Delhi Riots: Historical Patterns, Complicity of Forces Point to Planned Violence
Hiren Gohain
Some of my respected friends
refuse to admit there is any pattern and discount conspiracies in the "Delhi
violence", as it is referred to in sanitised versions. I fear that they also
discount the habitual cunning and deceit with which Fascists work. Remember the
notorious Reichstag Fire in which Nazis burned down the entire Parliament House
of Weimar period Germany to disrupt official business of the government. They
arrested a mentally unstable former Communist party member and cooked up a
far-fetched plot by Communists-their mortal enemies-as the alleged culprits. We
should not grudge the same degree of guile and enterprise to their Indian
avatars.
Chronology is of the essence.
Hardly had the embers of Delhi conflagration died than the Home Minister
thundered that the CAA was not an instrument to deny citizenship of "our Muslim
brothers and sisters". The BJP also took out a procession in Delhi in support
of CAA. The idea seems to be that the Delhi violence has finally clinched this
contentious issue!Similarly, the provocations by the saffron spokesmen ahead of
the riots surely cast a lurid light on traces that might get lost in
newly-discovered evidence of Muslim complicity from the beginning.
I would like to draw attention
to one more thing. Ever since CAA had been rushed through both Houses with
speed like that of a gale, BJP leaders have been saying two things. First is
their repeated assertion that Nehru and other Indian leaders formally opened
the doors to 'refugees from religious persecutions in neighbouring countries'.
Actually, as Dinesh Dwivedi has proved so ably in a recent
article in The Wire, Nehru and other leaders at that time had in mind two
streams of migrants, both coming to India: the Hindus escaping atrocities by
crazed votaries of Pakistan as a Muslim state, and the Muslims who had been driven
to seek shelter in Pakistan by raging saffron mobs returning to their homes in
India following an assurance of security by the Indian government. And this
refers to events up to 1955 or thereabout. There was no allusion to religious
persecution.
Second is their constant
insistence that the 'unfinished agenda of 1947' is to be completed today with
finality. This sounds rather like the Final Solution of the Nazis. But what do
they really mean by it? There had been no such agreed agenda in the period following
independence. We formally chalked out a national agenda with the completion and
adoption of the Constitution.
Then what do they mean by it? We
can form an idea by considering the forming and crystallisation of the saffron
mindset. We must firmly grasp the elusive fact that these groups believe in and
draw lessons from an altogether different history than what is to be found in
accepted academic work and among educated circles. They are convinced the
country had been divided on religious-communal lines. The argument among them
in 1947 was that since Hindu migrants in their millions had exited or been
driven away from Pakistan, all Indian Muslims should likewise be driven away to
Pakistan.
They have continued to believe,
contrary to ideas we have long held, that the circle is yet to be completed. It
remains an article of faith with them that Muslims should be compelled by
pressure, including violence, to 'go back to their natural homeland'. Hindustan
is the natural home of Hindus, they insist still, and Pakistan or some other
Islamic country is the natural homeland of Muslims that inhabit India. If
Muslims want to remain here it will have to be under terms set by 'Hindus'. One
might think it crazy. But it is this crazy logic that has often driven nightmare
projects.
The Wheels of Justice
The 'riots' in Delhi, a replay
of the 1946-7 riots after a gap of more than 70 years, surely cannot be played
down as an unfortunate conjuncture of circumstances. The major role in the grim
and deadly violence is that of the same forces that had led the mobs then, now
led by armed and trained mobs who systematically carried out the massive arson
and destruction as well as the slaughter. Most importantly, they were on both
occasions driven by the same ideology and organisations. Finishing 'the
unfinished agenda of 1947' is now the war cry, underlining the continuity.
It is therefore almost a waste
of time to analyse the psychopathology of the rioters or speculate on how lack
of alertness of government and the mutual recriminations of 'two hostile
groups' coincided to turn a flicker into a blaze. Politics is of paramount
importance here and mere humanitarianism an inadequate, even dangerous,
response.
It is in this connection that
the judiciary's part claims our attention. The honourable judges of the Supreme
Court have rued, not without reason, that much more has been expected of them
than what the scope of judicial intervention would normally allow. First the
High Court was attending to it and there has been some action there, ruling out
a pre-emptive arrogation of its powers. Secondly, the violence has blown over
and, after all, the courts cannot 'stop riots'. They do not have the power to
do so.
One feels uneasy about this
self-denial. As a layman innocent of the intricacies of law one still is guided
first by the adage that justice must not only be done but seen to be done and
secondly by memories of numerous instances when the Supreme Court has
intervened with peremptory swiftness and
firmness when
it found lower courts either dilatory or hesitant in matters of absolute public
interest.
The High Court judge S
Muralidhar had acted with creditable alacrity and with exemplary sense of
responsibility when he demanded prompt action against hateful inflammatory
speeches that had raised temperature in Delhi by several degrees to danger
level. The plea of the police that there are hundreds of such hate speeches appears to deflect attention from its grave
dereliction of duty. From newspaper reports it had been easy enough to form an
idea as to who or what had struck the tinder.
The midnight drama, as in the
abortive ministry-formation in Maharashtra, sought to dislodge an established
rule of business in a rather clumsy rushed step, and practically snatched from
a judge his power to pronounce on an urgent matter with required despatch in
the interest of public order. And what followed was even more regrettable. The
honourable High Court might arguably have been a little more courteous and
might have allowed him to stay on the bench at least for another day in a
silent rebuke to the executive for its shoddiness. By not only taking over the
proceedings and overruling the sense of urgency in Justice Muralidhar's earlier
order, the court has practically appeared to administer a rebuke to him. It
does not appear to be just one bench overturning another bench's decision in
routine fashion.
Advocate Colin Gonsalves approached the Supreme
Court for
redress in this disquieting situation. He had rightly sensed that prompt and
firm action was required to call the erring police to order. And a firm
judgment, by restraining the miscreants and their patrons would have gone a
long way to actually prevent this rash from spreading to other parts of the
country and our democracy from succumbing to the sickness.
One still hopes the chorus of
public anguish and bewilderment will persuade their lordships to shoulder this
really onerous burden of protecting our Constitution and democracy from
marauders on the rampage.
The author is a
socio-political commentator and cultural critic. The views are personal.