My Dad had come to the railway station to see me off, something that he would do for a long time until I would leave for United States several years later.
That day was my first long train journey alone. I was going to
He was obviously very concerned about me. I know he had quickly glanced around in the compartment to see who the other people were, he had made me check the money and the ticket many times and he had ensured that my suitcase was securely tethered to the seat.
When the train was signaled he stepped out and came around to the window.
“Do not leave your luggage unattended, always ask someone to look after it, even when the train is moving”
“OK” - I said.
“When you buy something through the window and do not have exact change, first ask the vendor to return the change and then give the money”
“I see” - Later I would realize that to be an accepted practice as some people posing as vendors had run away at some places with a 20 Rupee note when someone bought a tea worth one rupee.
“And do not accept any food from strangers”
“I know” - I was beginning to get embarrassed. I could see that the man on the opposite seat was finding this conversation amusing.
Finally the train began to squeak ahead and slowly gathered speed. Dad had this other habit of walking with the train waving his hand. I always get nervous when people do that because usually the platform has many obstacles and it is easy to trip over something.
I was a little anxious too, about this long journey and all, but at this time I felt relieved as train moved out of the dark and putrescent railway station into fresh air of the country side.
I pulled out one of the many books I had brought for this journey. I have always found reading while sitting at the train window very enjoyable. Thoughts flow uninterrupted and sometimes jump off the pages in seemingly unconnected spontaneity.
Little did I realize at that time when my mind was alternating between writings of EM Forester and a fast changing landscape outside the train window, that a storm was brewing on the Indian political scene which would trigger a chain of tumultuous events, forever changing the course of Indian history of the future.
It was December 1, 1992 that day.
Yaad Ali, the man sitting on the opposite seat to me, was a Muslim. He was accompanied by three other gentlemen, all attired in a similar dress of white Bengali kurta and pajamas with a netted Muslim topi. They were all from
However, it never captured the imagination of mainstream Muslims in
Yaad Ali was a watchmaker by profession and had saved for almost 3 years to take this journey. Though he said we felt invigorated and purified after this journey, he was extremely happy to go back to his family. He spoke broken Hindi with a heavy Bengali accent.
I broke into a conversation with him asking him about
“What is the best way to reach IIM from 53 Chowringhee?” - I asked
“Take the metro from Dharamtala, get down at Tollygunge and take the bus towards Alipore. You can take the taxi too if you like but make sure that you share with others. ”
“Share it?” - I frowned.
“Oh yes, in Calcutta you can hire a taxi but it is not exclusively yours, anyone can hail an occupied taxi, they would get in and they would pay the fare for the distance they traveled divided by the occupants of the taxi”
“Interesting. Very convenient too, is it because of the communist legacy of sharing or just a
“Ami Jaani Na ” (I don't know). Yaad Ali was deliberately skirting any political discussion.
“So what kind of watches do you mend?”
“All mechanical kinds, I can even mend an old Rolex. I do not know enough about the new digital variety though, there is a kid in my shop who can replace batteries and fix minor stuff, but basically you throw them away after a year or so. They are pathetic. On the other hand you see this beauty” - He jingled his Omega watch with a thick golden chain.
“I have had this for last 15 years and never has it given any trouble, all it needs is occasional cleaning” - he said.
“It is probably because you are an expert watchmaker” - I said.
He blushed and giggled.
He and all his colleagues had a rosary each in their hands which they were shuffling constantly. By afternoon they had taken turns in offering namaz (muslim prayer) in the train and read from religious books they carried.
Almost everyone in the compartment had lunch, some bought from the train pantry and some like me had brought food from home.
Yaad Ali offered me some barfi ( kind of sweetmeat) which he had brought.
Dad's forewarning about accepting food from strangers echoed in my mind, but he was hardly a stranger anymore and besides it would be impolite to refuse. The barfi was a little dry but agreeable.
“You see, one thing that I really missed out of my hometown is sweets” - He said nibbling away at a small piece he held.
“This one is OK, but wait till you taste Shondesh or Roshogollah and yes of course do not miss Mishti Doi” - He began to imagine again as his smile broadened.
“So tell me about your 40 day tabligh, did you convert anyone to Islam?” – I asked
“Oh no it is not about converting others to Islam, it is about strengthening the belief of believers. It is about showing Muslims the right path”
“But isn’t this back-to-basics ideology breeding intolerance amongst Muslims?”
“We are re-iterating the path that God showed and reminding the faithful of their duty towards Islam” - He again skirted the controversial question.
“You are propagating one interpretation and at the same time banishing all others. What do you think of Sufism?”- I insisted.
