From the Instagram account  of Pramod Kumar KG

Burning a library is called Cultural Cleaning. In 1933 Nazi dominated student groups burned the “un-German” writings of Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers. A hint of what was to come is what the world saw during World War II. The Jewish people bore the brunt of this persecution. Books were a precursor to what would happen to humans subsequently.

My fellow Muslim citizens, friends, and colleagues are going through unimaginable horror and humiliations every day. As per reports, armed mobs vandalized a madrasa in Bihar Sharif’s Murapur locality and set fire to a 110-year-old library, reducing nearly 4500 books to ashes, allegedly in the aftermath of a Ram Navmi procession.

No culture anywhere in the world, past or present is immune to this kind of violence against literature and learning. From 5th century BCE Greece, where the works of Protagoras were burnt to Mosul’s (Iraq) central library’s where nearly one hundred thousand books were burnt in 2014 by ISIS – burning books is emblematic of the bigoted, the angry and the misguided.

But Odantupur Vihar now called Bihar Sharif, the site of the latest act of book burning is no stranger to its libraries being destroyed. Bakhtiyar Khalji by most (not all) accounts destroyed its libraries and the university of Nalanda Mahavihara around c.1200. Have we not really learnt anything in the ensuing 8 hundred years? What is it about books that alarms people? For a culture that purports to celebrate the worship of Saraswati the goddess of knowledge – when did burning books become acceptable?

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Aligarh: On 19-20 October 2018, Sitamarhi fell prey to a gory communal violence, once again. It is one of the most sensitive parts of north Bihar which is prone to communal violence. It has a long history of communal violence, at least since 1895. Just like the communal violence of October 1992 in Sitamarhi, this year’s violence too had its genesis in the Hindu procession (to immerse the Durga idol) insistent on taking it through Muslim localities of the small town, rather than through conventional routes, ratified by the district administration.

In Sitamarhi, traditionally, there are many akharas which organize Durga Puja. Each akhara takes out its separate processions to immerse the idol. In 1992, one such akhara, the Bhawani Akhara had its President the incumbent Deputy Superintendent of Police, Nagendra Chowdhry, which eventually precipitated violence (See Asghar Ali Engineer, “Sitamarhi on Fire”, EPW, November 14, 1992).

In October 1967, Sursand, a thana of Sitamarhi (it was then a Subdivision of Muzaffarpur district), had undergone such violence. (A detailed historical account of all these violence of Sitamarhi during 1895-1992, is given in my book (2014), Contesting Communalism and Separatism: Muslims of Muzaffarpur since 1857.)  

This insistence on taking out the procession through a Muslim locality was enough of a forewarning to the administration on the inevitability of the violence. Yet, the administrative lapse in preventing the violence became jarringly evident.

The akhara of Madhuban took out its procession in the evening of 19 October 2018. It was, according to local people, armed and shouted usual incendiary, anti-Muslim slogans. A rumour spread out that on its route, stone-pelting was done by the Muslims around the Nonia toli, on the procession. This rumour got huge traction the next morning, on 20th October, when another akhara took out its procession to immerse the idol by 11 A.M. It was joined by an even larger crowd, angry and charged; the situation was visibly explosive. The administration did nothing to counter and destroy this false propaganda against Muslims. Reportedly, even internet was not suspended till then. This procession resorted to hooliganism, set some Muslim huts on fire, only after looting. They lifted the goats too. In fact, in recent instances of anti-Muslim violence in rural Bihar, there has emerged a trend that the rioters lift the goats, which for the poor are still quite a ‘wealth’. (This is what had happened in the violence of Azizpur (Saraiya, Muzaffarpur) on January 18, 2015 (See my essay, “Caste, Community and Crime: Explaining the Violence in Muzaffarpur”,  EPW, January 31, 2015). 

Thus, the violence, arson and loot, on 20th October, went on from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. A 70-year-old poor man, Zainul Haq Ansari, having visited his daughter at Rajopatti in Sitamarhi town, was returning back to his village, Bhoraha. He went missing. His kins registered an FIR with the police.

