Who Will Douse Delhi’s Flames?

The dead are not spared. A part of Delhi, the national capital of India, has been reduced to ashes. They’ve desecrated a cemetery, mangled vehicles, broken homes, injured people, killed people – 39, as I write this. North East Delhi is a lower middle-class area, the residents are mostly small shopkeepers and labourers.

On February 23, the eve of Donald Trump’s visit, mobs had collected in pockets and started torching houses. Their anger, apparently, was over the anti-CAA and NRC protests. According to the Citizenship Amendment Act, people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan can seek asylum in India, but only if they are non-Muslim. In North East states like Assam, detention camps have already been built. To serve the government’s purpose, legitimate Muslim residents are being detained as illegal immigrants using the National Register of Citizens. If it is introduced in the country there are fears Muslims will be most affected.

The identification idea was expressed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he said that arsonists could be identified by their clothes. The mobs in Delhi had begun to place saffron flags outside Hindu houses to identity whom to not target.

The rightwing has been on a high. Among them are two members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Anurag Thakur’s chant, “Desh ke gaddaron ko…goli maaron saalon ko (shoot the traitors dead)” has become the go-to anthem of the Hindutva herds.

Kapil Mishra’s role can be directly linked to the present violence. “He threatened to mobilize a mob to clear out the protesters. He said he did not want to create trouble while Mr. Trump was visiting, but he warned the police that as soon as Mr. Trump left India on Tuesday night, his followers would clear the streets if the police did not. Tensions shot up. As Sunday evening approached, gangs of Hindu men and Muslim men began throwing rocks at each other. This quickly degenerated into wider violence, with Hindu residents accusing Muslims of attacking Hindu statues and Muslim residents expressing fear that a Hindu mob was forming to get them.”

Shaheen Bagh has been the fulcrum of the protests; women gathered here day and night to peacefully demonstrate. It spread to other areas and would have continued had the mobs not struck. This was clearly an attempt to derail the protests and to project the brute power of majoritarian politics.

Is the world interested? At the press conference in Delhi, when Donald Trump was asked about the violence a few miles from where he was, he said, "As far as the individual attacks, I heard about it, but I didn't discuss that with him (PM Modi). That's up to India."

Bernie Sanders reacted: "Over 200 million Muslims call India home. Widespread anti-Muslim mob violence has killed at least 27 and injured many more. Trump responds by saying ‘That's up to India’. This is a failure of leadership on human rights."

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A few Muslim protestors were dragged along the ground, beaten up with batons, and made to sing the national anthem – not by the crowd, but by the police.

The complicity of the police force has been evident for a few weeks now. In one chilling incident, a guy aimed his gun at protestors at the Jamia Millia University campus. The cops standing yards away from him merely watched. They watched silently as he shot at a Kashmiri student. Another time, the cops entered the university library and beat up the students. In N.E.Delhi there has been a repeat. Many people have said that the police were helping the goons, or had a tacit arrangement not to interfere. One mob leader said, “Give us permission, that’s all you need to do. You just stand by and watch. We will make sure you don’t get hurt. We’ll settle the score.”

When mobs offer the protect the police, it ceases to even qualify as a police state. It is a gangster state that is asserting its religious identity by using nationalism as a trump card. As happened in Ashok Nagar. They set fire to a mosque, put up a saffron flag on its minaret while waving the national flag; they raised slogans saying, “Hinduon ka Hindustan”, the nation belongs to Hindus. In another mosque, they burned a copy of the Quran, the holy book. A man who probably had lost everything in the violence was collecting its singed pages.

People are stopped at random and asked what their religion is. One man lied that he was Hindu; they asked him to recite the Hanuman Chalisa, a beloved verse for Hindus. He could not. They beat him up.

Mohamed Zubair’s photograph pleading for mercy has become the face of these riots. “They beat me till they broke me. I begged them and they beat me some more, viciously. They made communally charged slurs and took (BJP leader) Kapil Mishra’s name. I don’t remember much. I just hoped my children were safe. I can’t bear to look at my photograph, my legs shiver with pain.”