“They are heretic people, I think it is no different than idolatry” – He was now opening up.
“But isn’t it true that most of the Muslims in
“I don’t think that is true, these people are singing and dancing in their dargahs (place of worship of Sufis), while we are adhering to the true Islam” – He was beginning to wave his hands now.
I soon realized that I was now scraping the peripheries of Yaad Ali’s erudition. I decided to let him have the last word and not unsettle him any further. Slowly I wandered back to my book, leaving his remarks uncontested.
Yaad Ali was passed the prayer mat and he began his evening prayer.
Hours flew by and the train reached
The railway platform was abuzz with activity, there was an unusual rush of people mostly kar-sevaks headed towards the town of Ayodhya to tear down a 16th century mosque known as the Babri mosque, named after the first Mughal emperor Babur.
It is widely believed that Babur’s commander Mir Baqi constructed this mosque. Unfortunately there are not enough historical records to verify this, based upon an inscription that bears Babur’s name it can be safely assumed that Babur, if not constructed then at least renovated it around 1528 AD. The architectural style of the mosque however resembled more with the Sultanate period mosques predating the Mughals.
I feared that the kar-sevaks would now mob the train and throw out ticketed passengers. I was surprised to find out that they were much disciplined, in fact they had formed small groups per bogey (car) and only those groups boarded our train. Even then our compartment filled up like a
I was surprised again to find out these kar-sevaks were from Andhra Pradesh. Traditionally
Soon the train began to jolt ahead and people began to settle on the seats somehow. On my berth were seated about eight people. Next to me was a young kar sevak named Manoj.
Manoj was a graduate student from a suburb of
“This is my first visit to UP, in fact my first to North”
“So how is the sentiment amongst kar-sevaks this time?” – I asked.
“We are confident that this time we will destroy the mosque. This will be the first act of the resurgent Hindu”.
“What about the police protection to the mosque? Last time the attempt was repulsed”.
“It is different this time. We have a BJP led government in UP and besides we are lakhs (hundreds of thousand) of kar-sevaks this time”
“Have you considered the fallout if what you say indeed happens?”
“It is unfortunate that it has to be settled this way. The Hindu parties offered to move the mosque to a separate location if Muslims agreed to handover the site to us. They had this chance to atone the sins of their ancestors”
“You really believe this? You are talking about events that happened almost 500 years ago! Now THAT is a long time, don’t you think so?”
“Sure but the lost glory of Hinduism is just beginning to get restored”
“But the matter is pending in Supreme Court, how can Muslims, even if they want to, handover the site to Hindus?”
“The courts cannot decide matters of faith, so we have to take the matters in our own hands”
I glanced at Yaad Ali, he and his colleagues were ill at ease with this new company. They were trying to listen in to the all the different conversations but they were giving the impression of being detached from them; this was perhaps their defense mechanism of not attracting too much attention. They were however quite conspicuous in their Muslim attire.
Manoj and others were called by someone, who was presumably their leader in our bogey, as the train was passing through a small town.
As if responding to an invisible composer the entire group started shouting slogans in unison. In fact their chants were synchronized across all the bogies and were loud enough to drown the roll of rails.
As the train moved ahead they settled back to whatever they were doing. This pattern would repeat a few more times before the train would reach Ayodhya.
Manoj slowly came back to his seat. He was suppressing a grin, almost as if feeling awkward from this act, as other people watched him.
I know this feeling, some people, particularly men, feel embarrassed singing alone or even in groups. I have myself kept quiet when people around me were singing “Happy Birthday to you” at a birthday party or students singing the national anthem in the school assembly. Singing is not the best form of expression for me. I think Manoj also fell in the same category.
I let some moments pass to let him regain his composure.
“Do you have any Muslim acquaintances?” – I asked.
“Yes a few, I had a friend in school, then there are a few in our local cricket club, but we do not mix that much now”
“Don’t you think that this Mandir movement is actually doing more harm in widening the gulf between the communities than any good? Hindu consciousness is neither easily repressed nor easily aroused, you would probably succeed in instigating a riot but how do you foresee this would restore the glory of Hindus and
He thought for a long time then said something, fragments of which I had heard others say but not with this clarity.
“This is a core issue that has unified Hindus like never before. If you see just a few years ago there was nothing common between the Hindu of South and North. If we are united we will be strong and we will wake up from our centuries of slumber. Hindus have since eternity been a docile people. This issue has made them aggressors for a change”
“And you are comfortable being an aggressor?”
