recent riots in Nuh show a clear pattern of targeting Muslim minorities
Located in the Mewat region, Nuh
is a poor district but its economic backwardness should not be seen as the main reason behind this violence.
Reason ?
1 Based on reports, this violence — it is a result of competitive assertion of identities in a highly polarised polity which offers varied forms of patronage संरक्षण to non-state actors.
2 The political context of the sustained penetration of Hindu majoritarianism in various domains of state and society need to be factored in as well,
3 The Haryana and Punjab Court’s decision as , describing bulldozer justice as “an exercise of ethnic cleansing is being conducted by the State,” reveals a lot about the ideological intent of state response.
Most affected ?
Given the state response, it looks like the Muslim minority may end up paying a greater price, as has often been the case in riots
even in the non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) days of India’s governance.
Everyday communalism
In 1992, after the demolition of the Babri Masjid
when Narasimha Rao’s government dismissed the governments of four-BJP ruled States, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh,
some questioned the fairness by highlighting the riot-free regimes the BJP had given in these States till then.
योगी मोदी हिंदू मंत्री क्या बेहतर कंट्रोल kr rhe ?
The claim that the Hindu Right regimes
1 have a better record of riot-free governance continues to be made even today.
2 The Haryana violence proves it wrong. In April this year, U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath made such a claim of no riots in the State since 2017.
3 But National Crime Records Bureau data reports 5,302 cases of rioting in 2021.
4 During the Karnataka election campaign, also in April, Home Minister Amit Shah said in rally in Belagavi that
if the Congress came to power, there would be riots, implying that there were no riots under BJP rule.
There have been several incidents of riots in Maharashtra
since April 2023 (Kolhapur, Mumbai, Sambhajinagar, Jalgaon, Akola and Ahmednagar), under the watch of the BJP coalition government.
reason for the violence
1 In most cases, there is a pattern which factors in a procession, a temple or mosque, and a social media post establishing the circle of reason for the violence.
2 Row over Friday prayers
But how does one explain the speed with which the Nuh violence spread to Gurgaon leading to mob attacks on a mosque, killing its 26-year-old Imam?
3 A Muslim group had won the case in the Supreme Court to refurbish and expand this mosque only two months ago.
4 Therefore, the Gurgaon namaz controversy that had rocked the city in 2018 may have constituted a background to this attack.
5 Muslims used to have 116 designated public spaces to offer Friday prayers which has been reduced to six, owing to sustained protests by Hindu Right groups.
To connect the dots, what is the Friday namaz controversy?
1 That Friday congregations सभाओं at public spaces, even if it is for a couple of hours, may have caused public inconvenience has some truth.
2। However, immersion processions (of Ganesh or Durga) or the Kanwar yatras also have a similar impact on regular lives.
3 The present demand against Friday namaz is clearly driven by a Hindu supremacist ideology to show Muslims their place in this country — and public inconvenience is just a ruse.
4 But why do Muslims offer Friday prayers in public?
According to Islamic practice, the Friday namaz is a unique mass prayer which requires a congregation, like during Eid or Bakra-Eid.
5 For any newspaper reader in India, it is familiar to see photos of Muslims offering prayers on the roads during Eid.
6 This is because a mosque does not have enough space to accommodate a large gathering.
7 Given that there are not enough mosques to accommodate growing Muslim populations in Gurgaon, Muslims chose to offer prayers in an open space designated by the local administration.
In a way, it reflects the community’s poor economic condition too
In this particular controversy, Muslim groups have conducted themselves with tremendous dignity,
but their efforts to look for alternative arrangements for prayers have not borne fruit, owing to various bureaucratic bottlenecks, particularly with regard to available waqf lands and interest group politics connected with it.
non-resolution of the namaz controversy
either by persuasive means or by state interventions,
has created a supportive background to this retaliatory attack on a masjid in Gurgaon and the violence that followed. As long as there are no sincere secular interventions, the risk for violence will remain.
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