Communal violence: Eminent persons must strive for harmony before writing letters
Communal riots in Nagpur and Mumbai in 1927-29 saw mobs lynch innocents. Communal lynching took a grotesque dimension in 1946. Muslim League's Direct Action Day state-sponsored lynching in Calcutta in August-September, followed by the bloody Noakhali carnage in October-November and a retaliation in Bihar. Over 15,000 people were lynched in these three incidents.
The worst was reserved for 1947 when vivisection of the country resulted in displacement of 15 million. Frenzied communal mobs lynched a million, scars of which never healed. Since independence, both communities seldom spared an opportunity to bait, berate and engage in violence against each other at the slightest provocation, at the behest of intellectuals or preachers.
Uttar Pradesh has historically been the country's communal cauldron. Intellectuals, who are worried by a spike in communal violence and intolerance today, must read Allahabad High Court's judgment in Mohd Ishaq Ilmi [AIR 1957 All 782]. It narrates how intolerance had already taken root even when the nation was in its infancy. Similar incidents continue to spark violence and further weaken the social fabric.
Ilmi was the printer, publisher and editor of Urdu daily 'Siyasat' in Kanpur when Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, headed by K M Munshi, who was also then governor of UP, re-published a book written by two American authors titled 'Religious Leaders' in May 1956. It had "objectionable and provocative" passages on Prophet Muhammad.
Ilmi started a religion-coated campaign against the book and continued with it even after Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan withdrew the book from circulation and Munshi published regret in newspapers. Continuous incitement by Ilmi's 'Siyasat' incensed Aligarh Muslim University students to hold demonstrations and shout slogans like "Hans ke liya Pakistan, Lar ke Lenge Hindustan' and 'Pakistan Zindabad'. Hindu students took out a protest march against such demonstration by Muslims. The protest march was attacked and a prominent Hindu was stabbed to death.
Ilmi was taken into preventive custody to stop him from promoting communal hatred. The present 'Jai Sri Ram' chant appears to have taken a leaf out of Ilmi's Siyasat.
Though the HC quashed Ilmi's preventive detention after putting a premium on his free speech and said he did not incite violence, it made a general statement, "It is a notorious fact of which we are justified in taking judicial notice that in cases where communal feelings have been exploited and communal frenzy has been worked up, violence has invariably resulted sooner or later whether such violence was advocated or not." These words still hold good for India and for intellectuals, who only look at the result and not the provocations over the years.
Provocative statements leading to violence and counter-violence have become a way of life in India and part of right to free speech. Comments by the American authors about the Prophet led to communal violence in many places in UP in 1956. Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' got banned by the government to placate Muslims without caring for the author's free speech.
When MF Hussain painted a nude woman, as a mimic of India's shape, and it was christened 'Bharat Mata', it catered to the secular thoughts of elites and evoked inviolability of right to free speech in judicial minds. Hussain fled India fearing reprisal. The SC came to his rescue on September 7, 2008, and termed the painting a "work of art". It had said, "Paintings are like a sculptures. None gets scandalised by looking at erotic sculptures." Can anyone explain the difference between the three cases - Ilmi, Rushdie and Hussain? A commoner, whose passion get easily aroused through provocative statements, will never understand.
In Masood Alam [1973 AIR 897], the SC dealt with a case of a Muslim theologist who went to Pakistan in 1971 and returned home three days before the India-Pakistan war to launch a campaign against Aligarh Muslim University Bill and set up 'Youth Majlis' for training youth to use knives. Upholding his preventive detention, the SC had said, "It has to be borne in mind that when a person professing to be learned in religious theology encourages defiance of law in the name of religion, then ignorant and credulous people are more likely to be misled and swayed by religious passions and sentiments. Such activities naturally have greater potentiality for prejudicially threatening maintenance of public order." The SC has mostly blamed governments for the communal situation remaining in a state of boil. While dealing with the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, the SC in Mohd Haroon case [2014 (5) SCC 252] narrated how eve-teasing of girls of one community led to violence and counter-violence.
It had said, "Had central and state intelligence agencies smelt these problems in advance and alerted the district administration, the unfortunate incidents could have been prevented. Thus, we hold the state government responsible for being negligent at initial stages in not anticipating the communal violence and for not taking necessary steps for its prevention." Did any intellectual blame the then SP government headed by Akhilesh Yadav? In Tehseen S Poonawala judgment [2018 (6) SCC 72], the SC said, "There can be no shadow of doubt that the authorities which are conferred with the responsibility to maintain law and order in the states have the principal obligation to see that vigilantism, be it cow vigilantism or any other vigilantism of any perception, does not take place. When any core group with some kind of idea take the law into their own hands, it ushers in anarchy, chaos, disorder and, eventually, there is an emergency of a violent society."
So, when 49 eminent persons, settled in various parts of India, seamlessly coordinate to produce a common letter conveying to the PM their fears over rising intolerance, a commoner would have expected them to make similar coordinated efforts to promote communal harmony. The same applies to the 62 other eminent people who authored a counter-letter. It is for all of us, especially those who make a lot of noise on social media on tolerance, to travel to the nooks and corners of the country and spread harmony to dispel hatred.
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References
- ^ sepoy mutiny (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ lynching (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ communal violence (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ Aligarh Muslim University (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ Salman Rushdie (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
- ^ 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
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