Some are heart-warmingly working for peace

A week after Delhi exploded into violence, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was playing host to US President Donald Trump, harrowing accounts of wanton attacks on innocent members of the minority community are still trickling in.

The four days of violence left 46 dead and over 200 wounded. Bodies of victims were still being recovered from drains on Sunday. There is no official count yet of the number of uprooted families and the damage to property.

Trouble began when a group of Muslim women gathered near a Metro station in Northeast Delhi in an attempt to replicate the peaceful protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act which has been going on at Shaheen Bagh in South Delhi for more than two months.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra summoned his supporters through the social media to foil the move. Incidents of stoning followed.

Trump was due to reach New Delhi that evening after visiting Taj Mahal. When police intervened, Mishra told them he would remain quiet so long as Trump was in the city.

However, the next day, as Modi and Trump were holding talks, attacks on Muslim houses began. Among those whose houses were looted and burnt was a member of the paramilitary Border Security Force. A name-board on his gate indicating his BSF association did not save the family.

The BSF said later it would rebuild the house as a wedding gift to its jawan who is to marry soon.

One of the early casualties was a Delhi policeman, who died of bullet injuries. It was not clear how he was hit by bullets.

Among the others killed was Ankit Sharma, an Intelligence Bureau employee.  Police arrested Tahir Hussain, an Aam Admi Party legislator, and charged him and his supporters with killing Sharma. Hussain claimed he had been framed.

The AAP had registered a hat-trick victory in the recent Assembly elections, dashing BJP’s hopes of regaining power in Delhi state after more than two decades. Those who had reposed faith in the AAP were disappointed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s failure to roundly condemn the violence.

Since the Delhi police is under the Centre, there was little that he could do to quell the riots. But with 62 members in the Delhi Assembly against BJP’s measly eight, the party had the capability at least to mobilise public opinion against the perpetrators of violence.   

So far the Centre has not ordered an inquiry into the outbreak of violence. A civil society group, after a fact-finding tour of the affected areas, said police personnel were missing when they were wanted. Frantic calls to the emergency number 100 fetched no response for up to 72 hours.

The violence, it added, was “clearly and unambiguously focussed on Muslims”. This “reminded one distinctly of the targeting of Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 and of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002”.

The 1984 Delhi riots occurred after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by two Sikh bodyguards and the 2002 Gujarat riots followed the death of 58 Hindus, who were returning from Ayodhya, in a train fire soon after Modi became the state’s Chief Minister.

The Delhi violence brought into sharp focus the steep moral decline that has overtaken India since the days of Gandhi.

When communal riots broke out at the time of Partition, Gandhi ventured into conflict zones with the message of peace and harmony. None of those who claim to be Gandhians went to Delhi’s riot-hit areas even after violence ended.

Indira Gandhi was touring northeastern states when she received word  of the 1969 communal riots in Ahmedabad. She flew from Nagaland to Gujarat and toured the affected areas, providing a healing touch, before returning to Delhi.

Modi limits his public interventions to tweets calling for peace and harmony. They rarely condemn violence. Even more striking than the Executive’s failure is the Judiciary’s.

Since August last year the Supreme Court has been steering clear of sensitive issues, finding the situation not conducive for their consideration.

At Delhi High Court, Justice S Muralidhar asked the police why it had not acted upon BJP leaders’ hate speeches. Police pleaded they were unaware of them. He then ordered playing of recordings produced by the petitioners.

Thereafter the Chief Justice posted the matter before another bench. The Centre issued orders overnight for Justice Muralidhar’s transfer to Punjab and Haryana High Court, which had been recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium a few days earlier.

Amid the failure of the system came some heart-warming reports of members of different communities protecting one another and their places of worship. Delhi is still on the edge, as is evident from frantic police efforts to check floating rumours.

Chants of “Shoot ‘em” are still heard at BJP rallies.  On Sunday they were heard at a Kolkata rally of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Obviously not all party men have taken the Prime Minister’s call for peace and harmony seriously.

Nobel laureate Amarya Sen raised a question in the context of the Delhi police’s failure: “inefficiency or complicity?”  It can be asked of some other elements of the system as well.