Rapid Communal Polarisation in Uttar Pradesh

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh is in the midst of communal strife with right wing forces having a field day in the absence of government. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has little hold over the administration while his father Samajwadi party president Mulayam Singh never tires of telling concerned opposition leaders that his son is weak, and the bureaucracy “just does not listen.”

Communal violence also does not make it to the front page with large scale rioting in Kanpur being reported on the inside pages of the so called national media. Clashes took place over a damaged religious poster, with pitched battles being fought ,according to the media reports between the two communities. The police claimed to have come under fire from the warring communities with a couple of the cops sustaining bullet injuries.

The UP government was unable to control the situation that had worsened by last evening, with vehichles being torched, and heavy brick-batting and firing being reported from different localities.The BSF and PAC took out a flag march but according to latest reports Kanpur is in the grip of deep tension.

In fact the state of UP is showing signs of instability, in that small incidents are creating communal tensions and violence. While statistics compiled by governments remain unreliable, local journalists and politicians claim a “riot a day”, pointing out that most incidents of violence do not even make it to the media.

Tension was also reported in Kunda and Pratapgarh over Muharram. In Kannauj one person died following violence over reportedly the throwing of colour on Dussehra day. Violent clashes resulted in the death of one man. The violence has been covered sketchily in newspapers, based entirely on official information and not on field reports. Hence while the violence is confirmed, the reasons, and the spread remains in doubt.

This has been the state government’s refrain since the Muzaffarnagar violence during the Lok Sabha elections last year with Mulayam Singh not even visiting the west UP district. Over a year down the line the rehabilitation of the victims who fled in droves for their lives remains under a big question mark.

The media is silent about the communal incidents that continue to dot the UP landscape, leading to local skirmishes, gutting of houses and shops and perhaps no deaths but levels of displacement that are not even regarded as ‘serious’ by the state government. However, this continuing violence has succeeded in polarising communities and eating into the secular fabric of this large state where Hindus and Muslims are being pitted against each other through rumours, and calibrated violence.

The Dadri lynching set a new landmark this year, coming on the heels of a strong campaign by right wing groups against beef that had been preceded by equally virulent campaigns against what was termed ‘love jihad’ and ‘ghar wapsi’ that had targeted both Muslims and Christians in western UP in particular.

Last year, according to some figures given by the government to the Lok Sabha, 133 communal incidents took place in UP. This year in January alone the state reported over 70 incidents of communal violence. In another set of ‘official’ statistics 68 incidents of communal violence were reported from UP in the first six months of the year, clearly very different from the January figure.

As a senior politician said when asked about this, “well since when have government statistics been reliable on communalism?”

Little has been heard or for that matter seen of Bahujan Samaj leader Mayawati who seems to have vanished from view. The BJP and its front organisations, many of which mushroom and disappear overnight, are busy and active in the districts with little to no resistance from the other major political parties, including the Congress. In Lucknow academics and artists who are worried about the deteriorating secular environment have held a couple of demonstrations but as one eminent writer told The Citizen, “we are too small and weak to be very effective. We expected the state government to take action, as Nitish Kumar has in Bihar, but clearly the Samajwadi party has other plans.”