Under the Garb of Communalism

Under the Garb of Communalism

By Deepak Parvatiyar

(This article was published in Sunday Free Press Journal, Bombay on 13 December 1992)

Through four days of carnage, Bombay shed its pretentious veil of cosmopolitanism to expose its true, blotched face to a world bewitched by its glamour. And the citizens, left in a disarray, refused to believe that the demon of mayhem and madness had possessed the city, till some stray bullet or a stone made their dear ones its target.

Helpless as they felt, they asked why their city, which boasted of the most advanced minds in the country, reacted so disgracefully and violently to an event which in itself was a  chapter that posterity would hate to read.

Chroniclers will write volumes on the event and analysts will expound theories on it, yet the happenings will continue to confound thousands of sufferers who can only blame the intricacies of the system for their misfortune. It is always easy to blame the authorities, and none should be spared if merely blaming can overhaul their efficiency. Still, situations that led to such a blasphemy should never be overlooked for the sake of a Utopian dream.

Riots on communal lines have taken place earlier too, and the Bhiwandi riot of 1984, which spread to Thane and Bombay and claimed 87 lives, is still fresh in people's memories. But nothing could match the scale of violence which began this December 7. The toll: over 200 persons dead and over a thousand injured in a matter of just five days.

Still the question remains whether the recent riot, although an outcome of the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, was communal. Not to sideline the role of Shiv Sainiks and other communal forces to give the riot a communal colour, it is a fact that when the city was burning, it was playtime for anti-social elements, who left no stone unturned to make ordinary life as precarious as possible.

Eyewitness accounts highlight the role of these rowdy elements: In a narrow lane of the sensitive Bhendi Bazar locality on Monday afternoon, even when the fire tenders were trying to control a blaze at the adjoining Null Bazar and the police was firing indiscriminately in lanes and bylanes of the locality, about five to six persons were discussing the possibility of the "fun" they would derive if they torched the building in front of them. However, a timely intervention by a police inspector dispersed them into the crowd.

That the people were caught unaware could be judged from the fact that hundreds of them had flocked to the streets of Kumharwada and the adjoining Bhendi Bazar, the former a Hindu dominated locality and the latter, a Muslim dominated region.

Several others including women packed the balconies and terraces, their faces dripping with curiosity. "I have never seen anything like this in my life," said Narendra Madhani, a resident of Harharwala building on S.V.P.Road.  It was this curiosity that made several innocent lives targets of indiscriminate firing by the police.

Anti-social elements are very often byproducts of either an economically backward society or a socially oppressed society. And elements belonging to both these classes  worked in full swing to create chaos among the people. Several ragpickers and footpath dwellers were in the forefront with their criminal brethren in pelting stones and lifting shops.

Organised crime has always been a bane of the city and one wonders what role it played in disorganising life here. Yet, most of the mishaps took place in Muslim dominated areas and is a pointer that these underworld dons, most of whom belonging to the Muslim community themselves, tried their best to give the riots a communal hue. It was easy for them to incite the poor Muslims of jhopadpattis (slums) for the fulfilment of their own sinister motives of spreading tension.

Experiences of residents of Behram Nagar, a shanty in Bandra East, give substance to such notions. The youths there had constantly been incited by stone pelting hooligans. "While these miscreants always managed to run away, our youth were hit by police bullets in the bargain," said Mohammed Omar Qureshi, a local leader. These accounts put under a cloud the efforts of the security forces and the state Government in handling the situation.

One question that has often been asked is why did the police wait for long instead of taking preventive measures immediately when the news of the demolition broke out? In Delhi, a curfew was clamped immediately in all the sensitive areas, which averted bloodshed.

The failure of the police to assess the situation early has cost it dearly in terms of its popularity as well as credibility. To add to the woes, even the army deployed by the State Government was found wanting and as Jamal Sheth, a resident of Mahim, put it, "it was never deployed at the troubled spots".

The State Government's dubious role during the riots only echoes the faction ridden fabric of the ruling Congress. While one accepts that it is difficult to control mob fury, or to control the exposes made the the foreign television channels or to gain the cooperation of the major opposition parties like the BJP and the Shiv Sena, the fact is the people are not ready to listen to the lame excuses made by the political leaders who remained absent when the houses were being burnt and innocent lives were being claimed.

Indeed, the people  needed solace and they desperately looked for that whenever a press reporter visited them them simply for the purpose of making the world aware of their plight.

This reporter had to confront hundreds of these hutmen whose grievances could only be felt. Their blank eyes reflected the fear that had surrounded them. The uncertainty of their future had apparently made them forget that they had not eaten anything for some days now. In a bid to make themselves heard, they wailed, yelled, abused and pushed and scratched anyone who came in their way. They gathered around this reporter and were not bothered about anything, not even the Section 144, that had been imposed in their localities. They had a lot to say, publishing which would mean facing thousands of defamation cases.

They were angry. No wonder why our political leaders could not muster courage to face these born sufferers who contribute much more than any one else in electing them to their seats of power.