Dhar on Tenterhooks

ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Dhar on Tenterhooks Communal Tension in Madhya Pradesh ANSHU SALUJA Vol. 51, Issue No. 15, 09 Apr, 2016 Anshu Saluja ([email protected]) is a doctoral student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A communal flare up may have been avoided in the Bhojshala complex at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, but majoritarian Hindu groups continue to stoke popular communal passions unabated. The district of Dhar in Madhya Pradesh has been in the news, attracting local as well as national media attention due to the serious likelihood of a communal flare up. At the root of this possibility lies the Bhojshala structure which both Hindus and Muslims seek to appropriate as their own place of worship. It is far from being the truth that the conflagration was nipped in the bud. The Hindu right wing organisations, with the backing of the Sangh Parivar and its local pracharaks (propagators), held the town of Dhar to ransom for days on end, in the face of persistent attempts made by the administration to arrive at a settlement. However, in these repeated efforts at negotiations, the voice of the Muslim community was not taken into consideration at all. Moreover no lasting solution has been worked out despite repeated meetings with right wing Hindu organisations. The root cause of the furore remains largely unaddressed. But first, let me recapitulate in brief the history of the dispute surrounding the Bhojshala complex in Dhar. Contextualising the Conflict The district of Dhar lies in the western part of Madhya Pradesh and is less than 100 km away from Indore. Dhar was the capital of the Parmara ruler, Bhoj, who controlled a part of Madhya Pradesh in the early medieval period. The Bhojshala complex is an 11th century monument, associated with Bhoj. Next to it lies the dargah of an eminent preacher, Kamal Maulana. Like many other historical sites across the country, the Bhojshala complex comes under the guardianship of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) which is responsible for its upkeep. It has become a contested space, with both Hindus and Muslims staking claim to it and attempting to appropriate it. [i] Hindus refer to it as the temple of goddess Saraswati while ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 the Muslims call it the Kamal Maula mosque.[ii] For more than a decade now, the Bhojshala complex has been acting as a shared site between the two communities. The Hindus are allowed to conduct puja there on Tuesdays and the Muslims are authorised to offer namaz within the shrine on Fridays. The issue which sparked off tensions in Dhar in early February 2016 was linked to a pronounced desire, mostly on the part of the Hindu extremist groups, to secure greater access to this shared space. They want to appropriate it in the name of the wider Hindu community. The representatives of these groups, enjoying support from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), were expectedly fairly active in this regard. The Muslim religious leadership in the area favoured the maintenance of status quo and did not want relative peace to be disturbed. The Hindu leaders remained obstinate, refusing repeated overtures by the administration to arrive at a settlement. A similar problem had resulted in volatile situations in the past as well, namely in 2006 and 2013. As in 2006 and 2013 before it, in 2016 the festival of Basant Panchmi, which marks the onset of spring season for the Hindus and is a day of worshipping goddess Saraswati, fell on a Friday. In addition to carrying out worship within the Bhojshala complex on Tuesdays, the Hindus have been allowed to perform yajna and other rituals there on the day of Basant Panchmi. Given these circumstances, namaz and yajna ceremonies were bound to overlap, which could easily take an ugly turn at the slightest provocation. To avoid this intersection, the ASI came up with a carefully worked out scheme to which none of the interested parties—local Hindus, Muslims and administration, could ostensibly raise any objection. According to the suggested formula, the Hindus could conduct worship within the complex from daybreak till 1 pm, following which Muslims could offer namaz over the next two hours. After the stipulated time for namaz ended at 3 pm, the Hindus could resume their ceremonies and continue till the evening hours. The ASI even issued an order to this effect which was upheld by the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh high court. Strategy for Communal Acrimony Hindu right wing groups, namely Hindu Jagran Manch and Bhoj Utsav Samiti, expressed their displeasure with this arrangement. They raised the demand for carrying out akhand (day long) puja within the complex without any break. This was a vehement refusal to allow the performance of namaz within the shrine on 12 February 2016 which happened to be a Friday as well as the day marking Basant Panchami. Deliberate attempts were made to