Yusuf, a school dropout but business sharp, organizes annual large Iftaar parties in Ramadan month in his Muslim mohalla, also attended by powerful Hindu
politicians. The fast observers clean their plates engagingly, drinking liters
of soft drinks and water, under the gaze of politicians, casually chewing pan
or succulent dates and surveying the dilapidated landscape. It is their prized
electoral sanctuary; occasionally they irrigate it with notional presence.
Seeing devouts hurrying to the mosque, politicians show urgency to leave. Yusuf
is elated: he showed folks his high political connections and politicians his
resources and leadership.
Soon after the dignitaries leave, arrives a speeding police jeep.
Leading his crowd, the host lunges toward it. They enthusiastically greet the
Station House Officer (SHO) leading his uniformed pack. The crowd’s eyes are
fixed on his oiled baton and revolver dangling from his belt. He shakes hands
with the host and waves at the others. Gratified, they smile. After he leaves,
they debate animatedly the history of good and rogue SHOs. The debate’s
ingredients are warnings, abuses, hard slaps, dirty floor squatting, handcuffing, FIRs, detentions and speed money; and then, astronomical rates for
SHO posting in the ‘fertile’ Thana.
The recent news of government’s belated political appointments of
Muslims on minority bodies like Rajasthan Wakf Board, Rajasthan Madrassa Board,
Urdu Academy and Rajasthan Minority Commission, allegedly all from Bareillvi School (seen as ‘adversary’ of Deoband School) doesn’t excite Yusuf. He is upset, indeed, for something
else: the appointment of a Muslim Superintendent of Police (SP) as a member of
the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC). He thinks it is a ‘bad’
decision of the state and the incumbent. It is a waste of the community’s
precious, scarce asset. Where are Muslim SPs these days? For Muslims, an SP is
far more useful than an RPSC member, he argues, narrating Muslims’ bitter
experiences.
The awe associated with a next-door lawyer, doctor or professor in western
countries is preserved for an SP, not for RPSC member, in feudal India. SP’s house is an iconic
reference, an identifier, for locations of others’ in the neighborhood. He
isn’t the only Muslim sharing this perception, shaped by insecure life in an
insecure communal environment. The incumbent’s own politically powerful Kayamkhani community,
claiming Hindu Rajput ancestry, is critical. The community,
spread in the districts of Churu, Nagaur, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Jodhpur,
Bikaner and
Jaipur, has good presence in army and police, because of network-based
recruitment from the beginning in both the services. Kayamkhani lawyers,
officers, teachers and businessmen share Yusuf’s perception: ‘Whatever, after
all, an SP is an SP!’
Yusuf knows that the SP is the boss of all SHOs of a district. I explain
to him that the RPSC selects state-level officers. Ignoring this, he
reiterates: ‘Is an RPSC member more powerful than an SP?’ Seeing me a bit puzzled at the
oddity of the comparison, he smiles. Gazing in my eyes, he explains the
‘conspiracy’ theory against Muslims.
Recently, more than a hundred innocent Muslims’ houses/shops were burnt
and looted in the Marwar, Hadoti and Mewar regions. Mosques/shrines and Quran
were desecrated in the state. A Muslim SHO was lynched and burnt alive in
Sawaimadhopur, in a Muslim MLA’s constituency. Ten Muslim Meos were killed in
police firing in the Jama Masjid of Gopalgarh, Bharapur, also a Muslim woman
MLA’s constituency. All killings, arson and looting occurred in the very
presence/connivance of the police. “Tell me”, he quizzes, “if a Muslim SP was
on duty in those places, could such violence have occurred that gruesomely?” Saddened, and knowing the facts
from the PUCL and media reports and our own visits to the places, I agree. Our
team saw on the Kota-Manohar Thana highway large billboards screaming: Hindu Rashtra ke adarsh Hindu gaon
mein aapka swagat hai. ‘Welcome to the ideal Hindu village of Hindu Nation.’
The Police advised us to avoid night travel in that communally ‘dangerous’
zone. Yusuf says: “in these multiplying sensitive situations, a Muslim SP is
critical for a threatened community.”
