Over the past three years, every time we’ve seen a fresh outpouring of violence against the Muslim community, a statement by former police officer Vibhuti Rai – “No riot can last longer than 24 hours without the consent of the state” – has been trotted out to a wearied outrage. Now a platitude, it has been stripped of the horror of its meaning.
When Rai, an IPS officer who worked through the riots across Uttar Pradesh in the 80s, said this in 1995, he had taken time off to conduct research on the relationship between the police and those involved in communal violence. He found that while Hindus had a relationship of trust with the police, Muslims and Sikhs considered them enemies.
Rai expressed grief at this, as the loss of faith in the idea of the state itself, but notably, put this down to a pervasive communal prejudice in the force that needed remediation. He insisted that no political party could demand that the police act in a communal fashion.
Rai wasn’t wrong, but what he failed, or refused, to understand is that when enough communal prejudice has been sown into the community, a politician would not have to ask.
Using communal violence as a tool for electoral gains is hardly new as Babri and Godhra can attest, but we are now in a state where it is no longer the exception in a larger culture of sarkari (government) syncretism, but an expected feature of the political arena.
It is at this juncture that we find Haryana, predictably, on fire.
The Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra, a religious procession, was taken out by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on a route that was determined to go through Haryana’s Nuh district which is predominantly populated by Muslims. Two days prior to the communal clashes, videos had gone viral featuring Bajrang Dal leaders Monu Manesar and Bittu Bajrangi making inflammatory statements and calling for their supporters to assemble as a show of strength.
Both these men have a long hate history-sheet – Manesar has been implicated in the murder of Junaid and Nasir, a hate crime which took place February this year, and Bajrangi was booked last month for an anti-Muslim speech he gave while flashing weaponry. Manesar has also been regularly photographed with senior BJP members, including Amit Shah, and is part of the “civil defence team” assisting the police – the two protagonists are known quantities.
They exactly knew what they were up to. A day before riots in Mewat, He shared a video announcing that he will be in Mewat soon. ‘Baap to baap rahega, goli woli challengi, goli pe goli challengi… ‘
Why would you say all this if they were to simply participate in yatra pic.twitter.com/YJnLn3cmlq— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) August 2, 2023
Despite this, the procession was given permission to pass through Nuh. Notably, every single communal riot that started with a religious procession has had one thing in common – the route. The script is this: a procession goes through an area belonging to the other community. Some people make provocative slogans, perhaps the now classic, “Goli maaron saalon ko, desh ke gadaaron ko (Shoot the traitors of the nation)”. Some people from the other side perhaps respond, maybe a stone is thrown, perhaps someone is shoved, someone shoves back, and then, justification in place, the full wrath of the group with the guns comes down with a vengeance.
Haryana made no departure from the script – the violence against Muslims at large escalated after rumours that 4,000 Hindus had been trapped in a temple – a patent lie, refuted by the temple priest himself – and disseminated widely by Haryana home minister Anil Vij as well as the media, eager to make hay of anti-Muslim sunshine. In reality, the procession ended with a call to arms made by the VHP at the destination point of the procession, hours before the violence began.
EXCLUSIVE: Few hours before violence erupted in Haryana, Surendra Jain, General Secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad was present at Nuh’s Nalhar Mahadev Mandir (destination of procession) where he delivered hate speech against Muslims in Mewat.
We have obtained video of his speech pic.twitter.com/ymY3nfKZ9h
Advertisement— HindutvaWatch (@HindutvaWatchIn) August 2, 2023
As of now, the fires have moved to engulf the shiny technocrat bubble of Gurugram, and are gradually making their way to New Delhi.
We must remember that Rai’s statement in full, was this: “It was the unanimous opinion of all senior officials present that no communal riot in India can last for more than 24 hours without the consent of the state…In any city or state of the country, a riot can be controlled within 24 hours unless the state wants it otherwise. By the state I mean the forces which represent the state whether it is police or the district administration, or local governments.”
