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Enough said

Back to Muzaffarnagar

How is a pogrom planned and executed? The riots of Muzaffarnagar and other subsequent developments are a recent, ongoing example.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Several people tell me I focus too much on Muzaffarnagar, but I’m in no apologetic mood. I’m trying to focus on and bring attention to what seems to be a genocide.

Yes, that’s blunt. Equally blunt is my belief that today’s politicians are using the age-old strategy of killing in a systematic way. First, riots are made to occur – no riot can start and spread without the knowledge of the police and the State machinery. Provocations are used to ignite an already charged atmosphere. The pogrom is allowed to go on, not stopped. And as research shows, the police play a partisan role.

If recruitment at the police constable level takes place on the basis of caste and community, then it should come as no shock to anyone that the police join the rioters when the riot goes against their own caste. The hapless victims are either killed or made to flee. 

At this stage, the land and political mafia grab the (forcibly) vacated lands and homes and fields. Meanwhile, nobody cares a damn if the affected riot victims die or live like third class citizens. If they dare to point fingers or accuse the wrongdoers, other strategies are used – encounter killings or terror charges are heaped on the victims’ heads and they sit languishing in jails.

In Muzaffarnagar, though, Akhilesh and Mulayam Yadav have gone a step ahead. The riots went uncontrolled, were allowed to spread to the rural belt, and survivors were not allowed to survive. Even those tattered tents sheltering the victims were pulled off, killing most of them in these freezing temperatures.

The father-son duo is now playing a bigger game – first it was rioting, then  the hounding of the survivors, then an overnight removal of relief tents, then the bulldozing of the very muzaffarnagar riotsstretch where the survivors would sit and where the dead lay in fresh graves. Now, relief workers and activists and the media are being kept at a ‘safe distance’, by introducing a new ‘terror angle’! And to complete this picture of apathy and sheer insensitivity, thick-skinned bureaucrats of the Uttar Pradesh sarkar quip, “Nobody dies of cold…people survive in Siberia”!

Can we ask these politicians and bureaucrats to step outside their heated offices, and head to these places in this biting cold, not wearing their sweaters and jackets and mufflers, amidst the fog and the mist and the intermittent drizzles? Will they do it? Can they?

It is with a sense of rage that I say: Shame these politicians! After terrorising a hapless population, they are pushing these people towards death – all out there in the open!

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.indianexpress.com)

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Enough said

Citizens fight back against injustice

The days of people quietly accepting atrocities by the State are long gone – now they’re combating injustice with information.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his wife, Lyudmila, made a rather dignified announcement, which put a formal end to their marriage. It was known before the announcement, that the two were rarely together, and that they had been dragging the marriage along for years.

What impressed me was the manner in which the announcement was made. The couple is middle-aged, yet they didn’t let their age come in the way of their decision. To part at 60 cannot be easy.

Just pause and think of how we, in India, rarely take this step at age 60 and beyond, preferring to keep up the sham. We pretend everything’s fine, we are comfortable portraying a reality that doesn’t exist. We can keep up the pretence for years. That’s just who we are.

And because we are so happy propagating a private lie, we are happy lying in the public sphere as well. Even as parts of North India are being wrecked by the monsoon, with hundreds being killed in flash floods and landslides, our politicians are doing what they do best – nothing. Political leaders from across the board should currently be a part of the relief operations in affected regions, putting to good use the sarkari and non-sarkari brigades they nurture. But what are they really doing? Conducting aerial tours, sitting far away and giving boring speeches.

Some politicians are otherwise engaged in justifying fake encounter killings or arresting innocents. In Lucknow, activists are protesting outside the UP State Assembly, against the khalid mujahidillegal arrest and killing of Khalid Mujahid by the UP cops (see pic on right). But Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav are choosing to divert attention by distributing computers and laptops!

In Gujarat, where Mumbai-based student Ishrat Jehan who was killed in a fake encounter on the pretext of her part in a terror plot, the case has been reopened and the focus is now on the blatant killings conducted by the State. A few months ago, I had spoken to well-known human rights lawyer Vrinda Grover, who is the counsel for Ishrat’s mother. She said, “It was soon after the Sohrabuddin case was taken up by the Supreme Court and the nexus between the cops and politicians was exposed that I was contacted by Ishrat’s family to take up their case.

“It was the conviction of the mother and family in the innocence of Ishrat and their determination to have her name cleared of the tag of terrorism that persuaded me. They wanted their respect and dignity restored. As a human rights lawyer, I often represent victims of police atrocities and violence. But, after meeting Shamima Kauser (Ishrat’s mother) and her children, seeing the case file and the reading the truth about Sohrabuddin’s murder, it was clear that this ‘encounter’ was not just a crime committed by some trigger-happy cops, but rather part of the State-sanctioned and planned violence against Muslims, which was unleashed in the genocidal pogrom of 2002.