Only two days later did they come to know that a dead body needs to be identified in the Muzaffarpur Sadar Hospital. The kins failed to identify it as it was burnt beyond recognition. Subsequently, when the internet was restored by the district administration, a video of the mob killing him, became viral, which helped identify the dead-body as Ansari’s. It is said, with reference to the now censored video, that his throat was slit to kill and then there was an attempt to burn him. This video was circulated by a Patna-based vernacular portal, Millat Times. The Patna police served a notice to the portal for having uploaded the video for circulation. The Muzaffarpur police forced his family to bury the dead body in Muzaffarpur itself rather than taking him to his native village, Bhoraha in Sitamarhi. This has created huge outrage. Only after that, the Sitamarhi police claims to have arrested a few suspects in this regard.
(Also see The Quint, November 2, 2018, a report by Malavika Balasubramanian, carrying some heartrending photographs of the victim, Zainul Haq Ansari)

Spurt of violence in Bihar in recent years
In recent years, ever since the chief minister Nitish Kumar broke away from BJP in July 2013, Bihar has suffered several incidents of communal violence. In November 2015, he aligned with the RJD-Congress to be re-elected to power. In July 2017, he broke away from the RJD-Congress and re-joined the NDA to continue as chief minister. From January to April, this year, there was a series of communal tension and violence across Bihar. In Bhagalpur, it began with an incendiary procession led by Arijit Shashwat, son of the Union Minister Ashwini Chaubey, on March 17, 2018. In February, RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat visited Bihar and camped at Muzaffarpur for few days. There, he also spoke out that the RSS militia was much more efficient and powerful than the Indian Army. 

In my earlier columns (The Wire, April 2, 2018; and February 8, 2018), I have argued that those parts of Bihar, with a history of having elected Muslim candidates for Bihar Assembly/Lok Sabha, seemed to have been more prone to such violence. Sitamarhi-Sheohar is one such part of Bihar. It has a long history of having elected more than one Muslim legislature at a time.  

Nitish Kumar-led administration, now a tame ally of BJP, seems to have [wilfully?] lost its control on its administrative machinery. Adding insult to injury, amidst the ongoing series of communal violence, K. S. Dwivedi, the then SP of Bhagalpur (1989) has been elevated to the DGP of Bihar in March 2018. This elevation had created a lot of outrage and furore.

Amidst media blackout, some socio-political activists cry out
Some political activists of Sitamarhi have now begun to raise their voices on social media and local vernacular media. Tanwir Alam has been raising his voice. He has raised few questions: Why was Vikas Burman, the SP of Sitamarhi trusted to tackle the communal violence, who according to him, had failed miserably in controlling the two waves of communal violence in Nawada, in 2016-17.

Nawada is represented in Lok Sabha by a fire-brand Bhumihar leader, Giriraj Singh, who is also in Narendra Modi’s cabinet. Besides, in Nawada, two Yadav leaders, one with JDU and another with RJD, clash and compete with each other to keep Muslim flocks behind them. This has pushed it into throes of almost perpetual communal tension in recent years. (This was reported in detail by Rajneesh Kumar, BBC Hindi, April 2, 2018)

It is said that the Nawada police had resorted to brutalities even with JDU MLC, Salman Raghib’s family. Yet, it is accused by the local Muslims, that Mr. Raghib maintained silence only to save his own position as an MLC and did not want to embarrass his leader, Nitish Kumar.   

Another political activist, Shams Shahnawaz, an aspirant for Assembly election from a seat in Sitamarhi district, has lodged a complaint with the National Minority Commission to look into the violence. He has also said that mere compensation to the survivors of Zainul Haq Ansari will not do; the killers must be booked. The government has offered a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh to the survivors of the lynch victim Zainul Haq Ansari.

Silence of the RJD-Congress: Political untouchability of Muslims?
What is even more surprising is that even the opposition leader, Tejaswi Yadav, has not responded to the Sitamarhi violence as yet! He has not even tweeted on this. Doesn’t it signify/testify the political untouchability of Muslims, in the face of Hindutva onslaught? Let it be noted that Tejaswi’s RJD is supposed to be most consistently Muslim-friendly. In October 1992, when Lalu Yadav was the chief minister, he had personally camped in Sitamarhi to control the communal violence. He also made a famous statement that even if 10 Yadav’s had to sacrifice their lives to save just one Muslim, they must do it, if they really want to see a Yadav continue as the Bihar chief minister. Ever since then, for the next two decades, Bihar didn’t see any big communal violence. True, Lalu did falter in booking the culprits of Sitamarhi violence 1992 and also of Bhagalpur violence 1989-90. He announced an institutional inquiry into the Sitamarhi-Riga violence of 1992, by S. R. Adige, IRS. Sadly, it remained a mere announcement. Just as in 1946-47, despite the then Premier of Bihar, Shri Krishna Sinha’s announcement to institute an inquiry by David Ezra Reuben, the then sitting judge of High Court, Patna, it yet again remained merely an announcement. India has consistently failed to book the culprits of communal violence.

