Five years after the gruesome communal violence and terror that engulfed North East Delhi in the last week of February 2020, those guilty of organising this terrible crime against the people remain unpunished. The victims of the violence continue to suffer terrible hardships. Many of the victims, as well as hundreds of those who came out to defend the rights of the victims were arrested and jailed under the draconian UAPA, on charges of ‘conspiracy against the state’. Many of them continue to languish in jail, 5 years later, without being convicted of any of the charges that have been brought against them by the police. They have been repeatedly denied bail on the basis of flimsy charge-sheets produced by the Delhi Police.
The official version
The communal violence in North East Delhi in February 2020 is called a riot in all official records. It was described by the Union Home Minister as a spontaneous reaction to the popular protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). He declared in the Lok Sabha that the communal violence was the result of a “conspiracy by those who were organising the protests”.
The Delhi police submitted a 17,000-page chargesheet in support of the conspiracy theory, naming large numbers of activists involved in the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests. They were accused of having planned the communal violence to coincide with the visit of then US President Trump, with the alleged aim of discrediting India in the international arena. The chargesheet made no mention of the hate speeches given by various leading politicians of the BJP, including the threat to forcibly evict the protestors and the open call to ‘shoot the traitors (referring to the protestors)’. It also made no reference to eyewitness accounts of armed gangs unleashing violence targeted at Muslims, while the police stood by as mute spectators.
The background
The central government began the exercise of creating a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam in 2013 and concluded it in that state in 2019. Every person residing in Assam was required to submit multiple documents to prove that his or her ancestors were Indian citizens, instead of the government having to prove that someone is an illegal immigrant. As a result of this, more than 19 lakh people were declared illegal and threatened with having to spend the rest of their lives in detention centres. On 31 May, 2019, the Central Government asked all state governments to start preparing detention centres for “illegal migrants”, and declared its aim of extending the NRC to the whole country.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by Parliament on 11 December, 2019, stated that those who had illegally migrated to India from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Afghanistan are permitted to apply for Indian citizenship provided they are not Muslims. The threat of being deported or confined to detention centres was thus targeted specifically at Muslims, who may not be able to provide documentary evidence of Indian ancestry.
Masses of people, of different religious faiths, united in protest actions demanding that the government withdraw the CAA and the proposed NRC. Women played a leading role in these protests. University students and youth, academics and Indian youth studying abroad participated in large numbers. Although the rulers made several attempts to incite anarchy and violence in these protests, they mainly remained peaceful.
The events of February 2020
The reports of numerous citizens’ committees as well as eye witness accounts of people confirm that it was not a ‘riot’.It was not spontaneous. It was well planned and organised by those in charge of the central government. It was an act of state terror.
On 23 February 2020, an anti-CAA protest at Jaffrabad in North East Delhi was attacked by a BJP leader who issueda public ultimatum that they would ‘take the law into their own hands’ if the protest site was not cleared. Immediately following this threat, as if on cue, the communal violence broke out. Nearly two thousand people with helmets on their heads occupied two schools in Mustafabad for 24 hours, using them as the base to attack Muslims in the neighbourhood.
As many as 53 persons were killed according to the official reports. Thousands were wounded.Their homes, shops and properties were looted, burnt and vandalised. Journalists’ accounts and reports of citizens’ committees have stated that the police either stood by silently or actively joined the armed gangs. Many videos showed the police attacking people who were opposing the violence. There were videos of police brutally beating youth who were already injured and lying on the ground, continuing to beat them mercilessly and demanding that they should sing the National Anthem, causing death of one youth. The police clearly acted in a manner as if they had instructions from above, to ‘teach the Muslims a lesson’, to humiliate, beat and kill them. Reports indicate that the Police Control Rooms received tens of thousands of desperate calls from the victims during those days and nights. But there was no response from the authorities.
