“Vultures and dogs are feasting on the charred remains of Abdul Majeed’s little son. A heap of burnt bodies lies rotting in the drain outside the Circuit House. A pair of inert hands severed at the wrist pop out of the garbage dump. White teeth grin through smoked skulls the faces have gone up in flames. Colonel ganj is a ghost town of mutilated corpses and survivors too frightened to bury their dead…”

Nai Duniya’s editor, Shahid Siddiqui’s account of his visit to Gonda district, Uttar Pradesh, is a shriek of horror. The current issue of this Urdu weekly with the largest Muslim readership in the country, devotes all of its front page to the carnage which began in Gonda ‘on September 30. Siddiqui traces the origin on the “worst ever communal holocaust” in Uttar Pradesh, to the activities of the Bajrang Da the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

For weeks before the ill-fated Durga immersion procession, which triggered off the violence, local VHP and BJP activists were busy making provocative speeches and putting up posters with vicious anti-Muslim slogans. The administration took no action to reduce the tension or to curb the inflammatory activities of the protagonists of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, observes Siddiqui.

In contrast, the Hindi press in Uttar Pradesh has not come out with even a single firsthand account of what happened in Gonda. The Hindi dailies are relying on agency reports and official sources to report the Gonda massacre…The editorials do speak of the unnecessary bloods shed, but what they say is completely different from the Nai Duniya report Dainik Jagran does not mention the VHP or the BJP…Its editorial accuses some Muslims of misinterpreting the state government’s pioneering effort to promote communal harmony. The October 8 editorial says quite clearly those Muslim leaders, in particular a member of Parliament known to be close to the chief minister, responsible for instigating the Muslims to attack the Durga immersion procession… While the minority Urdu press accuses the state government of indulging in a shameful cover-up to hide the extent of the carnage, several Hindi newspapers accuses the state government of indulging in a shameful cover-up to hide the extent of the carnage, several Hindi newspapers accuse Mr. Yadav of indulging in a cover-up to hide the role of some Muslim leaders…

The minority press is furious at the Qatleaam of the Muslims in Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nqadu and elsewhere, during the September riots in the wake of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. Rehnumae Deccan (Hyderabad) accuses the communal minded police of Adilabad for the bloodshed in that city. Akhbare Nau (Delhi) holds the RSS and the BJP responsible for the first ever incidents of communal violence in Madras: “Mr. Karunanidhi, once a strong critic of Hindu fundamentalists, is frightened of the BJP of these days.” Siasat Jadeed (Kanpur) on the Baroda riots: “The BJP’s motive is to cripple Muslim enterprise in Baroda and Ahmedabad by instigating communal riots.” Radiance Views weekly: “The chief minister, Mr. Chimanbhai Patel is only interested in protecting his gaddi in Gandhinagar. To appease the BJP, he released those arrested in connection with the Barodia riots.”

The Daily Salar (Bangalore) holds the police responsible for the carnage in Ramanagram. The tension is palpable, reports the Salar correspondent. “…train…is carrying 300 Muslims fleeing from the atrocities of the police which has changed Ramanathapuram to Ravananagram.”

The media’s communal divide extends even to the tears shed over the dead. The Hindi media is stunned by the self-immolation of middle class children. Asks Nai Duniya’s editor: “What about the Muslims brutally butchered in Gonda, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka?”

 

Article extracted from this publication >> December 21, 1990