Many offenders in the two violent incidents (Bhagalpur, 1989; and Sitamarhi-Riga, 1992), were said to be Yadav’s, the core support-base of RJD. In fact, some of the chief offenders, such as Kameshwar Yadav, the infamous accused of Bhagalpur massacre (1989), was even patronised by the RJD. Lalu-Rabri regime failed in tackling lawlessness (more specifically, vehicle-snatching and kidnapping for ransom) and in anti-Dalit massacres, but it did succeed in preventing communal violence.

It has had its electoral arithmetic as well, popularised as M-Y. It remains rock-solid, almost consistently unflinching, support-base of the RJD. The Muslims (around 17%) and Yadav’s (around 12%) together constitute a huge electoral combination and core support base for RJD. More importantly, in a fairly good number of the Assembly seats, the M-Y proportion is estimated (by the political workers and sub-regional vernacular newspapers) to be 40-70%. Yet, Tejaswi paying no heed to the Sitamarhi violence is indeed intriguing!

The Congress, though a marginal force in Bihar, and still supposed to be competing with the JDU and BJP in winning over the Bhumihars and Brahmins, has equally been “nonchalant” in this regard. Questions are being raised against the Congress for being soft and favourable towards its leader in Aurangabad (Magadh region), who is accused to have led the violent mob, in March this year. (See Rajneesh Kumar’s Report, BBC Hindi, April 1, 2018).

The Bihar Congress in-charge, Shakti Singh Gohil, instituted an in-party inquiry to look into the charges levelled against Anand Shankar. The report is yet to come out and Shankar continues in the Congress. Many activists have raised their voice against his continuation.
 
Betrayal of community institutions and leadership
The Imarat-e-Shariah (founded in 1921 by the nationalist Muslims, with a proud history of having opposed the Muslim League’s communal-separatist politics; it also ran its ministry during April-July 1937 through its Muslim Independent Party-MIP, headed by Md Yunus, 1884-1952,) has always been carrying out relief works among the victims of violence. It runs on community contributions. In recent years, they have been found wanting in carrying out such work. They are accused of having maintained silence on most of the violence in recent years.

On October 30, 2018, a functionary of the Imarat did visit Sitamarhi, but without any team of legal experts and social activists, who could really prepare a methodologically sound and credible fact-finding report. Point to be noted here is that the chief of the Imarat, Wali Rahmani, is the Secretary of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which was a party in Supreme Court which heard the case of instant triple divorce. Having lost the case, Rahmani, did a series of huge mobilizations against the Supreme Court verdict, in most of the district towns; it then culminated into a rally, “Deen Bachao, Desh Bachao (Save Religion, Save Country)” in Patna on 15 April 2018. By the evening of the rally, Khalid Anwar, a close associate of Rahmani, was nominated by the ruling JDU as MLC. Khalid Anwar was the convenor of the April rally. This exposed Rahmani-Nitish nexus if at all it was a secret till then. The picture, therefore, emerges that the Imarat having allegedly become aligned with the NDA is just not speaking out on the violence, as it cannot embarrass Nitish Kumar and his mis-governance. It, therefore, cannot be expected to file any case in the law court against the violence in Sitamarhi.  

The Idara-e-Shariah (Patna), another such organization, claiming to stand for religio-cultural concerns of Muslims, is nowhere to be seen. Other educated professionals of these districts in Bihar don’t seem to be prepared/inclined to work on these fronts in coordination with civil society organizations engaged in these fields across the country.   

It appears that the current dispensation in Bihar and at New Delhi intends to keep the communal pot boiling. Without communal polarization, anti-Muslim hate, and Hindu consolidation behind it, the miserably failed NDA regime does not hope to garner votes to retain power. Corruption in Rafale deals, crises in the CBI, RBI, fugitive capitalists and many such exposes, seem to make the regime too desperate, hence, resorting recklessly to divisive and polarizing designs.

The moot question remains: shall the electorates see through all these nasty games of the incumbent regime?  This will decide the fate of Indians. 

 [An abridged version of this write-up has been carried by another portal]

Mohammad Sajjad is a Professor, Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University. He is the author of Muslim Politics in Bihar: Changing Contours, Routledge, 2014, 2018 (Reprint). Tweets @sajjadhist

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The spate of communal violence in Bihar that spread to nine out of 38 districts was “not at all spontaneous” but “pre-planned” and “manufactured” to achieve “political gains”. There were prior inputs, say those who are closely monitoring the situation, regarding this plan but the alerts were not acted upon to prevent the communal atmosphere from getting disturbed.