85-year-old Akbari burnt to death inside her house when they set it on fire. She was too old and frail to run and save her life.

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After three days of silence, and two days of his ostentatious show with Donald Trump, Narendra Modi woke up to comment on what is happening in Delhi. He did not address the nation nor did he hold a press conference, but he tweeted to say: “Peace and harmony are central to our ethos. I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace and brotherhood at all times. It is important that there is calm and normalcy is restored at the earliest.” There is violence in the streets. People are in hospital and dying. And all he can think of are homilies about harmony. There is no reaching out to the people, no assurances about how such normalcy will be achieved.

There is no one to question him. Arvind Kejriwal of the Opposition Aam Aadmi Party (People’s party), and the chief minister of Delhi, took a bunch of his ministers to Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, every politician’s favourite man for all seasons. Kejriwal has been mimicking Modi by taking a soft Hindutva stance, reciting verses on television and thanking Hanuman, the saviour of Lord Ram, in his victory speech. Politicians in India have to use religious nationalism to appease the majority that constitutes 80 per cent of the population. 

The role of mainstream media has been questionable. While the liberals among them give a fair exposure to both sides, as they must, it is the editorialising with such false equivalences that is problematic. There are indeed casualties on both sides, but a pogrom is a clear agenda against a particular group.

There are other casualties. Tahir Hussain, an opposition politician, has been booked for arson and murder because they found petrol bombs on his terrace. Nobody is interested in facts – the fact that he called the police several times because a mob had gathered outside his house and he was taken to a safe place. One is not opposed to an investigation into the truth, but there is a definite bias. Ruling party members who called for the murder of Muslims, that resulted in Delhi burning, are free.  The judge who asked the police to issue arrest warrants against them for incendiary speeches has been transferred. Delhi Police has told the high court that FIRs will be registered at an “appropriate time”. Are they waiting for more bloodshed? Is there a casualty quota they have to meet? The matter has been adjourned until April 13. In six weeks, there will be more destruction, evidence will be doctored, witnesses will be silenced, there will be more graves.

And they don’t even spare the dead.

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Published in CounterPunch

Does not abuse of these women count?

Only because the police force represents the establishment, should we ignore how some cops, especially female, are treated by civilians? In Bareillly, Uttar Pradesh, men have been calling up the police stations and harassing women cops with sexually provocative comments.

This reveals a certain cockiness, besides a problem with attitude. It does not help that this report refers to the men as "desperate romeos" and the sexual harassment they indulge in as "dirty talk".

A frustrated police department has now blocked the SIM cards of 90 mobile phone owners. In October alone, more than 1,738 such calls were made. Many among those, knowing full well that the calls were being recorded, spoke such obscenity that the women cops were forced to run to their seniors for help.

Why does the report make these female cops sound like 'damsels in distress'? They have a legitimate right to complain about abuse at the workplace, whether it is by their colleagues or callers. Had a male policeman been threatened, he too might have approached his seniors.

The CO (Circle Officer) added that there were occasions when the woman cop would just hand the phone over to a male colleague, but the intrepid caller would roundly abuse the male cop, too, and threaten him with dire consequences.

Clearly, the Indian media may talk about using terms like "survivor" instead of "victim" for those who've suffered sexual violence, but has no concept of how to respect the rights of women without such sound bite crutches.

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Should the fight against 'love jihad' be restricted to Hindu-Muslim alliances? Why are moderate Hindus and liberals not taking up intercaste 'honour' crimes?

Those news items are relegated to inside pages and rarely get any prominence, that too only if there is a hook to make them saleable. Meanwhile, incidents such as these continue to take place:

A Vijayawada-based man was arrested for allegedly raping his teenaged daughter over several months as punishment for having an affair with a youth from a different caste, after the victim and her mother approached the police...

"Initially, his intention was to punish her with that cruel deed. Subsequently, he developed an interest in her and went on repeating the same for almost a year", said PI (Nunna rural) Vara Prasad, who is probing the case.

A Appa Rao started out with vengeance, revenge against another caste person. There were no political ideologies involved, which is often the case. Do they matter less if there is no 'love jihad'-like catchphrase attached to them? Is there any sympathy for his teenage daughter, about her future and the love she lost?

