Comment

Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam

The evil mind that planned and executed Gujarat’s anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 and Muzaffarnagar killings of 2013 is back plotting a similar carnage before UP election next year. They claimed that Gujarat 2002 was a great “laboratory experiment”, which involved provoking a relatively smaller level of violence to trigger a larger, more intense and dramatic conflagration. An example of this was the Godhra train fire stagemanaged by the same mind that created its “reaction” in the form of Gujarat pogrom.

This “experiment” (that is what Ashok Singhal and his associates called it) was repeated in 2013 in Muzaffarnagar when a small incident was turned into a massive anti-Muslim pogrom to win the 2014 election. About a month ago Lalu Prasad Yadav had warned that in UP the BJP was conspiring to stage a massacre of Muslims to pave the ground for next year’s assembly elections in the state. Within days of Lalu Yadav’s warning BJP leaders like Hukum Singh and Sangeet Som announced that there was a huge exodus of Hindus from Kairana in Western UP because of fear of anti-social Muslim groups.

There are a few things to be kept in mind to understand this conspiracy. Kairana is located close to Muzaffarnagar where the 2013 killings were organised to ensure a spectacular victory for the BJP in 2014 parliamentary polls. Both Hukum Singh and Sangeet Som have a lot to answer for the Muzaffarnagar pogrom as agent provocateurs. They had called a mahapanchayat (great assembly) of lawless Jats who later turned into mobs out killing Muslims, raping their women and setting their houses and property on fire. From all evidences it was clear that they wanted a repeat of it in Kairana. They had even planned to call a mahapanchayat.

However, the Akhilesh Yadav government of UP, which is widely seen by Muslims as a facilitator of the 2013 killings in Muzaffarnagar, got alerted this time because it fears the consequences of Muzaffarnagar. The plan was to engulf Kairana, Kandhla and Shamli in spectacular anti-Muslim violence. Like Muzaffarnagar these adjoining areas have a large Muslim presence, but can be overwhelmed by much larger Jat mobs helped by police (as in Muzaffarnagar). Hukum Singh had released a list of 346 Hindu families that had allegedly left Kairana in a “Hindu exodus” out of fear of Muslim goons. This was a sure recipe for a huge pogrom and a sure vote-catcher for the BJP in the coming state assembly elections.

However, when the district administration conducted a survey it found that Hukum Singh was telling a malicious lie as was the prime accused of Muzaffarnagar, Sangeet Som. Singh is a BJP MP and Som is a BJP MLA. The survey found that many of the persons said to have migrated had not gone anywhere at all and had remained in Kairana throughout. Many of them had lived and died their natural deaths in Kairna. Those who had gone away had done so for better livelihood, and many of them were Muslims.

Thus cornered, Hukum Singh issued another, watered down list of 63 Hindu families which, according to him, had migrated out of Muslim fear. Mercifully, this list was nearly one-sixth of the original list. Still Singh had the temerity to assert, “There is a systematic machinery working behind those dacoits who are being allowed to harass only one group.” Hukum Singh said it was a law and order problem. When asked why did he call a law and order problem a Hindu-Muslim issue, he admitted, “Yes, that was a mistake.”

From this initial setback to the Satanic mind nobody should become complacent enough to forget Lalu Yadav’s warning. The Satanic mind will not sit idle and will, in time, invent newer ways of provoking the Hindu majority against Muslims. This it is sure to do because it is a matter of its survival. Without such provocation there will be no polarisation and without communal polarisation there will be no pogrom, and without a pogrom BJP will not win elections. Hence it will keep on doing what it does so well, that is, anti-minorities mischief.

What I am saying is known to everyone in the country. Even the secular parties, which act as mute watchers of communal killings, know this well. But, why do they not do something about it? After all, the victory of the BJP means their defeat and damage to their party interests. However, if we go by secular parties’ response on Kairana we have reason to believe that they have begun to act in common interest as well as in the interest of secularism. Alarmed as they saw Kairana going the Muzaffarnagar way, a quickly-organised team of five parties (JDU, RJD, CPI, and NCP) visited Kairana last fortnight. On return from Kairana my friend and JDU Member of Parliament KC Tyagi said emphatically that the allegations of a Hindu exodus were baseless and whoever had moved out of Kairana had done so for better economic avenues and, sometimes, for better medical facilities. He declared categorically, “The BJP is making it a communal issue because they do not have any issue to go to elections with.”

For the present the mischief has been contained. But the BJP has got to create some “issue to go to elections with.” And the only thing it can think of doing is communal violence. That is why we must not lower our guard.

Even though the trouble has been postponed for a while the difficulties of Kairana’s Muslims are not yet over. An indication of it comes from a news item cunningly planted in an English newspaper that says Kairana has become a hotbed of Pakistan’s military intelligence ISI. That could be an indicator of a new round of witchhunt and repression of Kairana’s Muslims in days ahead. We have to be watchful, and we hope the secular opposition will also take note.