The writer is a columnist. He is also a former editor of the Mumbai-based English newspaper Mid Day and the Gujarati paper Divya Bhaskar
aakar.patel@tribune.com.pk
The riots in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, in which 62 Indians died (42 Muslim and 20 Hindu), will accrue to the benefit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The violence came after skirmishing over the sexual harassment of a girl, which escalated into a conflict between Muslims and Jats that continued for days as the state struggled to put out the flames.
The reason that the rioting will work to the advantage of the BJP has to do with the nature of both, riots and voting. Community participation is a fact of the Indian riot, just as it is of voting. It is a disturbing fact, but it is true.
And we can demonstrate this through the events in Gujarat.
When a couple of years ago, courts finally began to convict the murderers of Gujarat’s 2002 riots, a remarkable fact emerged, which could be observed in the names of the convicted men. All the nine men guilty of murdering three Dawoodi Bohras in Malva Bhagol were Patels. All the 21 men convicted of a large massacre in the same village of Odh were found to be Patels. In Sardarpura village of Mehsana district, 31 men were jailed for the murder of 11 children, 17 women and five men. Of these murderers, 30 were Patels.
In another massacre in Dipda Darwaja area of Visnagar, the accused included BJP legislator Prahlad Patel. The case was initially dropped after the police, under officer MK Patel, deliberately made a hash of investigations. Three women, all Patels, were accused of assisting in the killing.
Of the 20 men convicted in the case, 19 were Patels.
The Gujarati Hindutva movement is led by men like Praveen Togadia (who is a Patel) and Babu Bajrangi, also a Patel. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad in the state was controlled by Jaideep Patel.
The Patels are the dominant peasant caste of Gujarat and the equivalent of the Reddys in Andhra Pradesh, the Gowdas in Karnataka, the Jats in Punjab and Haryana, the Kurmis in Bihar and the Patils in Maharashtra.
Whenever there is violence between Hindus and Muslims, whether it is created by the BJP (as it did during the 1992 movement against the Babri Masjid) or through other events (as happened with the riots in Gujarat), the result is a polarisation. The votes of the rioting Hindus tend to go to the BJP, while the Muslims look for a defensive option. In Gujarat, the caste that has put and kept the BJP in power for two decades is the Patidar community of the Patels. This caste dominates every BJP cabinet and Narendra Modi is actually the leader of the Patels, just as Mulayam Singh is the leader of Muslims in UP.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Jats, who are seething from the riots, will queue up behind the BJP in 2014. This will take the party over the top because it has already locked in the upper caste vote in the state. The addition of the Jat peasantry to its caste coalition will make the BJP the party to beat.
On the other hand, the Muslims will be terrified by the thought of Narendra Modi coming to power at the centre. The first thing they will do is abandon Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, which they have been voting for, because it is pragmatic and can ally with the BJP.
The Congress might benefit because the Muslims will also be angry with their old friend Mulayam Singh, whose son is UP’s chief minister, for allowing the riot to escalate.
In all communal violence across India, 107 people died this year, of whom, 66 were Muslim and 41 Hindu. This is a small number given the size of India’s population and the scale of violence in the states surrounding it. But it is a divisive violence.
Even though the thought is unpleasant, the reality is that UP will vote along communal lines in the coming election, just as it did in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid’s demolition.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 27th, 2013.
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COMMENTS (33)
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So Muslim consolidation is good, but hindu consolidation is bad.
And the icing on the cake - the PM and Rahul Gandhi go and meet only the muslim riot victims, as if there was no hindu victims.
The sequence of events: A muslim guy harasses a hindu girl in India. Her brothers/cousins go and thrash the muslim guy. He dies. In response, the family/community of the muslim guy don't file a police complaint but go and kill those two cousins who killed the first muslim guy. The hindu cousins' family and friends don't go to police either, instead get all their might and unleash it on muslims. Both parties have no regard for law. At the end, the stronger side wins with lesser deaths. And muslims complain of minority harassment. All this - under almost a muslim CM. (don't know of any instance where a hindu boy harassing a muslim girl in Pakistan, and the subsequent repurcussions on him/family).
@Dipak: If you lived in Pakistan, you would be treated as third class citizen. NO! He will be welcomed as he is a Muslim. That's all that matters in Pakistan!
