A Muslim In Muzaffarnagar

Series: 3 Letters to 3 Leaders

NEW DELHI: Dear Mulayam Singhji,

I am writing this with a heavy heart and in the knowledge that you might not even see this letter. And even if you read it by some chance, you will dismiss it as being from just one of those women who knows not what she says, and is acting on someone’s instructions.

I have been your supporter Mulayam Singh ji ever since I started voting twenty years ago. I live in a small village in Muzaffarnagar, and my entire family have voted for the Samajwadi party. My father-in-law and my husband were your ardent supporters, and if anyone even spoke against you, they were ready to beat them up in the village. Incidentally I am from Moradabad town and was educated by my parents till Class 12. My father was with the Congress party and had contested and won local elections several times. So I know my politics. My in-laws have land here and were well to do, until now.

And yes, I am a Muslim who like all the people here have lived together and voted together. We are all so close, and never had problems even when there was violence in Moradabad and Meerut over the years. My husband always said that we did not need to worry, as “our Mulayam Singh ji will look after us.” When your government came to power there were celebrations in our house as if it was Eid, and everyone was happy that we would be safe and secure.

Until that night Mulayam Singhji. Until that night. We knew that tension was building up with the panchayats, then mahapanchayats, and the villages full of rumours of eve teasing, of girls being raped, of boys being killed. It was like a flood, no one knew what was the truth and what was a lie but we knew that this was not good news and there could be trouble. Our Jat neighbours were agitated as they heard of Muslim boys running away with their girls, and their boys being attacked. Our Muslim relatives and neighbours were agitated as they heard of their boys being beaten and killed. Panchayats started being held on the basis of these rumours. Mahapanchayats were then held with even our neighbours going for these, where big politicians came and directed the villagers to ‘take revenge.’ No one knew what the revenge was for, but they all shouted slogans and dispersed to take this ‘revenge’ against people who had no idea of what was going on.

When we first heard the news, and this was days before the attacks, we were sure that your administration would take action. My father in law said, and I remember him so clearly,”do not worry, if we know what is happening Mulayam Singh ji and Akhilesh ji also know it. They will ensure nothing happens.” My father wanted us all to come to Moradabad as he too had heard of the tension building up in the area but my in-laws refused. “No no, no need,” they said, “nothing will happen, it never has in our village and it never will.”

Until that night Mulayam Singh ji when suddenly we heard people shouting slogans, and pounding on our doors, and setting huts on fire. We were being attacked, and it was so sudden that we did not know what to do. We did not have time to wear our slippers but just picked up our children and ran from the back into the fields. We just ran and ran and ran, as we heard the mobs shouting behind us, and saw flames of our houses being set on fire reaching the skies. So we ran until we came to Muzaffarnagar town and collapsed at the first madrasa we saw. Our children were crying, we had nothing with us, nothing and then we noticed that my husband was missing. He had been busy sending us all out, but now we could not find him. You know what happened Mulayam Singhji. We got to know three days later.

He was caught by the mobs and beaten to death.

By then hundreds and thousands had joined us, and soon we were in what was a camp. We lived there with no belongings, no money, food given to us by charitable souls, no shelter, and no medicine for our children or for my mother-in-law who was taken very ill. We thought you would come and meet us, that our chief minister would come, but no one came. We heard that Rahul Gandhi came, and before him Akhileshji arrived at some point and left. No one came to write our names, no one came to tell us what was happening, no one registered our FIRs, and no one bothered to even declare us an official camp for several days.

Today we have not gone back to our village as our house has been completely gutted. There is nothing to go back to. My father in law sold the land at a distress price and we are living in a small room---eleven of us---we have taken on rent in Muzaffarnagar. My husband is dead, my two children are six and four years old, my sisters-in-law have still to be married, my brothers in law are studying. There was some money that your government sent for the ‘victims’, I do not even know how much it was, but I know that we were promised more but nothing has come for us.

Our mistake was that we thought you were secular Mulayam Singh ji. That you cared and were committed to our security and our development. But now I know that the BJP is right when it accuses you of ‘appeasement of Muslims’ because that is all you do. Both of you, they appease one community, you the others, and in the process the poor remain poor. You speak for the Muslims all the time, your Azam Khan shouts from the rooftops about us so that others get angry and think we are getting some special treatment. You know and we know that we are not, and that you are not even there when we need you. Azam Khan just gives us a bad name with his communal rhetoric, he is never there when required. Nor are you. Nor is your son.

You know why you lost the elections? Because of Muzaffarnagar. The word spread and even in constituencies where the Muslims supported you, the Hindus did not. Your politics of playing to the gallery all the time has helped political parties like the BJP make it a Hindu-Muslim issue. You thought the Yadavs would be with you, and you would sail to power on the same Yadav-Muslim combination. This was not going to happen Mulayam Singhji because the young Yadav is also tired of your promises and he might not care about communalism but he wants jobs, he wants to move forward not stay behind and keep voting for you and your empty promises.

The Muslims turned away from you, in some constituencies they voted for SP candidates who were still credible, in other places they voted for the BSP or even the Congress. Our vote did not matter in these elections. Because your administration did not support you, and your politics allowed communalism to grow, and your indifference and inefficiency ensured that others took advantage of it and came to power instead.

Sitting in this one room and writing this long letter I realise that you have not changed even now. You are the same. You have not learnt from Muzaffarnagar, or from Meerut, or from Saharanpur. You still think that the same politics of feudalism, opportunism, and falsehoods will work. It will not Mulayam Singhji. It will not because our memories are too stark, and the wounds too deep for us to come back to you. You hope that if the BJP remains then the Muslims will have no choice but to support you. You do not realise that this support is useless now, even if it existed, as it is fractured as is your base vote of the Yadavs as well. And your apathy and indifference will prevent you from reviving.

We Muslims do not want leaders like you and Azam Khan. We do not want the BJP either. We will sit and not vote until a true alternative offers itself. But that alternative is not the Samajwadi party Mulayam Singh ji. It certainly is not.

Namaste and please do not try to turn our misfortune into political fortunes for you and your party.

I sign off in the solace that if we are ruined, so are you. The difference is we know it and are trying to struggle out of the darkness, but you do not want to know it and are sinking further and further into the abyss.

A bereaved woman from Muzaffarnagar