Muzaffarnagar Riots

“My husband has been missing and I don’t know his whereabouts. Neither do I know about my two kids nor my mother. I escaped with my sister watching everybody else rushing out from the hamlet. Two kids are here but other two are missing and I have absolutely no idea about my grandmother, if she is even alive anymore. I will not at any cost return to the hamlet. Even if I had to beg on the roads or these people kick us out, we will not go! I no more care about my land neither my cattle. Get us something here itself if at all possible. Life is precious but dignity is more!”

-a lady riot victim in Muzaffarnagar clashes.

Such are the words erupted by tortured lips and ruined souls in the Muzaffarnagar clashes. While the rest of the India celebrates festivals of all names, there is another crude reality of the world’s largest democracy that begs for attention. The Muzaffarnagar clashes broke out in the late August of the previous year. There breathes many number of causes and plausible explanations as reasons for the outbreak of the conflict. But what has been described as “the worst violence in UP in recent memory” by Indian army, received the ignition fuel from an eve-teasing incident in Kawal village where a girl from the Hindu Jat community was allegedly harassed by one Muslim youth. The Hindu relatives of the girl concerned killed the Muslim boy and later a Muslim mob lynched them in reciprocation. The scene soon spiraled out of control and eventually took on religious overtones.

In the upcoming weeks the tension grew severely. Political interferences from parties like BSP and INC instigated radical elements on communal grounds from the concerned and nearby villages. Jats were attacked by Muslim ambushes which led to mass scale casualties and several hundred injured and missing. The tensions continued to soar when each attack was reciprocated with more reproach. More depressing news arrived when amidst the communal clashes emerged incidents of sexual violence and gang rapes. Around 15 rape cases had been registered by November with the defaulters still roaming free.

Curfews were imposed and around 14,000 armed personnel of Army, Provincial Armed Constabulary, CRPF and Rapid Action Force were deployed all over the riot hit villages and surrounding areas. People were provided shelter in relief camps that were organized in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts. Around 50,000 people flocked to the camps to take shelter. However the camps have remained ever since a central motif in the news related to the riots. But even though 14 camps in Shamli and 3 in Muzaffarnagar were organized with foodgrains, milk and water facilities, the number of increasing death tolls could not be controlled. People in camps shivered in the cold nights of Northern Uttar Pradesh where the ‘average mercury’ drops to as low as 11 degree Celsius in the months of Nov-Dec. There indeed occurred nights when the mercury would drop much below the gentle average and to spend these cold nights in tents made of cloth was a torturous ordeal in itself which will spark shivers in anybody’s spine who dare imagine it. Deaths occurred everywhere and consumed the lives of adult and children.

“Many have since then died due to harsh cold with around 30 being children.

-Al Jazeera

The melancholic state of events was further kindled by disturbing comments and statements from Media coverage. One such statement was made by senior bureaucrat and Principal Secretary [home] A.K.Gupta in a press conference when he said, “children [in the camps] have died of pneumonia, not of cold. Nobody can die of cold. If people died of cold, nobody would have been alive in Siberia”. The statement has raised widespread critics from public expressing huge discontent over social and print media.

The statement is wrong at so many levels and explicitly displays the amount of damage words can do if not chosen consciously. Experts have confirmed that pneumonia is a bacterial infection that is more common a disease in winters and can spread easily in the unclean environment of the shelter camps. However as said earlier, it thrives in cold. The number of babies, children and adults dead would have been much higher had the shelter camps been in Siberia.

“For the principal secretary to make such outlandish statement is adding salt to the wounds of the people. It was an extremely insensitive and factually incorrect statement. Of course there are deaths due to cold,"

– Bindra Karat (CPI-Marxist)

However the issue is much deeper than the incorrect analogy. While the standard governmental departments have roped in to claim their responsibilities like sending out notices to the Chief Secretary and District Magistrates of Shamli and Muzaffarnagar, the concern lies behind the blurred state of current bureaucracy. Every year Union Public Service Commission rolls out a fresh batch of soon to be seasoned bureaucrats with promises of an uncompromised honesty and dedication for the people and the nation.

But very often we observe glimpses of such irrational behaviour by senior bureaucrats like A.K.Gupta. Current Bureaucrats more often than not advise their children not to attempt the IAS examination, which is the gateway into Indian Civil Services. Extremely honest but naïve officers often end up being dismissed or transferred by the state government or abducted by Maoists. Many honest officers express (anonymously on web) the morbid state of current bureaucracy exploited by the beetle-nut chewing MLAs and political brutes. Some are even found guilty in tax evasions and others in scams.

Has our bureaucracy which so brashly boasts of its constitutional immunity from legislature been rendered hopeless and useless?

While settlement appears to be an easy way out, the corner stone of a robust Civil Service Officer’s character is his moral, ethical and rational conduct. It is of prime importance for them to realize and drink the nectar of moral absolutism, where my definition of moral absolutism simply says that there cannot be any compromise with the moral judgments. If the society is filled with goons and hooligans under the euphemism of politicians then it is the urgent most requirement of time for our bureaucrats to possess sharp acumen, perspicacity and astuteness. Evils like bribes, threats and accusations are immanent in the nature of any society and form the basis of requirement of a state order of which a bureaucrat is an indispensable entity. Thus the evils will always breathe until we form a utopian state. However for a bureaucrat it is not and must never become a fight against the evil, but a struggle for the good.

Contrary to the wide spread views about the royal job of an IAS officer, the reality is composed of such filth and dirt that they have to clean and sustain themselves and their families on the meagre salaries equivalent to peanuts. But this was never meant to be an easy job, and those who vouched for it must accept the responsibility with pride and solemnness. They run the country and the title of an Indian Administrative Officer supersedes all odds involved in the service.

-Yognik Baghel

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/

http://www.hindustantimes.com/

http://www.ndtv.com/

http://www.newstrackindia.com/