Five Sambhal residents, alive and kicking till November 24, are now dead, from bullet wounds, in violence that raged at Sambhal in western Uttar Pradesh over a mosque-over-mandir dispute. This mandir is said to be that of ‘Bhagwan Kalki’, the next god avatar of Lord Vishnu, and was called Shri Hari Har Mandir. But this violence wasn’t ‘danga’ as Hindi newsreaders are prone to christen all and sundry “clashes” in Muslim-dominated pockets of India that is Bharat. These weren’t riots, called ‘danga’ in Hindi, and definitely not ‘Hindu-Muslim’.
The Hindu community had no role to play unless ‘Bhagwan Kalki’ is taken as representative of ‘Hindu’. The violence in Sambhal, which primarily involved local Muslim youth (young men and two women, both of whom are now in police custody) stoning policemen who had arrived in big numbers to provide security to a team of ASI surveyors tasked with ascertaining whether there existed a temple beneath the mosque. But the young Muslims didn’t want to find out whether Babar had committed yet another of his demolitions in Sambhal.
It is called brick-batting and the favourite pastime of young Muslim youth venting their anger on police if it wasn’t a Hindu-Muslim ‘danga’. Bricks can hurt, bricks can break bones, bricks can maim, and bricks can kill. Videos of Sambhal on Sunday show police warning the youth not to get provoked by their good for nothing leaders.
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The Sachar Committee report had spoken of poverty stalking Muslim youth in the Muslim ghettos. This wasn’t validation. The sprawling body of the dead youth at the brick-strewn alley entrance wasn’t that of poverty. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi marked the Yogi Adityanath government for criticism. He held the Uttar Pradesh regime accountable for the violence in the “clashes”. But they were clashes involving Muslim youth throwing stones and firing bullets on policemen, who were relatively restrained. Rahul Gandhi charged the state’s BJP government of using the police to create a rift between Hindu and Muslim.
“The biased and hasty attitude of the state government on the recent dispute in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh is extremely unfortunate. My deepest condolences to those who lost their loved ones in the violence and firing,” Rahul Gandhi said. “The administration’s insensitive action without listening to all parties further vitiated the situation…the BJP government is directly responsible.”
A theory doing the rounds in political circles is that the Sambhal violence is about the rift between two Muslim sects, one of them linked to “Turkey” and the other to “India”. The Turkey Muslims are led by Samajwadi Party’s Sambhal MP Zia ur Rahman Barq.
The Samajwadi Party blames the “India” Muslims for the poor showing in the UP bypolls. What’s worrying is the loss of lives in the violent clashes over the Jama Masjid survey. Over 20 policemen were injured and several police vehicles were set ablaze; the stoning reminded people of the Jammu & Kashmir of before Article 370 was abrogated. And the Kashmir issue remains a festering sore. Also, the Ram Mandir issue, which took its toll over 500 years. With Bhagwan Kalki waiting in the queue, only Bhagwan Ram will know how long this dispute will take to resolve!