Since independence only four Muslims became members of the RPSC, none in
the BJP regimes, partly explaining reasons for small number of Muslims in civil
services. The RPSC always has one member each from ST/SC and OBC, and rest from
the upper castes. Except the age factor, these appointments are purely
political in nature, ignoring qualifications, professional and public
reputation of the appointees. Political lobbying is common. A kar sevak was killed in police firing during the
Ayodhya movement. His college wife was appointed in the RPSC and then as a
member of the Union Public Service Commission.
An assertion of strong correlation between a) the ethnicity of
Commission Members and experts and b) that of successful candidates, keeping
their ratios constant, isn’t fallacious. Enter candidates’ socioeconomic
backgrounds in the equation, the picture would be sharper. Though, according to
the Sachar Committee Report, an uneducated Muslim mother wishes to educate her
daughters, more than her husband, Muslims are often blamed for lack of
education and competitive desire, ignoring pervasive hostile external
environments—policies, programs and prejudices—militating against them.
Himself living in an apartheid-like red-lined zone, devoid of
sanitation, schools, parks, playground and health centres (though dotted with
liquor and paan shops, polluting industries, adulterated medicines and sweet
shops, dubious ‘doctors’ and police stations), Yusuf illustrates the situation.
Government Durbar School was the oldest and reputed school of Jaipur in a Muslim locality. Its alumni
became noted administrators, professionals, businessmen and politicians.
Recently, the Government closed it down, giving its large campus to the police,
despite public protests and litigations. Before killing the dog it was given a
bad name. Government let infrastructures get dilapidated and teachers unruly.
Girls had no toilet. Middle class students migrated to other schools. Muslim
students left stupefied, either straying into low-paid labour markets or
deviance. Cultural prejudices crop up in their admissions in good private
schools. If not dropouts from orphanage-like government and Muslim schools,
fewer make to colleges. Most can’t afford high fees of coaching shops. So fewer
Muslim graduate and crack competitive examinations. Girls face complex
geographical and cultural obstacles.
Yusuf returns to his main concern, underlining universal perceptions:
the need for more appointments of Muslims in the police force. He rationalizes
that in the presence of a Muslim SP a trigger-happy police is unlikely to fire
indiscriminately as witnessed in Gopalgarh massacre, where 219 rounds of
bullets were fired at one time - highest round of bullets being fired so far in India, excluding during wars. Nor,
mayhem of arsons and looting of the scale of Sarada (Udaipur), Semli-Hat, Maheshpura and Manohar
Thana (Jhalawar) may happen. Mixed neighborhood interfaces and ‘borders’ are
combustible zones. Gujarat border
is expanding northward to the Hadoti, Mewar, Marwar and now Meo regions due to
complicity of the police and the lack of state neutrality due to immediate
political expediency.
“The ‘loss’ of one Muslim SP in the police force is important/meaningful
to Muslims,” he maintains. He is shocked to learn that the SP, as an RPSC
member, isn’t entitled anymore to an armed security guard in police uniform, a
siren-equipped escort vehicle and, still worse, a personal car with a red
light. When I say that the tenure of a RPSC member is for good six years so he
can do a lot in that period but on the other hand, by remaining in the police
service, he could have become Inspector General of Police, IGP, or reached even
higher. Yusuf agonizingly bursts: Satyanash! Yeh to fir bahut gadbad hogaya,
Janab! ‘Calamitous! Then this
is all screwed up, sir!’ He bemoans, ‘This is a real conspiracy against
Muslims!’ That said it all.
Anti Muslim In riot prone areas, the partisan need for physical security
overshadows all other considerations for most Muslims. Experience has taught
the community that anti Muslim rioters get away with murder and mayhem mainly
because the police consistently plays a partisan role and helps rioters instead
of protecting the victims. Hence the desperate desire to have their coreligionists in the police.
----------------
M.
Hasan
Prof. Hasan taught in Rajasthan State Institute of Public
Administration, universities of Nairobi and Jodhpur and was Member Academic Council, AMU.
Currently, Member, Rajiv Gandhi Social Security Mission,
Rajasthan.