If the Sanghis are hanging on to the phrase to demonise it, those battling against it have also made it into a business franchise. As there is a steady stream at the doors to partake of it, they realise it makes little sense to diversify into what stares them in the face by the same perpetrators — caste divisiveness and anti-Dalit sentiments. Should someone find an appropriate title, maybe our concerned liberals might join the bandwagon.

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Also my piece on love, jihad and politics

Rumours and Reality - Revisiting Sunanda Pushkar

While the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor, appeared to leave several unanswered questions, I am not sure about the latest “twist”.

Dr. Sudhir Gupta, head of forensic sciences at AIIMS, has filed an affidavit in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) claiming that he was 'pressured' by former Union minister and president of AIIMS, Ghulam Nabi Azad, to act in an 'unprofessional' manner to cover up the matter. 

"(The) applicant could not muster courage of openly placing the facts in black and white as the former president of AIIMS Ghulam Nabi Azad was an immensely powerful politician and the then health minister, and the husband of late Sunanda Pushkar was also a minister and a powerful politician," the affidavit stated.

Why was the job more important to the doctor than ethics? This query is valid now because there are charges of plagiarism and misconduct against him. Is he trying to cover his own tracks by alluding to a cover-up? What exactly does being pressured to act unprofessional really mean? This case was very public; the police were on the trail. Importantly, the forensic findings pointed out injuries, an overdose and drug poisoning. If there was pressure – and it not unlikely – nobody seemed to have keeled under it, at least as far as a medical report goes (although there were contradictory ones).

Before further investigations, the doctor should be interrogated not only about the nature of the pressure, but what he did not reveal in the report that he was forced to cover up. If it is different from what he gave the police, then he should be tried in court and his license taken away until he is cleared. It appears that he wants to be in the political good books and is more concerned about saving his own position.

Now that the case has resurfaced, there are a few points that need to be addressed.

The Congress made a huge mistake by fielding Shashi Tharoor, although he did win the Thiruvananthapuram seat. The point is about probity. He is not an accused, but the death of his wife under public and social media glare, where he himself was involved, sent out a message of arrogance and powerplay.

BJP members suggesting that there has been silence have got it all wrong. The media, in fact, went into overdrive then. The rumour mills were churning out conspiracies and propping up some of the players, however tangential their involvement with the personae. (My earlier post)

There were three main reasons they felt that Sunanda could have been murdered:

1. She had said she would expose the IPL backroom deals.
2. The ISI would want her out of the way because she suggested that Tharoor’s friend was a mole.
3. The relationship between the couple.

Regarding IPL, she essentially indicated that she was made into the scapegoat. Either way, as it was sweat equity it would be difficult to pin down as financial skullduggery.

The ISI angle is ridiculous, and one of the reasons the case did not gather momentum. Tharoor is not a big-ticket minister, so sending a honey trap would not make any sense. Also, a gushing fan as honey trap would be counter-productive. The only notable point here is that the lady was planning to write a book on the Kerala elections. Seriously, there were attempts to get a publisher for a Pakistani to cover elections in an Indian state that has little emotional or real connect with the neighbouring country. The ISI can be accused of many things, but not stupidity.

The third reason is the personal equation between the minister and his wife. Sunanda was quite open about accusing him and just as suddenly expressing positive vibes. But to call him a murderer when they were both image-conscious people is a bit much. If things did go wrong, then they had other ways to resolve the issues. They had been through such phases in life separately before they got married to each other. Her father, brother and son all stood by Tharoor even in their moment of grief. Were they pressured too?

She was certainly in bad shape as her online activity reveals. But she was an independently wealthy woman and not dependent on her husband. She was also a glamorous person with a public profile that did bring its share of snarky comments. She had survived them.

In January, she became a corpse in a five-star hotel room. With injuries. They have not been explained. No amount of poisoning can cause these. Tharoor has said he wants the cops to probe. He should pursue the case, not to absolve himself but because like others he too must be concerned about it.

Until then, the rumours will over-ride justice.

© Farzana Versey