Government for the people! Really?

It was the celebration of Eid that ended with the fire of communalism.

Which religion can save them???   

Kishtwar, a town with a history of communal harmony, stood still under curfew for 12 days starting from August 9, 2013. Ironically, Eid along with Dusshehra was historically being celebrated in the common Chowgan ground, and at other times Hindu farmers offered their first harvest at the shrine of Shah Asraruddin Wali, a revered Muslim saint.

The town with a harmonious history couldn't possibly indulge in acts of pelting stones, torching houses and shops, looting etc. overnight. The escalation of a small frenzied demonstration into a massive riot seems to be a sustained move towards communal polarisation on the part of some political parties, aiming to make it in the forthcoming elections. The issue of communalism, one that the nation has experienced in 1947, was politicised. Political parties who gain from this polarisation seem to perpetrate the same. The blame game came into picture with the CM accusing the opposition of being ‘hypocrites’ when condemned for not being able to control the violence. When senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj urged the CM to look into the matter of Kishtwar, the CM’s response was quite strange, “injuries and damage has taken place on both the sides.” The reply was such even when Swaraj never mentioned anything of this sort.

Law and order collapsed, giving an opportunity to the communal elements to spread violence because of inaction of the police, for almost seven hours. Yet, the government claims to have responded right away, by summoning the Indian Army. The Army responded immediately, but the local administration took seven hours to order its deployment. Moreover, there were no arrests made for two days.

Damage has been done. To restore communal harmony that existed in Kishtwar, blame game has to stop and constructive steps to build communal harmony should be the forward march. Peace marches alone won’t help the cause of building peace, but a lot else needs to be done. Primary among these should be to immediately arrest the culprits, compensate those who have suffered losses and the proposed judicial commission’s report should be totally unbiased.

The link between the riots and forthcoming elections cannot be ignored. It’s time we wake up to the harsh realities of power, politics and anti-peace marches.