Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 8, 2005
Countless people living in Bihar
pack their bags every year, to escape economic backwardness or utter lawlessness.
A Patna High Court judge now wants out, having been falsely painted a Hindu
'fanatic' by members of a minority group with enormous political clout
in 'secular' Bihar. Justice RS Garg's justified reason for seeking a transfer
is that Bihar is not a place for "honest work". The events that led him
to this belief are revealing in themselves: They expose how votebank-politicking
has spawned communal consciousness so much so that even judicial decrees
are flouted by supposed keepers of the Islamic faith.
As a custodian of the law of the
land, the judge had sought to enforce an agreement on not using loudspeakers
in a mosque near the High Court premises. The religious affiliations of
those violating the law had nothing to do with his suo motu intervention.
He was only concerned by the fact the agreement-effectualised by an earlier
directive-was being defied, even though the mosque committee had agreed
to abide by the decision. Justice Garg had asked the District Magistrate
and the police to set matters right, since court proceedings were being
disturbed.
The police dismantled the loudspeaker
and escorted a muezzin and three mosque authorities before the court, so
that the issue could be resolved. This was cause enough for a mob of local
Muslims to go berserk. They not only agitated against what they saw as
an unwarranted "arrest", but also reinstalled the offending noisebox. The
same evening, the loudspeaker was back in blaring use-in the presence of
policemen intimidated into inaction. As for the judge, he found himself
suddenly wearing the tag of 'RSS stooge'. That he had not issued any arrest
order was lost on the raucous band of 'demonstrators', by then convinced
he was out to 'insult' Muslim religious sensibilities.
The episode shows how issues pertaining
to civil society, when communalised, turn into combustible material for
social conflagrations. At the root of the problem, certainly, is the repeatedly
manifested phenomenon of Muslim intransigence. The Shah Bano case, its
most infamous symbol, demonstrated the way Muslim bigots were politically
emboldened into sabotaging judicially backed gender justice by using religion
as their alibi. Too many members of the minority community seem given to
muscle-flexing against imagined slights to their faith. The Quran, surely,
does not say Islam will be degraded if masjids do without loudspeakers
for the sake of public tranquillity. How proscription of a practice that
is all too human can be termed an assault on the divine is not easily comprehensible.
Themselves votaries of mindless aggression, self-recruited mouthpieces
of the "qaum" are often politically instigated into spoiling for a fight.
People may find grounds for believing that the mischief-makers in Patna
mocked the law and flung mud at a judge at the behest of their political
champions. Bihar is facing a crucial election.
This may not be dismissed as mere
coincidence. Whatever the 'provocation', ordinary Muslims do not normally
run around sticking Sangh Parivar-bashing labels on impartial authorities.
That the 'dharna'-stagers did precisely this raises suspicions of a political
hand. The 'secular' brigade in the poll fray has tried to give a communal
colour to the electoral battle, from misuse of the UC Banerjee Committee's
Godhra report to the EC-rapped pasting of inflammatory posters on the Sabarmati
Express fire. Justice Garg's demonisation as a Hindu 'fascist' fits in
too nicely with the minority-appeasing ploys of 'secular' politicos for
the connection not to be made, rightly or wrongly, in the public mind.
