By Seema Khan
What happened in Delhi has been simmering for a long time. It was expected and no one should be surprised given the type of speeches we had been hearing during the election campaign by the BJP leaders like Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra, Amit Shah and others.
And it’s not a mystery how Delhi Riots started. What was surprising though is it’s magnitude, and the lack of will on the part of central and State governments to control it for three days, and let it continue for five days.
Peaceful protests were happening for nearly seventy days, all over the country, with protesters singing national anthem and carrying national flags and portraits of national heroes, with no undesirable incident in Delhi except firing around Jamia.
Polarisation is in the DNA of BJP. They tried hard during the Delhi elections with slogans like ‘desh kay gaddron ko golimaro salon ko’, Amit Shah referring to ‘tukday-tukday gang’ and other provocative speeches.
Apart from all the usual time tested divisive techniques to win elections, BJP also worked hard in the campaigned leading up to Delhi elections. Modi and Amit Shah dedicated significant time to this campaign, and the party deployed a number of Ministers and a lot of their MPs to help the campaign. Supposedly ‘star’ campaigner Yogi Aditya Nath was called to help out, who tried to add his own dose of hate poison.
But the Delhites seem unaffected by their hate filled incitements, and voted heavily for Aam Admi party. They seemed educated enough to understand the convoluted messages BJP was trying to send, to overwrite the decimal performance they had exhibited during last six years.
But it did not work. All their hard work and money spent on this campaign gone down the drain. The loss was embarrassing. Only eight seats out of seventy that they could manage to win – mostly across Yamuna constituency – the areas that were to become the hotbed of the riots – an area that also has a higher concentration of RSS/BJP type elements.
And then it happened.
It was like taking revenge with the people of Delhi for ignoring the BJP.
There is no doubt that these kind of pogroms pay heavy dividends to BJP, with the help of ‘godi-media’, which is busy projecting it as a communal riots.
The Gujrat pogrom made Modi two times the chief minister and then two times the prime minister. 1984 riots against Sikhs brought the congress back with a thumping majority, and the congress continued to rule for years.
Gujrat model has been repeated in Delhi and anti-CAA protesters have been shown a trailer. Like, Gujrat riots, Delhi rioters were allowed to do what ever they wanted for three days, with police either helping the rioters, or being mute spectator.
In Gujrat, Modi was the chief minister and Amit Shah home minister - now one is the Prime Minster and the other Union Home Minister - both kept mum for three days . After three mum days Prime Minister bothered to tweet and appeal to the people of Delhi to maintain peace, but Amit Shan is still on ‘maun-vrat’.
After three days, more than forty people have been killed, 200 injured, and property worth crores destroyed.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is responsible for the law and order in Delhi. Delhi police reports to him.
After three days of mayhem, and accessing that the desired outcome has been achieved, he called a meeting and appointed S N Srivastava as the Delhi police chief. Srivastava is known to work on the ground level and has a reputation of making tuff decisions.
Ajit Dovel, the National Security adviser, has been given the responsibility to restore peace.
Those who have worked closely with Modi and Shah talk about their modus operandi, that the order and green signal is given only after certain target is achieved.
BJP government, known to shut down internet for trivial reasons, did not do so during Delhi riots, to provide rioters the means of communication they needed, to send instant or live videos and massages, and to call additional reinforcements as and when required.
The videos coming out after five days of riots prove that the riots were planned rioters had come from outside. They had the information about Muslim Muslim houses and busineccesses that they targeted.
Their are also talks that information has been taken from Aadhar cards and the area was well studied before action. A ground report on News Click shows that attacker in Khajurikhas targetted all the houses except one is owned by a Hindu, a police inspector and a school. All the rest were burnt down. Masjid was destroyed, burnt , and a saffron flag installed on the minaret.
There are videos of policemen carrying and throwing stones, helping the rioters collect stones, destroying CCTV cameras, possibly to prepare the ground before Hindutva BJP rioters arrived.
Naresh Gujaral, an Akali Dal MP, said he kept calling the police and telling them people are trapped, but there was no response, even after he told them that he was a member of Parliament. Finally those people were rescued by their Hindu neighbours.
Why was the police not responding to the calls of a Member of Parliament.
The saddest part of the story is that when many young men were injured, in a semi-conscious state, the policemen were asking them to sing national anthem poking laities in their mouth, instead of taking them to the hospital. Police even refuse to provide protection to the injured who some how did manage to reach Al Hind hospital. A doctor of the hospital can be seen crying overwhelmed by the unprecedented situation he had to deal with, without any support from the government.
What more proof is needed to establish the complicity of the police although one of their constable also died in the violence.
Now the question may arise why was all this done while Trump was in Delhi.
Either Kapil Mishra had lost his patience as his mobs were ready because he had said that he will do it after Trump has left, or they are not bothered.
Sonia Gandhi has demanded the resignation of the Home Minister Amit Shah and given a memorandum to the president. Gautam Gambhir and Monaj Tewari, Both BJP leaders, have criticised Kapil Mishra but now they are left alone, clearly indicating that if you don’t go along the party lines, right or wrong, you will end up being your own.
It is unprecedented in the history of Delhi that a BJP leader Kapil Mishra, a local goon, standing next to police commissioner and threatening to take law into his hands, while DCP is standing there silently as an obedient solider.
The role of Arvind Kejriwal is a bit disturbing too. Its only a few days ago when he said, ‘LOVE YOU DELHI’. An expert in sitting on Dharnas, he didn’t even bother to go riots hit areas to see what is happening, and made a lip service of making appeals while people kept dying and Delhi kept burning. He, along with the opposition leaders and members, should have gone their to get first hand information, and witness the carnage. After all people of Delhi had voted for him cutting across the lines just last month.
He was sleeping in his house and when people went to him at night asking for help, and were faced with water cannon. He should have gone to the affected areas, with hundreds of his supporters , instead of behaving like just another politician.
Only Justice Muralithar seem to have acted in a fair and firm manner, and ordered to file FIR against those who delivered hate speeches, with in twenty four hours. But, unfortunately, he was transferred same night without giving him the mandatory time of 10 days, and the case was transferred to justice Patel, who said no FIRs to be lodged until 10th April.
Doesn’t all this establish state complicity?
In the Capital of India where two governments - state and centre – are based, with hundreds of MPs, MLAs, president of India, lieutenant governor of Delhi, all the foreign embassies and missions - can such a thing happen for days was hard to think.
There are two clear messages here that seem to be coming from the BJP government; first is for the people not voting for BJP and protesting against CAA and, second is for the judiciary for going against the government.
The implementation of the fascist ideology coming from Hindutva regime is eating into social ethos of the country like a termite - making it hollow from inside out. People are forced to leave their houses they have lived for generations - not knowing where to go. Having lost their houses, life’s savings and livelihood and, in some cases, their loved ones – they seem to be standing on a crossroad with no idea where to go.
Shelters are being set up for displaced people, forced to live like immigrants in their own country. Are we moving towards 5 trillion economy, or a Nazi Germany?
Will Kapil Mishra, after inciting the violence and causing deaths of about fifty people, with hundreds injured and uncounted, is lined up for Member of Rajya Sabha, with apossible portfolio in the Union Government? Being a looser, and a BJP politician, that will not come as a surprise.
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