It may be recalled that on 26 February 2020, a bench of the Delhi High Court, headed by Justice Muralidhar, reprimanded the Delhi police for failing to register FIRs against those making communal hate speeches. The court passed an order reminding the Delhi Police of the mandatory requirement for registration of FIRs in such cases. The same night, Justice Muralidhar was transferred to Punjab & Haryana High Court with immediate effect!
Irrespective of their religious beliefs, people risked their own safety to provide shelter to those under attack, giving shelter to the victims in their own houses.Gurudwaras opened their doors to all those seeking shelter. People formed defence committees to protect each other and blocked the roads to prevent the killer mobs from entering their neighbourhood. Unity marches were organised to condemn the communal violence and ensure peace and harmony.
Doctors and nurses at the Al Hind Hospital in Mustafabad and other small hospitals in the area risked their own safety and toiled day and night, to attend to the hundreds of patients who flooded the hospitals that were ill-equipped to deal with the large numbers of wounded. The police prevented ambulances from entering the area to carry patients to bigger hospitals in the city. Only after the Delhi High Court ordered the police on 26 February to allow ambulances to transport patients to bigger hospitals, were they allowed to do so.
Following the state-organised communal violence, people of Delhi set up relief camps for the victims. University students and youth, and people from across the city as well as other parts of the country came forward to contribute medicines, food, clothing, and other necessities to the affected people.Young lawyers and students helped the victims to retrieve their documents that they had lost in the burnings, to file for the paltry compensation that was offered by the government.
The real aim behind organising the violence and the continued persecution of the protestors
The communal violence unleashed in North-East Delhi in February 2020 had the definite aim of discrediting and suppressing the mass movement against the discriminatory CAA and NRC. Hundreds of women and men who had played an active role in the protests have been arrested under UAPA and kept indefinitely in jail. Five years later, many of them have not even had a trial yet, but have been denied bail repeatedly, despite no evidence to establish their involvement in organising or instigating the violence. They are being incarcerated, based on flimsy chargesheets produced by the police, backed by the conspiracy theory propagated by the Home Minister.
Two of these activists stood as candidates in the recently concluded Delhi Assembly elections. Shifa ur Rehman, who was arrested in April 2020 for participating in the protests against the NRC and CAA in Okhla, stood from Okhla constituency in South Delhi. Tahir Hussain, another activist who was arrested in 2020, stood from Mustafabad in East Delhi. Both are still awaiting trial. Both were given parole for only 6 days, only during daytime, to campaign. Their families and supporters from the local community vigorously campaigned for them, highlighting the problems of the people in their respective areas and opposing the politics of communal division. Their elections campaigns saw enthusiastic and popular participation.
Conclusion
All the facts clearly show that the communal violence in North East Delhi five years ago was not a ‘riot’. It was neither spontaneous nor was it a conspiracy against the Indian state, as claimed by the Home Minister. It was a criminal act of terror carried out by those in charge of the Indian state. Its aim was to smash the growing unity of our people against the increasing attacks on their livelihood and rights, including the right to conscience, the right to one’s own beliefs.
The repeated incidents of state-organised communal violence, including the genocide of Sikhs in November 1984, the massacres following the demolition of Babri Masjid in December 1992, the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat in February 2002 and many others, prove that the organising of communal violence is part of the method of rule of the Indian bourgeois class.
It is not the people of one or another religious community who are to blame for the recurring menace of communal violence. It is the ruling class and its parties which are to blame. The ruling class and its parties use state power to attack people of a particular religious faith, in order to break the unity of the people and suppress their struggles against exploitation and injustice.
Workers, peasants and all other working people need to unite, irrespective of differences in their religious beliefs, against the ruling bourgeois class. We must unite against state terrorism. We must demand that those guilty of attacking any section of the people be severely punished. We must demand that those in charge of the government be held responsible when any section of the people is attacked. We must wage the struggle against communal violence with the aim of replacing the barbaric rule of the bourgeoisie by the rule of the working class, in alliance with the peasants and all other working people.