Shauqueen Mizaj
Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, the two Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Indian states are mired in political controversies, ahead of the assembly elections.
The centre of the controversy this time is the Garba event, a mainstay of the traditional nine-day Hindu festival of Navarathri [Nine Nights]. Garba is a dance form that originated in the state of Gujarat and is dedicated to Hindu goddesses.
It is a large social gathering in which men and women perform the dance in their colourful costumes and heavy jewellery on these nine nights as a symbol of respect to the goddess and to honour womanhood and fertility. Several incidents of communal tension were reported both from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
In a viral video from Gujarat’s Kheda district, local police officers were seen publicly flogging a group of Muslim men who had allegedly attacked a Garba pandal near a mosque in Undhela village. The incident, which took place on the night of October 3, began after an argument over the location of holding the Garba event.
The village head had organised the dance event on a plot of ground that was close to both a temple and a mosque. According to NDTV, the members of the Muslim community in the village had objected to the Garba being organised near the mosque, which is located across the temple. The Muslim men allegedly hurled stones at Garba attendees.
On October 4, the police registered a First Information Report based on the complaint filed by the village head. The next day, the accused were brought out of a police van near the venue of the Garba event, taken to an electric pole in the village square and held against it and then beaten in full public view. While another police officer was seen hitting the men below the waist with a baton, the accused were made to apologise to the crowd gathered at the spot who cheered on the police.
To add fuel to the fire, a local news outlet shared the video with the caption “10-11 heretics were brought to the village, where the police taught them a lesson in public,” reported NDTV. The media have also been doing their bit to accelerate the spread of false theories about the Muslim plot to infiltrate the Garba pandal and lure away Hindu women.
The Garba controversy in Madhya Pradesh comes days after Usha Thakur, state Culture and Tourism Minister, said that Garba pandals were being used as a tool for “love-jihad” [love-jihad is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory developed by proponents of Hindutva, (an ideology or movement seeking Brahminical supremacy in India).
The conspiracy theory purports that Muslim men target Hindu women for conversion to Islam] Following this, the state Home Minister, Narottam Mishra, issued a statement that identity cards were mandatory to allow entry to the venue.
The Hindu right-wing groups checked the identity cards to ensure that Muslims did not enter the celebrations.
Another controversial MP, Pragya Thakur, who is also an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, said that “people from the Muslim community should not be allowed in Garba pandals” as she wanted to ‘keep the worship system “pure” and further that “shops owned by Muslims near pandals should be shut down”.
The opposition Congress Party termed her statement hate speech.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore and Ujjain, Bajrang Dal members also beat up Muslim men who wanted to enter the celebrations.
According to Tannu Sharma, Indore convenor of the Bajrang Dal, the non-Hindus showing up at the functions, he alleged, made videos of Hindu women which were then misused, the reason they were checking the phones of the attendees.
Vinod Bansal, the national spokesperson of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, told The Print that it was the fear of “love-jihad” and concerns over “women’s security” during such events that prompted the Bajrang Dal workers to assault the Muslim men, adding that he did not want the “non-believers” to enter such events.
In another incident in Surjani village, part of Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district, the properties of three Muslim men were demolished by the administration on October 4. They were accused of hurling stones at Garba attendees, days earlier.
However, Mandsaur Superintendent of Police, Anurag Sujania, alleged that the properties of the accused were illegal. This is akin to the now-familiar pattern of razing down houses and businesses of Muslims using bulldozers, claiming the properties to be illegal encroachments – the demolition based on false allegations of illegal encroachments, incitement of violence, participation in protests, luring of Hindu women, and so on.
Also called “bulldozer justice,” it takes place despite no legal provision for demolishing the private property, even if the accused have been found to have committed unlawful acts.
The extremist Hindu propaganda of demonising, destabilising and marginalising Muslims, has influenced the mindset of the country’s majority.
Despite the countless instances of discrimination against Muslims, attacks on their homes, livelihoods, food, education, and clothing, violence as well as mob lynching, they have remained silent all these years, avoiding deliberate confrontation with the Hindutva brigade while maintaining their firm opposition towards the incumbent regime and the ever-rising tide of hate across the country. In Gujarat, the BJP has been in power since 1995.
While elections in the state are due later this year, in Madhya Pradesh, they are crucial to quashing the anti-incumbency sentiments that have surfaced recently.
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