UP: Crack down hard, or trouble will spread

The festering communal situation in Saharanpur, in western Uttar Pradesh, in which three people were killed on Saturday and around three dozen others seriously injured, brings to mind the ghastly communal violence in Muzaffarnagar, also in the same region, just over a year ago whose polarising  political impact was felt across UP — and possibly beyond — in the runup to the Lok Sabha election.

The UP government has acted more swiftly this time. Sunday was calm but tense. Monday was better, but curfew could not be lifted in all parts of the city. The volatility is palpable. And that is probably the first thing to be understood about the anatomy of communal clashes — a situation rendered febrile can suddenly erupt and lead to a loss of lives and destruction of property.

For the police and district administration, for our political system, for public-minded citizens and for future researchers, the Saharanpur situation also offers a feature of note: the dispute that led to the violent explosion involved property being claimed by a gurdwara and a mosque (or waqf board), but it’s not Sikhs who were seen on the so-called battlefield of faith (against Muslims), but Hindus mobilised by Hindutva activists.

The best that the administration can do is to crack down hard on troublemakers — Muslim or Hindu — though this is easier said than done. Influential political elements are in the picture. News reports suggest Union home minister Rajnath Singh is himself keeping a close watch and is in touch with chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. We want them to put an end to the cycle of violence swiftly, but it cannot be over-emphasised that they do not treat the obviously planned communal mischief in Saharanpur as a discrete event with an autonomous cause-and-effect chain.

The larger picture is more frightening: Between Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur was the sharp communal trouble recently in the small town of Kainth in Moradabad district, also in western UP, involving the blaring of a loudspeaker at a temple during the Muslim month of Ramzan. A child can read the implications. The cast of actors is steady, prominently featuring Hindutva elements, including BJP MLAs and MPs. There is also the use of social media. In Muzaffarnagar, a BJP leader had uploaded scenes of violence in Karachi (Pakistan) and sought to pass it off as the handiwork of local Muslims.

In Saharanpur, C.T. Ravi, Karnataka BJP general secretary and a member of the party’s national executive, tweeted that the only way to contain riots was the Gujarat model of 2002, which should be applied “across Bharat”.

These are worrying signs. It is time that the Union home minister and the Prime Minister both walked the talk.