The news of the church demolitions in Hissar is still fresh in the memories, while another incident of attack on the minorities has struck our news feeds. The venue being the Atali village in Haryana.
The village had a population of around 1000 Muslims who were trying to build a mosque there, a perfectly fine thing according to the soul and spirit of the secular republic of India. The majority of the village, the Jats lodged a complaint against the Muslims that the land on which the mosque was to be built was village land and they would not allow a mosque to be built on that. Very naturally, the Muslim community in the village was shocked by it and dragged the thing to the village court.
The Muslims won the case and the land was granted for the construction of the mosque by the supreme body of the village. The Jats, however, could not take up the decision of the Panchayat sportingly and on the night of May 25th, attacked the Muslims of the village. A mob of around 2000 odd people, all belonging to the majority attacked the minorities with petrol bombs and gas cylinders. The police, as usual, was late in its arrival on the scene. The whole series of unfortunate violence had resulted in the death of many while many more had to be admitted in the hospitals. The recent and updated data are not available to me at the moment, so I am going to carry on without dwelling much on the numbers.
The whole part of the police in response to the incident has come into sharp focus. While there has been no possible explanation as to why there has been no action on the 20 people identified from the FIR, all belonging the Jats of the village, there has been a cloud of doubt on the reason of the late response of the police. The issue of why further forces had not been called even when the police had understood that the limited forces they had with them were not sufficient to control the mob, still needs to undergo a detailed investigation.
The cultural situation of the village administers to most of the villages of the state, the Muslims; the minorities were not involved in any decision making of the village. The vital decisions were all taken up and discussed by the Jats. The Muslims had since long, in the village, been treated like second class citizens in their own village.
The reports from the village have suggested that before the whole incident, the village temple had become an epicentre of the Bajrang Dal activities. There was even a mass membership drive by the Bajrang Dal, as reported by the youth of the village. The Bajrang Dal is a rightist group with close ties to the ruling party, which in itself adheres to the same principles of the Bajrang Dal. It is a matter of shame to the judicial system of the country that whenever a rightist group, particularly a Hindu rightist group falls into the eye of suspicion for any unpleasant activity, our judicial system tends to become a tad slower. The present incident is also not an exception to that.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called the May 25th attacks as an attack on the rule of the law. One year of the Modi government has elapsed; the attack on the minorities around the country has escalated hugely in the past year. The government has decided to remain mum on such grave issues concerning the security of the minorities of the country and instead drive the public attention to cleanliness and manufacturing in India (which are both glowing examples of the neo-liberal agenda followed by the present government). Numerous incidents of closeness between the Centre and the rightist groups like the ABVP, BD, VHP, has sprang up. It is a matter of utter shame for the ruling party of a secular nation like India that they have been entangled in the same bracket as those groups.