Ishrat_Jahan“The FIR recorded by the Police of these encounters refers to the riots and killings of Muslims in 2002 and claims that the alleged ‘terrorists’ wanted to kill Modi and take revenge for the 2002 attack on Muslims. These encounters, about 22 of them in Gujarat, are part of the politics of hate to polarise and build mistrust and fear between the communities. It is very important to recognise a clear pattern of targeting Muslims and demonising them as the enemy that must be eliminated, by use of State power, whether through engineered riots or staged fake encounters i.e cold blooded murders by those in State power.”

She went on, “It is very important to bring out the truth behind these fake encounters because in Gujarat there is a criminal nexus between the political executive, the police and even persons in critical positions in the IB, both in the Centre and State. This is a very dangerous and lethal combination and before our eyes a fascist State is in the making. To fight for Ishrat’s truth is part of the battle against fascism. The mechanics of electoral democracy may not deliver justice and the legal battle is important so that the killers and their masterminds are unmasked and punished.”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy news.in.msn.com, www.rina.in, rihaaimanch.blogspot.com)

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Enough said

Rahul for PM?

Humra Quraishi wonders why Rahul Gandhi does not grasp the several opportunities thrown his way at the best of times.

New Delhi is no longer just the rape capital of the country, but it is also the battleground for those desperate to grab much more than the proverbial pound of flesh. New Delhi is where one experiences the rush for unlimited power that comes with the two magic words – Prime Minister.

Of course, Mamata didi proved another again that she has no chance at this post, or indeed advance in Delhi’s political circles. Once again, she played her cards in her usual hysterical fashion, and brought down any aspirations she may have had of making inroads in Delhi. The latest killing in her State’s capital, of student leader Sudipto Gupte, can be seen as the very start of her political downfall. The rule of absolute power does not hold for long, and with this latest incident, Mamata hopefully has seen the light.

And then there’s Narendra Modi, who currently seems to be more interested in giving speeches to a select few in Delhi, than doing something for the semi-parched parts of his State. It seems his hosts double-checked the invite list for his speech venues, which included the movers and shakers in business and several rightwingers, but which curiously did not have a single name from the capital’s ‘outspoken’ lot.

For surely, if any of this group was present, there would have been uncomfortable questions on why his men had Ishrat Jehan and several others killed in fake encounters, why women were raped and killed in his State, and why a great majority of Muslims of Ahmedabad are forced to live in one big cluster in Juhapura, an underdeveloped ghetto.

And therein lies the question: why are we, as a collective lot, being swayed and fooled by our politicians? Why are we wilfully blind to the bigger picture?

If you are unable to go beyond politicians’ babble, I would suggest you watch the film Hotel Rwanda, to see what happens if two communities/tribes are pitted against each other. Civil war breaks out, with all possible crimes committed against all sections of society, cutting across all power structures, ultimately affected all citizens.

Unfortunately, those who have the mettle to take on these politicians are steadfastly refusing to bite the bait. Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who possesses all those attributes to take on Modi, refused even to be Vice President, much before the nomination stage! Also, it’s a complete no-no on the Yadav front – Akhilesh  Yadav seems incapable of running his own State, Uttar Pradesh, where even children are raped and jailed, so making any moves in Delhi’s direction would be furthest from his mind at the moment.

Do you see what this means? It so turns out that the only man who can probably take on   Modi at the moment is Rahul Gandhi. He isn’t much of a speech giver, nor does he cash in on any strong points – his own or his party’s – but he is earnest.

To quote N Ram, from the foreword this veteran journalist has written to the last book on  Rahul Gandhi, Decoding Rahul Gandhi, by Aarthi Ramachandran, “We learn that Rahul  Gandhi is an obsessive organisation man, who believes in applying business management strategies and methods, including the ‘Toyota Way’, to grassroots political organisation. He espouses meritocratic notions of seeking and nurturing talent and opening up opportunity for career advancement in Congress politics.

“While he has not been above playing the dynastic card, he has been candid about how he got to where he is today, declaring himself to be ‘a symptom of this problem’, which he wished to change. He does not seem to be good at building coalitions or dealing with existing or potential allies. He favours going it alone, but unlike, say BSP leader Mayawati, he has no core social constituency. In the heat of campaigning, he has made his share of political gaffes and over-the-top allegations against opponents. He has been an indifferent Parliamentarian, whose sporadic interventions on issues, including corruption, have impressed no one, except the political faithful. His secular credentials are not in question; in fact, he holds no known religious faith and has gone so far as to declare the national flag to be his religion.”

To me, Rahul’s earnestness is his strong point. But he seems to be surrounded by a bunch of advisors that is coming in the way of his connectivity with the people. It isn’t enough to spend an evening or eat a meal at a poor man’s dwelling, there has to be an ongoing, sincere connect daily, which does not seem contrived.

Dear Rahul, why can’t people visit your office and tell you their grievances?

Why can’t you see the right-wing nuts in your own party and have them thrown out?

Why can’t you focus only on communalism and corruption issues, and tackle them first?

Why can’t you use the whistle-blower cops of Gujarat – who had taken on Modi – to your advantage?

When will stop looking like you’re still waiting in the wings, and take centrestage?

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

 (Pictures courtesy adilmohdblog.com, travelindia-guide.com, mid-day.com)

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