Sawan has arrived. Uttar Pradesh police made it public through a notice. The notice is not about Sawan though. It is about Kanwar Yatra. This is in keeping with the BJP times, as now in North India, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Sawan has become synonymous with Kanwar Yatra. And Kanwar Yatra is no longer just about devotion to Shiva or Shiva Bhakti; it’s about the dominance of a particular type of Hindus.
And the dominance of Hindus means oppressing, torturing, or humiliating Muslims in different ways. Police have allowed themselves to become the most powerful means to establish this anti-Muslim Hindu dominance. Now the police are going one step further and promoting untouchability on the basis of religion.
According to media reports, Senior Superintendent of Police, Muzaffarnagar, Abhishek Singh said, “Preparations have begun for the Kanwar Yatra. In the area under our jurisdiction, which is around 240 km, all eateries – hotels, dhabas, thelas (roadside carts) – have been instructed to display the names of their proprietors or those running the shop. This is being done to ensure that there’s no confusion among the Kanwariyas and no allegations are raised in the future, leading to a law and order situation. Everyone is following this of their own free will.”
One feels like asking the gentleman who is heading the police force in Muzaffarnagar what the meaning of ‘free will’ is when the police are giving specific instructions. Who dares to disobey the order of the police! However, Mr. Singh needs to realise that what the police are doing is a direct violation of the Constitution. This is also dividing society in an official way.
Initially, no statement came from any political party or leader on this instruction. Yes! MP Asaduddin Owaisi did react: “As per the order of Uttar Pradesh Police, now the owner of every food shop or cart will have to put his name on the board so that no Kanwariya buys anything from a Muslim shop by mistake. This was called Apartheid in South Africa and in Hitler’s Germany it was called ‘Judenboycott’.”
When objections started being raised on social media, another statement from the Uttar Pradesh police came clarifying that the order was not to discriminate on the basis of religion but only to take care of the sensitivities of the Kanwariyas who can get confused by religious agnostic names of the shops and get defiled by buying from the wrong types of shops or eateries. This clarification in fact makes the discrimination even more stark.
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The police know that this is clearly religious discrimination .What is unfortunate for them is that it is still considered not appropriate and decent to be said officially and loudly. But the police’s viewpoint is reflected in this statement itself. It says that it was found that on previous occasions some shops were deliberately named so as to confuse the Kanwariyas.
What kind of confusion could it be? What does the police want to say when it claims that some people were deliberately creating confusion? Which confusion does the police not want the Kanwariyas to suffer from? What the police are not saying but what everyone can understand well is that the police want the Kanwariyas to know clearly whether the shop is owned by a Muslim or not!
The police forget that owners of the shops on the way to the pilgrimage want to do business. If they have to do business with the Kanwariyas, then there will be different kinds of merchandise for sale. But they cannot afford to put up something for sale which might offend their customers. This is sheer business sense!
If this is the case, then where is the confusion if the shopkeeper names his shop Pintu or Kiran’s? But the police are saying that such religion-agnostic names confuse poor Kanwariyas who mistakenly buy things from such shops which are not ‘holy shops’. Whose could such ‘unholy’ shops be?
The police say that some people deliberately named their shops in a manner that made it difficult to know whether they were ‘pure’ or ‘impure’ and the Kanwariyas got confused thereby taking or eating things from them which then interfered with the holy conduct( PARHEJ) they have to follow in the yatra.
The police are more worried about the law and order situation. They state that a law and order situation might arise due to the confusion in the minds of the Kanwariyas. What does this mean? Do they fear that they can do violence if they discover that the shop they bought things from was impure? Which is, it was owned by Muslims?
Who is at fault in such a situation? The fault is obviously of the Kanwariyas. They are discriminating on religious grounds. They want to practice untouchability. So who should be punished? The Kanwariyas or the shopkeepers? Is it prohibited to eat and drink food touched by Muslims in the month of Sawan or during the Kanwar Yatra?
Did the police find any case in which Muslims at their eatery named ‘Shankar Dhaba’ fed the Kanwariyas momos stuffed with keema instead of cabbage? Are the Kanwariyas asking for vegetarian food and were they given some meat item without telling them? If this has not happened then what is the confusion? Suppose after buying goods from Pintu’s Thela, one discovers that it belongs to Malik Sheikh, then where is the fraud?
Or do the police want to say that the Kanwariyas have the right not to go to the shop of a Muslim and hence it is necessary to have a clear identity displayed on all the shops to help them make their choice? Are the police not directly promoting economic boycott of Muslims?
Note that they are not asking for the names of the owners only, they are saying that the names of all the people working there should be displayed. That is, if a Muslim is working in a Hindu shop, then even that shop becomes suspicious. By doing this, the police are telling the Hindus that if they want to do business with the Kanwariyas, they better not employ any Muslim.
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This is officially an attempt to restrain the economic activity of Muslims. This is clearly against the Constitution. Asaduddin Owaisi has rightly said that this is apartheid and is similar to the ‘Judenboycott’ of the Nazi times. You look at the early Nazi period in which Jews were asked to display their Jewish identity on their shops. This made it easier to boycott and then attack them.
The Uttar Pradesh government has already shut down all meat shops on the route of the pilgrimage. This is an infringement on the right of one section of society to do business in the name of another section. Will the pilgrimage or the pilgrims be polluted if they pass by a meat shop? Doesn’t this remind us of the time when Shudras had to walk revealing their identity so that the Brahmins could save their pure selves from their shadows even?
We know that this is a country where you are asked your full name so that the curious fellow can decide how he will treat you. This is considered to be his right. If you are only Awadhesh, it is possible that he may take roti from your plate but if it is found out that you are Awadhesh Pasi, then the bread would be put in a separate plate.
This is not considered discrimination in India. Due to this traditional social behavior, nobody will find it wrong to demand from Muslims that they tell us their names so that we can decide whether we should come establish a proximity with you or stay away from you.
It remains wrong and a crime too. No passerby can demand from me that I tell him the name of everyone working for me. The state cannot force me to do this on his behalf.
It is clear in this directive of Uttar Pradesh that it especially wants to take care of the convenience of the devotees. There is nothing wrong in that but how can it force others to change their behavior for their convenience? How can the state privilege one section over the other? This is an attempt by the state to promote religious segregation in society and deepen discrimination on religious grounds.
It is also important to say that all this has happened in the last 10 years. The Kanwar Yatra used to happen earlier as well. We have never heard about any complaint of this nature from Kanwariyas in Bihar that the purity of their conduct is violated because of hidden identities.
In Uttar Pradesh, we have never heard any complaint from any devotee before 2014 that they have been cheated by Muslims who name their shops as Naveen Bhojnalaya. A new Hindu complaint or grudge is also being manufactured.
We have heard the slogans calling for boycott of Muslim vegetable or fruit vendors during the Corona pandemic. We have also been told that Muslims cannot be trusted because they sell goods they spit on. We have heard stories of various Muslim conspiracies. All this is being done to fill the minds of Hindus with suspicion, animosity, and hatred towards Muslims.
If Kanwariyas undertake their pilgrimage with more suspicion towards Muslims than devotion towards Shiva, what feeling of sacredness will they get after the yatra? Whatever may happen to them, the Uttar Pradesh police should know that it is not only the police of such Muslim-hating devotees, it is also the police of Muslims.
While writing these last lines I found that Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the Samajwadi Party has condemned this order and asked the court to take cognisance of the issue and take necessary action. The Congress too has criticised the order, raising the issue of economic boycott of Muslims. We hope that other political parties also demand its withdrawal.