Sources said CDs and pen drives containing provocative songs were distributed ahead of Rama Navami apart from new swords, sticks and hockey sticks.

One person was killed and around 65 were injured in communal clashes that erupted after Ram Navami processions in nine districts – Bhagalpur, Munger, Samastipur, Siwan, Gaya, Aurangabad, Kaimur, Nawada and Nalanda. Several people have been arrested in connection with these riots and over a dozen of them are BJP workers, including two senior leaders – Mohan Patwa and Dinesh Kumar Jha. One of the primary suspects – Arijit Shashwat, the son of Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare in the Ashwini Kumar Choubey, is on the run.

“It was pre-planned and the aim was to polarise the society on communal lines. People from neighbouring states such as eastern Uttar Pradesh had been called in to take part in processions (to mark the birth anniversary of Lord Rama) and begin the violence. New and common faces have been spotted in different districts, leading the processions and instigating people to indulge in violence,” two high-ranking officials of the state police told Newsclick on condition of anonymity.

“Thankfully, locals understood the conspiracy and did not take part in the violence. Had their involvement been there, the situation would have been beyond imagination,” one of them said.

Asked about the lapses on part of the police, they said the places where the administration was alert, attempts to create tensions were either foiled or controlled. “Investigations are on, the culprits won’t be spared. They will be brought to book,” said the officers.

Two senior journalists, Newsclick spoke to, also said “it was a pre-planned attacks” and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had “inputs well in advance” that a conspiracy was being hatched to disrupt peace in the state. “Therefore, he (the CM) had appealed to people with folded hands during Bihar Diwas celebrations not to get misguided,” said veteran journalist Gyaneshwar, the editor of website LiveCities.

Asked if the chief minister – who is also the home minister of the state – had the information that something of this sort could happen, what steps did he take to prevent it from occurring, he said, “I can say it with conviction that Nitish Kumar did not want that to happen because of the fact that such violence would dent his image and damage his party’s (the Janata Dal United) prospects in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. It is the BJP (which is alliance partner of the Bihar government) that will enjoy the benefits of communal polarisation and therefore, its leaders actively participated in vitiating the atmosphere in the state.”

To establish his allegations, he said that the state had no tradition of organised processions on the occasion of Rama Navami.

“Of late, the festival has been completely politicised and is being celebrated as display of strength. With political patronage and backing of saffron outfits, people in large number – armed with swords and other weapons – make forced entry into Muslim concentration areas and raise provocative slogans. Surprisingly, we have seen active participation of BJP leaders in such events. We heard Aurangabad MP Sushil Kumar Singh who said that ‘there is a reaction to an action’ (on March 26, following which communal clashes erupted). He instigated the violence,” he added, asking “What kind of culture is this and where are we as a society heading to?”

He alleged that swords were being distributed in several subdivisions of Bihar along with CDs and pen drives containing objectionable songs. He claimed he too has such a pen drive in his possession that has an objectionable song ‘Topi Pahanne Wale Ko Bhi, Jai Shri Ram Kahna Hoga’.

“We are also Hindus. We never went to purchase swords ahead of Rama Navami. From where were such a huge number of swords and other weapons brought? I have information that they were brought from outside, stacked and distributed in a planned manner. A senior officer told me the number of swords sold this year ahead of Rama Navami had not been sold in the entire district for the past 10 years. The administration must investigate this as well,” he said.

“For festivals such as Dussehra, Saraswati Puja, etc., funds are collected from public donations. But in this case, no one came asking for donations required to organise Rama Navami processions. Who has funded the event and from where it came from? It should also be probed,” he concluded.

Another senior journalist Shailendra Dixit told Newsclick,“If you connect all dots, you will conclude that it was planned riots designed by vested interest. Bihar was tactically chosen this time because of its peaceful atmosphere. UP is volatile, one small ignition creates a huge fire. It exposes the people behind that. Creating low-scale violence, a particular party is trying to polarise the society to ensure large number of seats from Bihar where public sentiments are visibly in favour of the opposition party – the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).”

A senior JD(U) leader said the BJP wants to use Bihar as a laboratory of communal violence. “This is the only tool they use to win elections,” he said on condition of anonymity.

Asked why the CM is silent, the infuriated leader said, “Amit Shah had recently said that Nitish Kumar had come to us, we had not gone to him for alliance. We never compromised on secularism despite the fact that we had an alliance with the BJP for the past 10 years. This time, Amit Shah and Modi (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) are dictating the terms. They are in fact ruling the state and Nitishji is acting like a puppet. What maximum he can do is, he will dial Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and appeal to calm down the situation.”

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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