DailyPost 2985
SAMBHAL VIOLENCE (UP) – WIDER RAMIFICATIONS
Though communal violence keeps flaring up in this country, its nature and causation has been changing quite drastically over the last four / decades. It starts from the Delhi riots of 1984 to Bhagalpur riots of 1989 to Gujarat riots of 2002, to the Sambhal violence only the other day, the machinations leading to it and the government response play a key role. Whether it erupts out of a purely local issue or is a part of a canopy movement and / or with multifarious support can define the riots itself. Whether the law enforcement agency remains readiness, reacts and uses all its wherewithal to quell the communal clashes, is of critical importance.
The overall cover of the government’s approach and how it wants to deal with the situation is the way it will be dealt. Objective and purely law and order based or with lots of other considerations being allowed to come in the process of handling it, is the government’s negative prerogative. The garb always remains the same. But in reality it can either be kid gloves or it can be sparing the rod in the harshest of form. In this context the recent Sambhal has wider ramifications than what we would like it to believe. Four people killed and simmering discontent which is not going to die down soon.
Intelligence failure is often blamed as the reason for any flare up. Here the backdrop is important, starting with the Gyanvapi mosque survey on court orders. Ayodhya remained an exception to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act and it should have ended there. Now the Gyanvapi Survey precedent is there, what purpose has been served no one knows. Ditto what purpose the Sambhal survey serves, no one knows. With no purpose to be served and legally untenable, what this nature of judicial activism is doing to keep the communal tempers high and both the sides being in readiness for a pitched battle all the time.
Back to the intelligence failure story, does the local police need intelligence from outside to know what would be the nature of the response for this survey. Have they lost touch with the ground completely, while being physically there. Do they not have either informers or well wishers or none? Don’t they have a criminal history of the communal goodas there? With the country made weapons seemingly rampant there has no effort been made for search and seizure of the same. And then what about preventive arrests, a legal tool which has helped police over time and space. Where have we lost our policing in the democratic mayhem?
HAS POLICING GOT ENMESHED WITH EXTRANEOUS FACTORS BEYOND POLICE’s CONTROL?
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.