Enough has been said already about why Hindu processions coming under stone-pelting attacks in so-called ‘Muslim areas’ is a problem, no matter which way you look at it.
The whole categorisation of any locality as a ‘Muslim area’ is an acceptance that demography should decide what happens in any neighbourhood. But the logic is disregarded for others and applies only to India’s chosen minority.
It is also an acceptance that contrary to regaling tales of Hindu-Muslim unity, something as simple as a Hindu festival procession is objected to by Muslims in India. Even if it is objected to just in front of a mosque, it begs the question, why?
It also is a constant reminder of the very ways and means by which exclusivism for one particular faith has been created in India, leading to its very partition, and how even extremism to defend this exclusivism is protected by another layer of justifications.
And efforts to deflect blame by suggesting that provocative songs or swords justify such pelting only embolden lawlessness.
But here is the larger and more fundamental problem with this violence that is becoming routine, even if Hindu processions have been attacked and curbed during and since the Islamic rule ended in India, the British took over, and Hindus and Muslims became subjects of the same ruler at the same pedestal. And that is the tainting of Hindu processions with violence that then ensures they don’t get permission to go to ‘sensitive areas’. Even if a state’s police were bold to give permissions for routes that are otherwise perennially deemed ‘sensitive’, stone-pelting and ensuing violence ensures the stakes are raised and no police will ever dare to do that again.
This is why over decades, even in independent India we have this ignominy of routes decided by police that invariably ensure that Hindu processions don’t cross Muslim areas, embedding and rationalising this demarcation.
So every time this violence happens and as politics takes over, people jostle to prove who started it, the bottom-line effect is that such processions will not be allowed again through such areas.
Added to that is the fact that Hindu festivals and processions get tainted by the scar of violence year after year as if they are to blame, and deemed problematic. Instead of being something to be celebratory about, they become something to be worried or afraid about. Don’t forget the open attempts to paint ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as violent, while no such association is allowed for any religious slogan.
The only way to treat this malaise is for the State to say every time you pelt stones, another procession will be conducted through that exact area. This should be done regardless of which religious rally it is. But the reality is that in India no minority rally gets attacked which such alarming regularity. So, for now, if it is Hindu processions under attack, it becomes the government’s responsibility to ensure such rallies take place through the very sensitive areas where they are attacked and not the opposite safer and cowardly step to stop rallies and moderate their routes according to the ability of a certain section to create anarchy. If governments can organise iftar parties to send out a message, there is no reason why they can’t support Ram Navami celebrations, especially when the latter is under constant attacks.
Till India can do it, there will be no end to this.
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