Delhi Polls 2015 : Simmering Embers of Communal Violence

By Deepak Parvatiyar

January 14, 2015

Will Delhi see polarisation of votes when it goes to elections on February 7, 2015? The embers of the communal flare up at Trilokpuri and Bawana – the two resettlement colonies of Delhi – are hotter than flames. The hate speeches by the likes of Union minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and issues of religious conversions – that disrupted the winter session of Parliament – too were aimed at not allowing the residues to settle!

Outsiders behind Communal Flare-ups in Trilokpuri and Bawana

Trilokpuri and Bawana incidents are seen as attempts to foment communal violence. More so atTrilokpuri – a communally sensitive area that had witnessed gruesome killings of around 350 Sikhs in the 1984 riots.

It could not be a coincidence that communal tension spread during celebrations of religious festivals in both localities – occasions when religious sentiments are high. While there are many theories doing rounds on the reasons of such flare-ups, one thing is seemingly common to both venues – involvement of outsiders.

Outsiders tried to instigate the residents at the Muslim majority resettlement colony in BawanaResettlement Colony on the eve of Eid al-Adha on October 3 by going from house to house ostensibly to find their cows. Luckily the attempt to create communal discord by the outsiders was foiled by the alert locals comprising both Hindus and Muslims, within a couple of days of instigation.

Trilokpuri: Dalits Sought to be Pitted against the Muslims?

The communal violence at Trilokpuri, yet another resettlement colony in east Delhi that housed many Dalits and Muslim families displaced from the Turkman Gate slums during the Emergency, witnessed a couple of bullet wounds and pitched street fights on October 24, the Diwali night. The reasons for the violence are still a matter of speculation -whether it was the Muslims’ objection to loudspeakers being played at Mata Ki Chowki which is next to a mosque, or the confrontation was pre-planned. Yet the political indulgence to flare-up the incident was evidently clear considering that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) demanded the police to probe the role of former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Sunil Kumar Vaidya. The AAP had then claimed that the trouble had started only after Vaidya convened a meeting in the locality on Diwali night. So, whether it was an attempt to pit the Dalits – viewed as a considerable votebank by both the BJP and the AAP – against the Muslims for electoral gains through communal polarisation could be anybody’s guess.

Delhi has Good Track of Preserving Communal Harmony

Considering the volatility of the matter, it must be acknowledged that the communal flare-ups did not assume larger proportion and were contained therein, quickly. This, therefore, shifts the focus on the inherent secular tradition of Delhi, a city which though still struggles to wipe the stigma of being the scene of the anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984.

It is pertinent that Delhi more often than not had better record of preserving communal harmony than many other parts of the country. Consider that it had remained calm after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, which had triggered communal violence in many other parts of the country, including a comparatively progressive and more cosmopolitan, Mumbai (then Bombay)!

In fact, post-Independence, the only incident of a Hindu-Muslim flare up was witnessed in Sadar Bazar, where Hindus and Muslims live side by side, on May 5, 1974, when a minor quarrel between two Muslim youths and a Hindu boy triggered violent confrontation in which eleven persons lost their lives and a curfew was clamped in the locality for 45 days.

Pertinently, Delhi had remained peaceful even when communal riots continued for two months in neighbouring Meerut in 1987.
Incidentally, Delhi was relatively less disturbed by the communal violence that affected a large part of the country including Bengal and Punjab during Partition in 1947, and had turned into a big refugee camp for the migrants from Pakistan.

Obviously, barring the slur of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the 1974 incident that was confined to a particular locality, the national capital has since Independence been a symbol of India’s pluralistic society.  Its resolve to remain so is being tested again in Trilokpuri and Bawana, 30 years after the 1984 riots. Delhi needs to pass the test.  Elections or no elections!