This was an oversimplified explanation of situation in UP as far as expected voting in forthcoming elections are concerned. Comparing muzzafarnagar riots with riots following babari demolition is clearly an exaggeration. Also writer seems to have overlooked this time gap of 22 yrs in which lot has changed. Today the common voter understands that these riots are basically staged. If it was not so then BJP may have had formed government in UP in 2002 when Godhara riots were recent.So getting polarized so much so that the general voting pattern is completely changed is too much to expect. Jats are traditional voters of ajeet singh so BJP is not going to gain much unless it makes an alliance with ajit singh. Congress is nowhere in UP . In 2009 Congress managed few seats because samajwadi party's Muslim face aajam khan was not there with them but it is not so this time. Also Muslims in UP understand that Congress won't be able to win seats in UP with Muslim votes alone. So the main fight would be between the regional parties here viz SP & BSP.
This Op'ed is strictly about communal violence in India. but as always indian commentators like Gp65 somehow related it to Pakistan. Lady this is strictly about India. Why are you always so compelled to drag Pakistan into everything? Indians need to stop justifying crimes and recognize that things are not so perfect in Secular India. Fix your problems and stop dragging Pakistan unnecesarrily to staisfy your desire to be on moral high grounds all the time . Both the Countries have issues and about time you focus on yours instead of ours.
@watter bottle: Eve teasing is a global problem; yet it is not a justification to commit riots!
@Np Your assertion that "law-enforcement acts evenhandedly against both" is disputed. So building your argument on a premise which is seriously questionable does not help. You can try to put words in my mouth but that won't help you either. If Muslims who have nothing to do with a certain riot, are mercilessly killed, raped and evicted from their homes, it is terrorism plain and simple. If you want to give it another name, I know the reason. Neither did I state that the original violence by Muslims is justified, nor did I imply it.
I can give you many examples. Ever heard of Albania?
Indians do like to appreciate the West but never point out how it instigates Muslims. Just pointing out their double standards.
ET Please allow response to someone who has written to me.
@Razi: What is happening is that in India, Muslims attack Hindus and Hindus retaliate and then law enforcement acts even handedly against both sides. You describe this as terrorism against Muslims, so it is natural to assume that in your mind the original violence by the Muslims was justified whether you explicitly said so or not.
As for the thing that you describe as red herring - how so? All you have to do is give just one example to prove me wrong. You can't give it can you?
What IS a red herring is your whole rant about Indians appreciating the west except for when they deny visa to Modi- not sure that had any relevance to what is being discussed.
@Rama: "I am not sure why you are so obessed with the Indian leaders and prime ministerial candidates" Because he is an Indian.
@Razi: The second part of your comment is a red herring. I am sure you have done exhaustive research on all the Muslim majority countries and hence are in a position to make such a claim with an air of finality. Great effort, I must say!
Why don't you answer his question instead of calling it a red herring? I concur to what he has stated. It does not require exhaustive research to make that statement. Most sane people will agree.
@Np
Ah, so you want to use a strawman to respond to me. I never said that "the initial killing of Hindus by Muslims is Jihad", but you read what you wanted to. I just stated that since you guys are so fond of mentioning that Muslims instigated all the riots in India (keep up the good work by never mentioning Babri masjid or the fact that the original cause of rioting in Muzaffarnagar is disputed), it makes perfect sense to also mention who instigated the Muslim "terrorism" against the US every time you guys want to continue your litany of Muslims-are-the-worst-people-in-the-world. Unfortunately, most of you come here with a single point agenda of trying to show how bad Pakistanis and Muslims are. Since praising the West (except when the US refuses to give a visa to Modi) is also what you guys enjoy doing on these pages while simultaneously condemning Muslims for their violence against it, it helps to mention what instigates them.
The second part of your comment is a red herring. I am sure you have done exhaustive research on all the Muslim majority countries and hence are in a position to make such a claim with an air of finality. Great effort, I must say!
@zaman ali:
"why should the whole muslim community suffer if a few muslims harass a hindu girl, the law should have taken its course and the guilty culprits punished, that’s how it should have been and that’s how it is in most civilised countries. what this points to is a deep rooted problems of polarised communities, prejudice and failure of rule of law."
It totally agree with you that the timely rule of law should have been enforced by the authorities. However, the political party ruling UP was playing politics by not arresting the Muslim men who were guilty of sexual harassment.
@Ejaj & Gp65: Partly true. Caste and other identities are important dimensions of voting pattern (baradari is applicable only to some belts in North-Western India though). But that is true of both urban and rural India, more so for rural. But centrality of caste depends on time and place. In Bihar, Bengla and Odisha (the ones I know of first hand) local development has become a big issue.
@zaman Ali - Presently in India most of the communal riots are engineered for political purpose, so enmity or law and order implementation is not an issue.
