books like Kafkaland by activist Manisha Sethi. Rana Ayyub, a journalist from Azamgarh during the launch of her book Gujarat Files at the Habitat Center in Delhi in the presence of Asaduddin Owaisi and Mani Shankar Aiyer, blamed the Congress party at the first place of what became the precedent of torture and injustice.

People can write editions after editions of their book, but who’ll work on the image makeover of the city. From the complaining eyes of Azamgarh, the land of Allama Shibli and Hari Oudh that still awaits justice.

“Kis Tarah Bhulaein Hum Is Shahr Ke Hungame,
Har Dard Abhi Baqi Hai Har Zakhm Abhi Taza Hai”
– SagharAzmi
“How should we forget the cry of the city,
Every pain is still there and every wound is still fresh”

(Author is an urban planner, architect and writer. He authored : Sustainable Development of Yamuna Floodplain, Delhi)