Yusuf, a school dropout but business sharp, organizes annual large Iftaar parties in his Muslim mohalla, also attended by powerful Hindu politicians. The fast observers clean their plates engagingly, drinking litres 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 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 neighbourhood. 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.
Fatally wounded victim of police firing in Gopalgarh (Bharatpur) in SMS Hospital, Jaipur
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.
Protest Against Government Inaction against recent communal violence
Since independence only four Muslims became members of the RPSC, none in 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).
Classic Muslim Neighbourhood: MD Road , Jaipur
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
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Billboard on Kota Jhalawar Highway Rajasthan “A Hindu Village of a Hindu Nation
“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 co-religionists in the police.
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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.
Courtesy: http://www.manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1596&ptype=