It would take a staggering ignorance for the state in Nuh to not see a riot coming, with the conditions being what they were. But the question then arises – if the state is consenting to a riot, how could a riot serve the state?
A 9th century king bringing down the BJP
On July 20, a statue of the 9th century ruler Samrat Mihir Bhoj was due to be unveiled in Haryana’s Kaithal. On the statue was inscribed the word ‘Gujjar’ – and the unveiling was conducted by Kaithal MLA and BJP member Lila Ram Gurjar, and other leaders of the Gurjar caste.
Before it could be unveiled, members of the Rajput community expressed their outrage at the caste name present on the statue, and called for it to be replaced with “Hindu Samrat (king)” instead. (The conflict on what caste the King belongs to has been going on for some time). At this protest, the state responded by bringing in the police to lathi-charge the Rajput group.
The next day, amidst heavy security, with police deployed to turn away vehicles to prevent protesters reaching the site, the event went on as planned. To add insult to injury, the administration organised an event laying wreaths at the statue.
In an act of protest, around 40 BJP leaders resigned. They included senior functionaries, as well as heads of the Kisan Morcha. Over the next few days, 22 villages in Haryana banned BJP leaders from entering their borders. The Rajput community gathered in Cheeka town and burned an effigy of the government. By July 25, that number had reached 90, with anti-BJP sentiment spreading like wildfire through the community.
On July 30, the Rajputs held a mahapanchayat in Karnal where leaders issued a statement for the next event, saying, “Any leader of the Rajput community irrespective of their political party will have to reach to this mahapanchayat or they will face action,” drawing clear lines between caste pride and party loyalty.
This next event would be a Rajput mahakumbh, organised for September 10, in advance of which a committee had been prepared to visit every village and town in the state to invite members of the Rajput community to attend as a show of strength for the BJP. Advances were allegedly made to Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Union defence minister Rajnath Singh to resolve the issue, and met with silence. As of July 30, the preparations for the mahakumbh had involved outreach to Rajputs across state lines in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan.
One day later, the riots began.
Whose vote is it anyway?
The BJP in Haryana has been facing an anti-incumbency wave after two terms, with a lingering resentment in the state fomented by two major optics crises – the farmer’s laws, and the protest of female wrestlers against their institutionalised sexual assault.
The farmers’ protests, while tentatively resolved, still contain the seed of a simmer. In June, farmers from Punjab, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, led by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait, once again took to the streets blocking a national highway, as a result of unresolved issues with the government regarding MSP and the release of farmer leaders from prison.
While the protest was resolved in two days, it ended when the government made an attempt to push back, and then accepted the demands of the farmers, signalling that the state is on the backfoot, and knows it.
The ongoing mistrust of the farmers is compounded by their support of the women wrestlers from Haryana who captured the public eye earlier this year. While their protest originally intended to have no political involvement, they later brought on board political heft as a means of pressuring the government.
Along with farmers organisations like the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, and the BKU, Khap panchayats across UP, Haryana and Rajasthan have extended their support to the wrestlers. This is, by default, support against BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, who even now retains his position within the party. For the BJP, the electoral math was against the wrestlers. According to an analysis by Bharat Bhushan, Brij Bhushan holds significant power in his own constituency, influences a number of adjoining East UP arenas religious bodies in Ayodhya and, notably, carries significant weight with the Rajput vote as a Thakur.
Haryana goes to state polls in 2024, after the general election, but another election looms much closer this year – Rajasthan. In Rajasthan, the Gujjars and Rajputs (along with Jats and Meenas) take up a significant chunk of the electorate, with each caste bloc being wooed by both the Congress and the BJP.
