Hyderabad:
Union Home Minister Zail Singh said after a tour of the riot-affected areas here on July 29 that the “Government had evidence of a hidden hand behind the recent disturbances” in which the official figure of the dead is put at 40 and those stabbed at 350. Chief Minister Anjiah had also made a similar statement.
Anjiah said that it was not a Hindu-Muslim clash but a conspiracy to overthrow his government. Both said “there were instances of a particular culprit stabbing persons of both the communities and hence it was not a communal clash”. Unlike other communal riots, there was no mob confrontation with the police, no looting, arson or mob frenzy. The pattern was entirely new as the stabbings were of hit and run type in narrow by-lanes, they said. Beyond stating this both the leaders were very much secretive about the whole thing while asserting that they had full facts but would divulge it only at appropriate time.
This makes us suspicious about the whole thing. While communal clashes are becoming a daily feature, the victims of it are mostly the minorities, and that too the poor. The Government has taken hardly any steps to check this rising tendency. On the other hand, the ruling party goes on exploiting communal clashes, putting the blame on RSS to please the minorities and thus cornering all their votes. Therefore, as long as communal clashes are there – and this is sure to be there – the minority votes will never go out of its hand. That is why the political parties do not want to publish facts about the so-called foreign hand and hidden hand. If the Hyderabad violence was not a communal clash, the facts will be known the moment the names of the dead and the injured are published. But the government does not reveal even the exact figure of the dead and the injured. The whole thing is kept in secret and the public is allowed to be fed on rumours. Already RSS leaders have started speaking about an “international conspiracy”. Indian Express (Aug 3) quoting Vandematram Ramachandra Rao, Hyderabad’s Hindu leader, who participated in the Rahamatnagar conference to reconvert untouchables-turned Muslims, says the Hyderabad clashes are connected with the conversions. Rao revealed that the “Reagan Government in collusion with Arab nations were out to upset the political setup in India” through such clashes and conversions. The Government is only helping the Hindu communalists by not coming out with the facts.
This “hidden hand and foreign hand” was cited at Moradabad. Biharsharif and now at Hyderabad. The non-political leaders of minority community should fully understand this game of the country’s ruling class and do something about it to break this vicious circle.
