Author: Kanchan Gupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 18, 2005
It is the Congress that has engineered
most of the riots... Rajiv Gandhi failed to protect Harijans and Muslims...
Geographical boundaries of the country were jeopardised by the Congress
and Rajiv Gandhi..."
On reading such harsh accusation,
such pitiless pillorying of the Congress and its supreme leader, the last
direct descendent of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to sit on the masnad of Delhi,
the image that comes to mind is that of an irascible foot soldier of the
BJP or a malevolent journalist doing what foot soldiers and malevolent
journalists do best:Shoot from the hip.
Think again, but it is unlikely
that you will be able to guess the identity of the person who tore into
the Congress so mercilessly while participating in a debate on the " Situation
in the Country" in the Lok Sabha on December 29, 1989. The immediate backdrop
to this debate was the series of communal riots in Congress-ruled Bihar
- Hazaribagh, Darbhanga, and the horrendous bloodletting in Bhagalpur during
the twilight days of Rajiv Gandhi's government in the autumn of that year.
The official death count in Bhagalpur
was 1,891, with thousands scarred for the rest of their lives. In Logain
village, an entire Muslim mohalla was wiped out: the bodies of 120 Muslim
men, women and children were dumped in a shallow pond; when the stench
became unbearable, the rotting corpses were fished out, buried in a field
and planted over with cauliflower saplings.
In Chanderi, another Muslim mohalla,
61 people were massacred. Mallika, a 14-year-old girl, tried to flee the
mob that had killed her parents and relatives. She stumbled and fell; the
mob chopped off her legs and left her to bleed to death in a hyacinth covered
pond. An army officer found her the next day, drawn by her pitiful sobs,
and Mallika survived to live a traumatic life.
But we digress. From December 18
to 29, the newly elected Lok Sabha, with Prime Minister V P Singh and the
Janata Dal occupying the Treasury benches and Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress
sitting in the Opposition benches, witnessed a spirited debate over the
customary address by the President. Either by design or by default, the
President had failed to mention the riots in Bhagalpur.
Congress MPs seized on this omission
to berate the government, alleging that the riots were not mentioned to
spare embarrassment to its ally, the BJP, which was accused of fomenting
the violence in Bhagalpur and elsewhere. As the debate became increasingly
accusatory and the tone and tenor of the attack on the BJP sharpened, the
Janata Dal MP from Chapra waded in to battle the Congress.
Responding to the allegation that
BJP and VHP activists had provoked the violence, he said, " I would like
to tell you that there are two groups of Muslims in Bhagalpur, ie, Ansaris
and Sallans, who had started riots in the city. A bomb was thrown on the
SP (of) Bhagalpur and 11 police personnel were injured. They had thrown
that bomb on the occasion of Ram Shila Pujan but these people have not
been yet rounded up."
That MP was Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav,
now Minister for Railways in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
Government and an ardent supporter of Ms Sonia Gandhi. Such is his admiration
for Ms Gandhi, that even after losing his rule through conjugal proxy over
Bihar thanks to Congress' dalliance with his arch enemy Ram Vilas Paswan,
he is the first to jump to her defence every time the Opposition becomes
particularly vituperative in its attack on the chairperson of the UPA.
But we digress again. On December
29, 1989, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav was relentless in his assault on the Congress,
more so on Rajiv Gandhi, and took vicarious pleasure by slyly mentioning
Ms Sonia Gandhi by name now and then, in total disregard of House rules.
" It is the Congress party which (has) engineered most of the riots, particularly
in Bihar," he thundered to the thumping of tables. " We shall expose their
role in inciting communal riots," he promised on behalf of the Mr VP Singh's
Government.
Listing the failures of the previous
regime, he said, " Rajiv Gandhi failed to fulfil the promises which he
made in regard to the development, unity and security of the country and
protection of the Harijans and Muslims. This resulted in creating a gloomy
situation in the country..." And, hence, the people voted for change.
" Change had become necessary because
the responsibility of protecting the geographical boundaries of the country
(sic)... was jeopardised by the Congress and Rajiv Gandhi, " Mr Lalu Prasad
Yadav explained, adding with a rhetorical flourish, " If we fail to safeguard
the unity, integrity and the principle of secularism of our country, we
cannot save the country from disintegration..." . And then came the full
assault.
" Satyendra Narain Sinha became
chief minister of Bihar, he failed to quell the riots in Hazaribagh...
the procession of Ram Navami had passed off peacefully in front of the
Jama Masjid of Hazaribagh. No Muslim had opposed the procession," Mr Lalu
Prasad Yadav said, recalling the sequence of event, " Ram shila procession
and Ram Navami procession passed off from there, but neither there was
any riot nor anybody raised provocative slogans on that day. But later
on an incident took place in Hazaribagh which triggered off disturbances
in the entire State."
So who or what was to blame? Read
on. "Rajiv Gandhi, accompanied by his wife Sonia Gandhi, went to participate
in the Vaishali festival. They had put on bulletproof vests... Shri Rajiv
Gandhi told Sonia Gandhi that he himself would drive the jeep to see the
celebrations," Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav explained with dramatic flourish, before
coming to the consequences of that drive from Patna to Vaishali by the
former Prime Minister and his wife.
" An announcement was made in regard
to their security... Full security force was required all along the 60
km route from Patna to the place of celebrations. Wireless message was
sent to the DM of Hazaribagh, wireless message was sent to the collector
also to send all the forces to Vaishali as Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi
were coming to attend the celebrations," he recounted, " Forces were picked
up from Hazaribagh and sent to Vaishali. After three days riots took place
between Hindus and Muslims. But no security forces were there to control
the situation."
And what about Darbhanga? " They
(the Congress) have spared no effort to put Bhagalpur, BJP, RSS and Janata
Dal to disrepute," Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav said, charging the Congress, whose
MPs were by then on their feet, with criminal subterfuge, " One thousand
workers belonging to the Congress Party were called to Bahera (an assembly
constituency in Darbhanga) by Maithili Brahmins (a snide reference to Jagannath
Mishra and what was then the Congress' core constituency in Bihar) and
were asked to wear caps bearing slogans 'Garv say kaho hum Hindu hain'
and 'Radhe Shyam Baba ki Jai'."
After a pause, he added with a condescending
flourish, " You try to understand the actual position in Bhagalpur... Shiv
Chander Jha, who was the speaker, was deadly against Bhagwat Jha Azad (another
Congress leader). It was due to them and a few of their men that these
riots... (interruptions)... they were behind these riots."
Such illuminating discourse by Mr
Lalu Prasad Yadav becomes relevant not only to expose turncoat politicians
who adorn our Parliament and occupy India's political space, but also to
highlight how some riots are conveniently forgotten because political expediency
demands so.
And to highlight the absurdity that
only 10 persons have been punished so far for the deaths of more than 1,000
people.
