S N Ganesh
Watching
the burning vehicles on television, the mind raced back to December
1992 when Muslims went on the rampage after the demolition of the Babri
Masjid in Ayodhya. Then, as now, their strategy was broadly the same:
protest violently, provoke, take a small incident and use it as a reason
to make a point. When police try to control restive crowds by
lathi-charge, and then firing when nothing works, say Muslims are being
persecuted in India if a Muslim dies... Actually,
the police are mandated to maintain law and order. If they fail to
control the mob they are blamed, if a Muslim dies in firing they are
blamed. Either way, they bear the brunt of the dispute.
This
time, the Media was the target of focused Muslim anger. Three TV
broadcasting vans were set on fire, media men and policemen roughed up,
and the new glass façade of The Times of India building in VT
(close to Azad Maidan, the venue of the protest) shattered. Muslims
participating in Saturday’s [11 Aug] protest sent a clear message to the
Media not to make any statement perceived as against their community or
the cause it was espousing – alleged concern over the fate of the
Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, and determination to keep the Bangladeshi
infiltrators within the frontiers of India.
This
is reminiscent of the violence in Sholapur when American pastor Jerry
Falwell called the Prophet a ‘terrorist’, with no repercussions anywhere
in the Western world, in 2002. Thereafter, the Congress MP from that
constituency rose and rose in the esteem of his party supremo, and is
today the Union Home Minister. His statement on the recent Pune blasts
was as awe-inspiring as his comments after the massive power blackout of
31 July, when three grids collapsed all over northern, eastern and
north-eastern India. If he said anything of note after Saturday’s
violence, it has failed to grab attention. The new Union Home Minister
has clearly got the message that nothing must be said or done to annoy
his party’s principal votebank.
The
perpetrators of violence also sent a message to the Mumbai Police not
to take any tough measures when Muslims protest. Azad Maidan is just
minutes away from Police Commissioner’s Office.
Broadly,
Muslims conveyed to the Congress leadership that for continued
electoral support, it should not dare to take any action against
Bangladeshi Muslims in Assam. They warned the Supreme Court not to pass
any judgment that stops or inhibits Bangladeshi infiltration. The next
Chief Justice of India is a co-religionist; perhaps they were telling
him what they expect from the august court under his dispensation.
So
what actually happened last Saturday? As best as one can piece the
information together, it seems that the Raza Academy, a cultural
organisation, supported by the Sunni Jamait ul Ulema and Jamat e
Raza-e-Mustafa, took permission to hold a meeting of 1500 persons at
Mumbai's Azad Maidan, to protest against the recent riots in Assam and
alleged attacks on Muslims in Myanmar.
Then,
armed with the permission, hundreds of activists sporting black badges
converged at Azad Maidan and expressed concern over the ‘massacre’ of
the Muslim community. Maulana Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, president of Jamia
Qadriya Ashrafiya, demanded that the Central and state governments
intervene to “protect the Muslims”. Conceding that Myanmar was an
external problem, he alleged that Assam “reflects on the state of
affairs of the country,” surely a blatant falsehood.
When
the protest turned violent – some claim 15,000, some say over 50,000
protestors turned up at the venue in contrast to the permission granted
for just 1500, and policemen on the spot were a meager 800 – police were
helpless. As the situation deteriorated, and Media and Policemen were
made the target of mob ire, police fired in the air to disperse
protesters. Television vans were torched by the well-prepared mob.
As
expected, the Raza Academy which organised the protest was quick to
claim innocence and blame the violence on some unnamed radical elements.
From the scale of the violence, it is obvious that it was pre-planned,
and well-planned. Photographs reveal the extent of violence and the
damage caused to the city.
The
police were rattled enough to force Mumbai Police Commissioner out on
the streets in his headgear. But is it the role of the Chief to direct
mob control; should he not stay in the control room and strategize,
monitor, guide? In November 2008, Hemant Karkare made the same mistake
and paid for it with his life.
At
the end of day, as the situation was brought under control, the toll
was two dead (both rioters), 54 injured, of which an astonishing 45 were
policemen. They were clearly the victims of targeted violence. One
newspaper quoted a young constable as saying that the mob attacked him
with sticks, helmets and stones. He reported seeing them tossing a
policeman up several times. It was a bad day for the Police; newspaper
pictures show many constables running to save their own lives.
Media drew its lessons in proportion to its property in the city. The venerable Times of India
did not mention that the rioters had damaged its building, and played
down its reportage as compared to rival papers situated outside the
city. Other papers with huge landed property also played safe.
And why not? The Hindustan Times reported
its senior photographer as saying that he heard an orator [at the
Maidan] blaming the media for not giving adequate coverage to the plight
of Muslims in Assam and Myanmar. Feeling something was amiss, they
clicked pictures and left. Some minutes later, they were informed that
an OB van was on fire. As the journalists ran towards Azad Maidan, a mob
of about 400 people clashed with them; they were separated and each
journalist was attacked by at least 25 men. Five or six photographers
were beaten up; their cameras smashed and taken. Policemen were also
targeted. As a man in the crowd begged a policeman for help, the
beleaguered officer asked, ‘should I save your life or mine?’
After
all, there are just 39,000 policemen for the whole of Mumbai, clearly
inadequate to take on a motivated gathering of 50,000-odd protestors.
Newspaper pictures clearly show some of the rioters with big stones in
their hands – it was like a capsule of the stone-throwing incidents in
Srinagar Valley last year.
Worse,
given the shoddy record of our human rights industry and our political
leadership, one can expect that the policemen who fired and were
responsible for the death of two rioters would be grilled like Gujarat
policemen after the 2002 riots there, and those who took action during
the 1992-93 Mumbai riots. What else can one expect from a regime whose
Home Minister, R.R. Patil, was caught on camera with a Dawood Ibrahim
aide?
Mumbai
citizens don’t expect things to get better. Rioters and terrorists know
that they are unlikely to pay for their crimes. After all, convictions
in the 1993 Mumbai blasts are still pending with the Supreme Court since
2008; nothing is known of the fate of the 2003 Gateway of India blasts
probe; trials in the 2006 train bombings are going on at snail’s pace;
the 2011 multiple bombs in Opera House and Dadar are festering
somewhere; while there is no progress in the Pune German Bakery bomb
blast. Then there are the fresh Jungli Maharaj Road bomb blasts in Pune
of 1 Aug 2012, the day Sushil Kumar Shinde was elevated as Union Home
Minister.
As
one unclosed chapter of violence piles upon another festering sore,
life goes on for the hapless denizens of the city – it is called the
famed resilience of Mumbai. Congress MP Milind Deora garners the maximum
number of votes from the Muslim areas of South Mumbai from where hail
the rally organizers, the Raza Academy. We have not heard a peep out of
him.
Sources:
Source : http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=2418
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