After Biharshareef, it is now Hyderabad. There is no end to this blood-letting. The Biharshareef Hindu-Muslim communal riots, about which we had written in our first issue, has few parallels in the whole of India. Not only it is one of the biggest riots but the first rocking a rural area. But so soon everything seems to have been forgotten. And the Hindu communal elements are getting ready for another bout-eternal thirst for the Muslim blood.
D. R. Goyal, editor of “Secular Democracy” in an article published in his journal after a visit to the area, says “reasonable people tend to put the figure (of dead) around 200. We have received a list of 145 dead of whom three are non-Muslims”. Asghar Ali Engineer, a noted writer and reformer of Bombay, who visited Biharshareef also puts the figure at 150 to 200. In an article published in the Economic and Political Weekly (16-6-1981) and later reproduced in two parts in the ‘Deccan Herald‘, he quotes the local CPI MLA saying the deaths could not have been less than 150.
But the official figure is put at 52. And in this country, official figures of the dead in any calamity are always suppressed. Can we expect the Hindu-dominated Government to speak the truth when it comes to Hindu-Muslim riot casualties?
Tooshar Pandit, whose coverage of the Biharshareef appeared as the cover story in the ‘Sunday‘ (24-5-1981) under the title, “RSS spreads its poison again“, says of the 52 officially dead, 50 were Muslims. Even the ‘Hindu‘ correspondent had spoken about the one-sided business of murder in Biharshareef. Radiance, a Delhi weekly (21-6-1981) published a chart of the Biharshareef victims saying that 143 Muslims were killed. Different reports by impartial Hindu observers have admitted the Muslims have suffered like anything. All of them unanimously put the death toll at around 150. We have no reason to disbelieve this figure. But the official figure is kept at 52.
Apart from the huge gap between official figure of the dead and the actual fact, the Hindu-Muslim communal clashes, which are becoming almost a daily feature, should make us think about yet another serious aspect of the problem. India’s capitalist-owned Press run by high caste Hindu journalists has always adopted a double standard when it comes to Hindu-Muslim riots. It takes shelter under a good old Nehru-Liaquat Ali informal understanding that the community of the dead in communal riots should not be identified. However, there is no official bar for publishing community-wise figures. The Muslims who are the victims of every communal riot, themselves have been demanding community-wise details of the dead, injured, arrested and the loss of property suffered by both Hindu and Muslims. But the press takes shelter under this outdated Nehru-Liaquat Ali understanding. Why? Because it is advantageous to Hindus.
The Government, however, collects the data community-wise but does not release it to the public. Newspapers while reporting communal riots do not even identify the communities. They prefer to make it as vague as possible. The reason given both by the Government and the Hindu press for not identifying the communities and not giving the community wise break-up of the dead and injured is that such a publication will further aggravate the communal trouble. This is a fantastic logic. Why should the communal Hindus engineer a riot and then try to suppress from the public eye what they did? If the communal-minded Hindus are so much worried about the consequence of the Hindu-Muslim riots by the publication of the details of the riots, they should rather try not to start one. Hindu-Muslim communal riots and Hindu-untouchable caste riots have tarnished the already murky image of India in the outside world by suppressing facts, will such a blood-stained image get white-washed?
In the case of the Biharshareef, the very story of Tooshar Pandit (Sunday, 24-5-81) carries the headline indicting the RSS. Not only that, it names the very RSS leader who was responsible for killing so many Muslims – including women and babies: Raj Kishore, the RSS chief of the district. With a gun in hand, he was on a murder spree with his band of RSS volunteers in several villages. Tooshar Pandit’s report indicting Raj Kishore was supported by many other impartial observers. But till this day no action has been taken except for Indira Gandhi’s crocodile tears. Dalits and other persecuted minorities of India should be well aware of this Hindu game. They should fight not only the RSS menace but demand publication of community-wise details of the dead., not only in communal riots but also in caste riots. Remember, we are fighting for establishing truth.