polarise the Hindu community and to consolidate its support firmly in favour of the day long puja. Bikers, bearing saffron flags, had been touring the nearby villages for days to spread this message. The administration failed to take any cognisance of the situation and to implement stern preventive measures. Instead, it kept on appealing to the Hindu leaders to come to the negotiating table. While the administration offered lip service to further talks with representatives of both ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 communities, they were actually focussed on appeasing the Hindu groups. No importance was accorded to consultations with the Muslims and no scope was provided to their leadership to express their viewpoint. The Shehar Qazi[iii] of Dhar expressed his disappointment that he had not been approached by the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership to take part in the ongoing negotiations over the Bhojshala question (Mitra and Mishra 2016a). Simultaneously, the local member of Parliament (MP) Savitri Thakur, who won on a BJP ticket, appealed to “the city’s Muslims to not offer namaz” within the Bhojshala premises on 12 February and “to allow the Akhand Puja (Mitra and Mishra 2016b).” Prominent members of the government machinery employed their energies in persuading the Hindu leaders, with a view to avoid trouble around the complex, while referring all the time to the need for arriving at an amicable settlement to the issue at stake. Though the local media portrayed this stand off as an instance of hostility between Hindus and Muslims, it had in fact been reduced to a conflict between local Hindu groups, backed by the RSS- Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) combine, and the state administration. Members of the state BJP unit, including Dhar’s minister-in-charge Narrotam Mishra, were deputed to hold parleys with the Manch and Samiti leaders, while senior government officials were dispatched to ensure the maintenance of law and order there. The district was put under a heavy security blanket, with personnel from the state police as well as many companies of paramilitary forces being deployed. But, no attempts were made to impose section 144 around the Bhojshala complex, for restricting large assemblies, and to make preventive arrests or detentions. In the light of this backdrop, tensions continued to escalate unabated. The Hindu leaders sought to capitalise on the already strained situation to urge that they be allowed to conduct uninterrupted worship on Basant Panchmi within the Bhojshala complex and that barricading around it be reduced. A few days prior to 12 February, these leaders made it known that since the administration had not consented to their demands, they had decided to hold the yajna at a makeshift site outside the Bhojshala premises. The Hindu devotees were told not to enter the complex on Basant Panchmi but to join in the rituals, taking place outside its precincts. Course of Events Amidst a volatile and surcharged atmosphere, 12 February finally arrived. The Hindu leaders commenced religious ceremonies outside the Bhojshala complex from the early hours of the day. As the morning proceeded, the numbers gathered there began to grow, with devotees, from areas near and distant, flocking to the site. The crowd continued to swell till noon, by which time it comprised a few thousand men, women and children. What was projected as enthusiasm shared by the crowd for securing entry into the complex seemed more akin to hate-filled fervour intended to put the Muslim community in its place ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 and to claim that space as a Hindu domain in popular imagination. The atmosphere in the complex was clearly tense. The administration, which appeared to be placating majoritarian sentiments in Dhar from the very beginning, did not want to use aggression against the Hindu leaders and their followers. A forceful suppression of these elements would have meant upsetting the BJP controlled state government and Sangh Parivar. To avoid such a possibility, the officials posted in Dhar had devised an alternate strategy. The Hindu groups had been warning that they would continue their worship during the stipulated time of 1–3 pm which was meant to offer namaz by the Muslims. In keeping with these loud claims, the convenor of the Hindu Jagran Manch Gopal Sharma, with a massive crowd of supporters in tow, raised the demand to enter the Bhojshala complex at about 1 pm. Sharma declared, “We will offer prayers inside Bhojshala and between 1 pm and 3 pm. Now, we request the administration to make arrangement for us. We want to offer prayers peacefully (Gaur 2016).” Undoubtedly, this was a tactic, deliberately designed to engender trouble and to disrupt the performance of namaz. But to their surprise, the Hindu crowd was allowed entry into the complex, with no resistance being offered from the side of the administration.

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