I am a Muslim, a Pakistani and a Jat (my ancestors apparently were sikh and converted to Islam. My family was settled in Pakistani Punjab before partition so they stayed there but from my paternal side, our ancestral village is a Sikh village in Indian Punjab (sadly I dont know exact place, never showed much interest in my ancestral hisotry as a child and my grandparents are deceased now). So if I was in India, where does Mr Aakar Patel feel my loyalties would lie if i voted along communal lines? According to religion (Muslim), caste (Jat) or someone who brings my land economic benefits, social equality, freedom, etc.
@Razi: Ah so using your logic the initial killing of Hindus by Muslims is jihad and the response by Hindus where Muslims get killed is terrorism?
Please show me one Muslim majority country where minorities could so blatantly initiate violence against majority repeatedly and yet the law enforcement remains even handed punishing both - the ones that initiated the fight and the one that responded?
@water bottle: Not just did they harass the Hindu girl, when her brother and another Hindu boy protested, the Muslims killed him.
I am sure all the Hindus here understand quite well the root cause of violence against the US emanating from Al-Qaida. It's the US policies against which this reaction came. Always point this fact out when you write or speak about 'terrorism'. After all, that's precisely how you people try to explain the terrorism of the majority community against Muslims in India.
why should the whole muslim community suffer if a few muslims harass a hindu girl, the law should have taken its course and the guilty culprits punished, that's how it should have been and that's how it is in most civilised countries. what this points to is a deep rooted problems of polarised communities, prejudice and failure of rule of law.
@Ovais:
Who are you saying is lying about the number of deaths? And, how do you they are lying?
I don't want pointless propagandising, please. Please share some concrete links from valuable sources.
@Ovais:
Please share if you have a different number and also please quote your source.
Apparently Gujarat makes a perfect model when you want to give obscure caste-based anecdotes of communal violence, but a riot-free state for 11 years is a model that cannot be replicated across the country because then, Gujarat somehow becomes an alien planet.
In all communal violence across India, 107 people died this year, of whom, 66 were Muslim and 41 Hindu. This is a small number given the size of India’s population and the scale of violence in the states surrounding it. But it is a divisive violence.
Atleast in karachi and other parts of pakistan we dont lie about the number of deaths
In India nobody bothers about who is the political leader and who is headind Paksitan except in the central govt and bordering states. I am not sure why you are so obessed with the Indian leaders and prime ministerial candidates
I thought religion is behind riots, whereas according to author it is only some caste of Hindu involved in riots or is it an attempt to divide the religion into caste votes ? If all the patels are convicted for Gujarat riots in 2002, why still we are talking about justice still not given to Muslims and still targeting Modi for Gujarat Riots ?
While there can't be any excuse, justification or condoning these barbaric killings in riots, it must be noted that, in a vast majority of communal riots in India, it was the minority community that first started the strong provocation.
Seventy innocent Hindu pilgrim men, women and children were brutally burned alive in the train at Godhra by Muslim mobs that provoked the horrible Gujarat pogrom where 700 Muslims and 300 Hindus died.
In the case of the recent Muzzafarnagar riots, the provocation was the sexual harassment of a Hindu girl by a Muslim man. In this incident, the police and the politicians failed miserably to apply rule of law in the initial stages which could have prevented the escalation.
Dear Mr Aakar Patel,
You are almost 100% right this time. I am a Jat and can tell you with all honesty that majority of Jats in UP will vote for BJP because of Modi and not otherwise. Mulayam Singh has played divisive politics of appeasement in UP. Moreover his son is a poor administrator and has done hardly any development work. Jat areas of UP have been neglected by all successive governments. I request you to travel from Delhi to Saharanpur via Shamli and see the condition of road and you will know the reality. Congress has no chance in UP this time.
"The violence came after skirmishing over the sexual harassment of a girl"
At least you didn't lie like Seema Mustafa. Though you could have told the whole truth.
The whole truth is Muslims started the skirmishes by sexually harassing a Hindu girl.
Akaar, not all Patels are bad; for instance you are also a Patel, though a Muslim. One should not paint all Patels with the same brush. It is like saying "all Muslims are terrorists" which they are NOT.
I have just one more point to add. Muslims in India almost always vote en-block strategically to any candidate (preferably Muslim) who can defeat a rival BJP candidate. You do not appear consider this practice as communal.
Then pray, what makes you think that in the coming elections, voting in UP would be along communal lines? Just because Hindus will also start voting on communal lines as has been practiced all along by Muslims who constitute 20 to 45%% of voters in UP, Bihar, WB, Tripura and Assam.
You are correct that voting in India is still more or less caste and community based. Who started all this? Not BJP.
Will the corruption of Congress make any difference? Are you saying that the rural Indians do not look at performance or issues at all but vote along communal lines? If so they are not much different than us voting along bradari lines.