In Rajasthan, Jats reign supreme, but are closely followed by the Rajputs – with 6% of the population, they command 17 seats. The Gujjars, however, are influential in 30-35 seats in Rajasthan – while they traditionally vote for the BJP, the vote swung in the 2018 election when Sachin Pilot, a Gujjar leader, was sent up by Congress. That said, there is anti-Congress sentiment in the group now with their leader being denied the top position, exacerbated by Pilot’s public and vocal unhappiness on the subject. Both the BJP and Congress are in a match for the Rajput vote,
In 2018, the Congress took a cool 100 seats of the available 200, with BJP under Vasundhara Raje, stopping at 73. This time, it’s different – opinion polls show the BJP firmly ahead, with the Congress getting its infighting only recently under control, and an anticipated split of 109-119 to the BJP and 78-88 to Congress. If it came down to the line, it would be safer to alienate the Rajput vote over the Gujjar, but it would have ripple effects in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has been cultivating representation within the Brahmin, Rajput and non-Yadav OBCs as they cannot afford absolutely any uncertainty for 2024.
Set one problem to solve another
It would be extremely injudicious to suggest that the ongoing Haryana riots have been deliberately manufactured by the ruling party in order to create conditions where unpleasant electoral outcomes can be avoided and a larger anti-Muslim threat can be mobilised to unite caste factionalism under the larger Hindutva umbrella.
After all, surely the BJP has not used a larger security threat as a way of shifting the dial on an election before? It would, in fact, be flirting with outright sedition to suggest that the creation of these conditions were a result of significant security lapses made by the state despite prior knowledge that should have prohibited it.
In the 2019 general elections, the BJP won 10/10 seats from Haryana, and 24/25 out of Rajasthan (with a single seat going to an allied leader no longer affiliated with them).
It acquired four out of 13 in Punjab with the Shiromani Akali Dal responsible for two of those before it ended its alliance with the BJP because of the farmers’ protest.
Since then, Punjab has issued a resounding anti-BJP knockout in its 2022 state elections, with the BJP winning a grand total of two seats.
As such, much is riding on Rajasthan and Haryana to maintain their full complements.
According to an analysis by Poonam Yadav, approximately 45% of the Lok Sabha seats, specifically 244 out of the total 543 seats, are attributed to 15 states where neither the Congress nor the BJP is in power. With the INDIA Opposition steadily building a much larger coalition of major parties, these are seats where power can swing in the Congress’s favour more than the BJP’s, as it stands with current alliances.
While it needs to be heavily emphasised that voters do not vote in general elections in the same way as they do in state elections, it is also evident at this juncture that the December 2023 state elections have a lot riding on them in relation to how 2024 will be perceived.
The BJP took a significant hit with the loss of Karnataka. To lose Rajasthan electorally and now Haryana emotively would take what is currently a tight race, into an active crisis.
Prem Shankar Jha has pointed out that the INDIA Opposition has the BJP running nervous, given that the increase in the number of parties has created a multiplier effect in their favour. According to an analysis by Amitabh Tiwari, their vote share has gone up by 10%, whereas the factionalism running rampant in the BJP allies has brought theirs down. Of the BJP’s current 303 seats, there is also the possibility of a close fight taking place in 45.
In this context, the 35 seats between Haryana and Rajasthan suddenly start to look a lot more important.
But then, there was a riot.
With Haryana on fire, and a significant mobilisation of Hindutva militants on the streets and fake news factories amplifying narratives of Muslim violence, there is now a ‘bigger threat’ than one of caste solidarity – not only has the wildfire momentum of the Rajput lobby been physically and digitally stopped, it will be unlikely to be revived given that Haryana will be tending to a different wound. It also doesn’t hurt that the party has been suffering from the optics of the Manipur gang rape viral video, which has now been neatly removed from the news cycle and replaced with bankable outrage and fury on the Haryana front.
It has also refreshed the communal verve in the cow belt, where it has the most electoral returns, and needs to be kept fresh so people don’t start to remember they are unemployed, paying Rs 160-a-kilo for tomatoes, and watching their taxes line Ambani pockets.
But the question still rises, out of sheer disbelief: surely all this could not be related to a statue of a man from the 9th century? The answer to which is – how much would you be willing to risk to win the 2024 election, when the alternative is just to have a nice riot?