“For a change yes. Strictly between you and me, I know the stories of Muslim appeasement and special civil laws are just a load of crap. These people are as poor and deprived as any one in India, perhaps more than others because of their own backwardness. In any social revolution there has to be a scapegoat and there has to be an aggression. To our benefit the Muslims in past have committed numerous atrocities giving us enough reasons”
“But they were foreign invaders who did that, most of the Muslims in India today are converts from Hinduism, what do you say to that?” – I asked.
“This is what surprises me most, if they were Hindus at one time then they should help us in restoring our cultural identity by undoing the injustices by their own hands, rather than protecting the icons of oppression”
“Muslims perceive your acts as oppression as does the rest of the world. Do you think any civilization can really attain glory by persecuting its own citizens?”
“Yes and no, in a way we alone are not responsible for this turmoil. The current movement is fueled by Muslim intransigence. They make an issue out of everything, but this time it is to our benefit. To rise high, a kite needs a draft of wind against it. They are providing ghee to the fire”
“And you really believe that this has nothing to do with vote politics?”
“There is some element of that. If Hindus are united we will have our own government and we will re-write the constitution, we will correct the history and its errors”.
“You do not like the secular nature of India?” – I asked
“Well, it is not secular but pseudo-secular, Congress has pampered Muslims for votes”
“But you just said it was all just a perception and then you are doing the same thing, aren’t you?”
He smiled.
To keep themselves engaged a small group of kar-sevaks in our compartment started antakshri, a game of singing based on bollywood movie songs. The compartment was divided into two group and a hotly contested game of antakshri ensued. Almost every one excluding Yaad Ali and his party joined one or the other group. There were locals singing in Hindi and there were these kar-sevaks singing in Telugu.
Of course no one could win because there was no referee who knew both the languages!
It was kind of silly but amusing. After almost an hour of stalemate the leader of kar-sevaks opened a cardboard box and started distributing sweets in the compartment.
They even offered Yaad Ali and his colleagues.
After the kar-sevaks had disembarked at Ayodhya the environment in the compartment settled back to its slow pace, almost as if exhausted after an adrenaline rush.
Yaad Ali was folding his prayer mat when I asked him.
“So what do you think of this Kar-Seva?”
“I think it is serious this time, but I still have faith that things will be fine. But it is all our fault” – He said.
“You mean Muslims?”
“Yes. The Muslims have strayed from their path. If Muslims are strong in their convictions then no one can harm us. We have to go back to our roots to find strength.”
“But wouldn’t that fuel fundamentalism?”
“Going back to our religion. That is all we have now” – He closed his eyes and started shuffling his rosary, indicating his disinterest in any further discussion.
That was almost 14 years ago. The fact that Babri Mosque was subsequently demolished, followed by a systematic pogrom starting in Ayodhya, became just a detail in extremely violent Indian milieu. I had read stories of how the kar-sevaks after the demolition of the mosque had gone on a rampage in the town of Ayodhya killing and destroying the extremely small Muslim community there, but at that time the whole of India was engulfed in a communal conflagration and there was no time for any detail. Thousands of innocent people died in a matter of days, men women and children.
In fact this kind of violent rioting is not uncommon in India, people live in apparent harmony and peace and then almost suddenly like a volcanic eruption they are at each others throat. There are almost always stories of “outsiders” carrying out these heinous acts which lead to even more heinous reprisals at some other place.
And this cycle of belligerence-killing-revenge continues like an unending karma-chakra.
I forgot all about the experiences in the train that day and the horror that followed the fallout of December 6, until I came across a report filed by Shikha Trivedy (an award winning journalist), which I just happened to read a few days back. This was a fairly long piece that she had written right after the Ayodhya incidents. She was in Ayodhya and had interviewed both Hindus and Muslims survivors just weeks into the aftermath. It was a heart rending article of human bestiality, systematic abuse, complicity of police and heroic acts by Hindu neighbors protecting their Muslim friends. In all a familiar pattern of communal riot in India. Until I came across this paragraph -
Beechu, who owns a cycle shop, was literally snatched from the jaws of death by two of his Hindu neighbours, Sarju Yadav and Subhash who tied a Bajrang Dal band on his head and passed him off as a kar sevak. "It was very difficult," says Yadav, "because the men who came here did not speak any Hindi, only Telugu. I somehow managed to convince them in the little English I know. "
My heart skipped a beat.
I still vaguely remember Manoj’s face and it was not a face of a murderer. Sure he had radical ideas but I cannot imagine him as a killer.
I fervently hope and pray that he had nothing to do with it.
But now I can only take solace in the fact that I would never know one way or the other.
~nk
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