By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net,
Moradabad: The idea of communal riot is no stranger for the residents of Moradabad. The city has seen more than half a dozen of communal clashes in the recent past. One more communal clash was added on August 7, when Kawariya pilgrims insisted on taking their procession through a route which was otherwise prohibited by the police, through the Muslim neighborhood of Rahmat Nagar in Das Sarai.
It was followed by clashes between police and Kawariyas. Police reportedly brought the matter into control on 7th night itself after the lathi charge on Kawariyas, stopping them from going through the Muslim populated area. On August 8th the situation was reportedly calm but according to reports, the Sarvadaliya Hindu Mahasabha (SHM), a Shiva Sena led group of Hindutva organizations, manipulated the situation as an attack on Hindus and thereby planned a wide spread mobilization of Hindutva cadres.
Smoke rising from a Muslim corporator’s house, set on fire by rioters in Jayantipur
It was on 9th that the clash took the form of Hindu-Muslim riot, pitting the two communities against each other. Several houses and vehicles belonging to the two communities were burnt, stones were thrown and people were injured.
But the biggest casualty of them all was the communal harmony between the Hindus and Muslims of Moradabad, who have been trying to live together, in spite of several attempts by the extremist elements to disturb this peace. The irony of the whole situation was that the worst affected area was the one which could have otherwise been the best example of Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb– Jayantipur.
Jayantipur is a locality known for its mixed population which has both Hindus and Muslims living together. The fact that there is a temple and a mosque side by side, right at the entrance of Jayantipur, highlights the shared history and culture by the members of the minority and the majority community in this western Uttar Pradesh town. Ironically, even the name of the mosque is symbolic, Asha Masjid- mosque of hope, which, in the present situation, seems only to be the hope for peace and communal harmony.
But when, after the riot, this correspondent visited Jayantipur to talk to the two communities, the situation was so explosive that it seemed that another communal clash will break out right then and there. While showing me the extent of destruction brought on each other on the night of August 9th, members of the two communities engaged in heated arguments about who attacked whom and who threw stones at whose house.
While the fact is the area had never seen such violent communal clashes in the recent past, as Nazia, one of the residents told TwoCircles.net, it seemed that the communal clash created deep wounds in the minds of people, which might take years to heal.
Jayantipur was just an instance, it’s actually the entire Moradabad which has felt the heat of this strained Hindu-Muslim relations in every public sphere. For instance the market in Moradabad city is largely dominated by Non-Muslim shopkeepers but after this communal clash, Muslims are hesitant in approaching them for Ramazan shopping, informs Fareed.
Culture unites people, in other words, cultural items like festivals have helped communities to come together on one platform, particularly in a country like India. But the fact that the communal riot in Moradabad broke out just before Rakhi and during Ramazan, has mobilized people on religious lines thereby, accentuating the mutual hostility in ways more than one. As a phenomenon, communal riots negate capability of culture to bring about tolerance in inter-communal relations.
Every communal riot takes the relationship between the two communities in the city several years back. It’s quite ironic that it takes years for both the communities to come out of the trauma of communal violence, but then suddenly there is one provocation followed by communal riots and that brings the matter to square one.
“You can understand by the fact that now my non-Muslim colleagues, who were on a very frank terms with me before, are quite cautious while approaching me, understandably out of an unsaid distrust and scare. And even I get to have the same approach towards them because you end up getting affected by your surroundings,” says Murtaza Iqbal, a local journalist with Urdu daily Aag, says.
At present curfew is imposed during nights as opposed to two days back when there used to be just few hours of relaxation during the day and night long curfews.
While there are political motivation as well as role of the local Shiv Sena leaders behind the communal riot, according to local journalists, the carelessness and strongly partisan attitude of the local administration, is quite apparent in the way it handled the riot.
Juma prayer under Khaki supervision, Karbala mosque, Moradabad
According to Fareed Shamsi, a local journalist with IBN 7, he had warned the ADM Avneesh Kumar Sharma on 8th August itself, about the fact that Shiv Sena and other right wing Hindutva organizations were mobilizing their cadres, preparing for attack on the Muslim locality, but he “willingly didn’t pay any heed” suspending his warning as “rumor.”
“Had the local administration been cautious on 8th August, there would not have been any communal riot,” says Fareed who has got the video recordings of the Shiv Sena led Sarvadaliya Hindu Mahasbha (SHM) organizing a meeting on 9th in preparation of attacks on Muslim localities. The meeting was attended by hundreds of Hindutva volunteers.
“Surprisingly when section 144 was imposed, the local administration allowed the meeting to take place in which the SHM leaders also presented a memorandum to the officers of local administration which goes not only against the law but it also sends a wrong message that the administration is playing a partisan role,” adds Fareed.
It was just a chance that Fareed told about his forewarnings to the higher police officials when they came from Lucknow to inspect the situation, which in turn incensed the ADM Sharma. Sharma subsequently accused Fareed and Ubaidur Rahman, a local journalist with Star news, as “communal-minded who have abated the communal riot” in his report to the higher officials in Lucknow.
Fareed and Ubaidur Rahman were not alone in their questioning of the role of the local police administration in abating the riot. The local Hindi daily Amar Ujala reported that meeting of the Hindutva groups and questioned the suspicious role of the police, “It was like a shakti pradarshan [show of strength] and yet the police did not take it seriously…They were all there under the SHM banner — the Shiv Sena, the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu Yuva Manch. The question arises: why did the police allow the meeting in the first place knowing how volatile the situation was?”
On the charges of creating trouble, FIR was registered against several people including the district Shiv Sena chief Virendra Arora but the District Magistrate Sameer Varma was non-committal about the role of Shiv Sena in the communal riot. While talking to TwoCircles.net, he tried to portray the entire situation as creation of rumors and unexpected developments created by those rumors.
When TwoCircles.net talked to the Muslim community representatives, there was a strong resentment against the local administration for its alleged partisan role. Everybody including the Shahar Qazi (city cleric) Masoom Ali Azaad, had the same view as that of Fareed; “Had the local administration been cautious and non partisan, there would not have been any communal riot at all.”