Satya Veer Singh, who was was part of a fact-finding team which visited Nuh post-July 31 violence, says the recent anti-minority aggression in Haryana had been in the making for some time. His views:
My first reaction after witnessing the violence at Nuh and Gurgaon was that the efforts put by the fascist brigade to flare up communal violence since they came to power in the state, have ultimately bore fruit. No one could, in fact, fail to notice that this was going to happen. It was shocking but not surprising at all.
The violence at Nuh reveals the pattern of stoking violence to further their sinister agenda. No one can fail to notice the obvious State support or connivance.
Spot a place where the minority Muslim community is in majority as a potential target that can be attacked to polarize the society on communal lines. Build a false narrative that this is a crime hub, having connections with ISI, Pakistan. Unleash high-decibel false propaganda, using the sold-out section of the media to force the falsehood into mass conscience, exactly as Goebbels did in Nazi Germany. Choose a Hindu festival and let loose the pampered goons, disguising as cow vigilantes like Monu Manesar or Bittu Bajrangi, to carry on relentless provocation, until the minority community runs out of patience.
Then enters the most dreaded arm of State terror — in the form of ‘bulldozers’. Over 1,000 shanties of hawkers have been destroyed by the BJP-led Haryana government in Nuh till the Chandigarh High Court order came to the rescue of the destitute. No less than the home minister of Haryana dropped a comment, “Monu Manesar was just asking the devotees to go for a Brij Mandal Yatra; he was not instigating the violence!”
It seems as if he was guiding the police not to go after the perpetrators. A senior citizens’ team of the fascists, then, took over the baton to organize mahapanchayats in support of the culprits. Their team of advocates thereby thronged the courts to protect the foot-soldiers, and the vicious circle, thereby, goes on.
However, the people’s reaction to this gory spectacle of the Nuh violence, was, indeed, pleasantly surprising. Not a single person to whom we spoke to, was under any confusion that the violence has anything to do with the ‘Hindus are in danger’ propaganda. The strong bond between Muslims and Hindus is still intact. That is the reason that more and more sections of the Hindu community supported the Muslim Meo community.
The Dalit community, Jats, Gujjars, section of Yadavs and farmers joined the sizable and growing section of secular masses not only to condemn the Hindutva goons but even challenged them openly to dare touch the Muslims. This has turned the tables and frustrated the shrieking, fanatic, Hindutva sections for the first time. This is really heartening and shows the way ahead. Challenging them collectively, with determination, will thwart their heinous agenda and establish peace.
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The worst sufferers are the daily wage-earners, and the poor hawkers and vendors who lost their means of livelihood and were chased and arrested by the police, since every FIR has some names. Then, there is the phenomena of ‘and others’. The poor are subjected to the most vulgar forms of ‘otherization’.
The police, administration and state government supported the criminals by not arresting them even after 10 days of the violence. Only after seeing the mood of the people and the writing on the wall did they swing into action and arrested one of the chief perpetrators — Bittu Bajrangi. It was a face-saving exercise, rather than teaching these lumpen elements a lesson.
Everybody except their foot-soldiers and masters know that Monu Manesar is a hardcore criminal masquerading as ‘Gaurakshak’, officially absconding, since he is accused as a mastermind in the lynching case of burning Junaid and Nasir alive. The official bluff is torn apart as he keeps appearing on various channels — ‘live’ — as if he is a ‘celebrity’.
The victims have to cement the bond with the other community and they have to organize to resist peacefully. Their determination not to succumb to arm-twisting is bound to get massive support all around, including from the sane sections of the administration. Massive mass movements have to be organized across the country against these Nazi tactics. Each and every person has to sit up and think about the way he/she can support the movement against this sinister onslaught.
Dark clouds are hovering over the horizon; there is no doubt about that. However, everything is still not lost. We will collectively defeat these lumpen forces, supported and financed by corporate sharks in order to save their dying regime of exploitation. Fascism is capitalism in decay, as Lenin said. The capitalist-imperialist system is now rotten beyond repair. It has to be buried deep to get rid of fascism, the most violent, hateful and conspiratorial system of governance — once and for all.
(The narrator is general secretary, Krantikari Mazdoor Morcha, Faridabad, Haryana. He leads a front of the working class and organizes them on their problems at the workplace, as well as, in the residential housing clusters, awakening them politically)
As told to Amit Sengupta