OUR NATION
ERUPTIONS OF VIOLENCE IN ASSAM AND KASHMIR NEED URGENT ATTENTION The national parties in India have no clear policy for finding out a peaceful solution to the Kashmir and Assam problem. By M. Mueenul Haque Qasmi
R
iots, in all their manifestations are detestable. The ferocity and unprecedented occurrences of communal violence time and again at different parts of India in general and Assam and Kashmir in particular, has deepened the alienation between the peoples of these two states and the rest of the country. It seems that the treatment of the problems of these two states by the powers that be is rather step motherly. They are either neglected or when their issues hit the national radar it is not for genuine reasons but some elements of prejudice and injustice seeps into the perceptions of the opinion makers or politicians who comment on them. It is a well-known fact that despite being minority in number, Indian Muslims can play a great role in forming and breaking governments in India. They can take political revenge against any party that exploits them. Even though they lag behind in every sphere in India, they rightly used their electoral power to take political revenge during 2004 and 2009 general elections and played an important role in defeating the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) shattering all its conceits into dust. In the last UP assembly election too, they 07 EASTERN CRESCENT | MAY 2014
showed their electoral importance. Muslims are instrumental in reducing the rise and impetus of the Congress in Assam—the largest Muslim populated state in India after Kashmir and facilitated the emergence of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF). It was partly owing to the vote bank politics of the Congress dispensation and their cock-eyed policies that prepared the rise of the new parties such as the AIUDF. This newly established party is, slowly but steadfastly, managing to bring the
It is a well-known fact that despite being minority in number, Indian Muslims can play a great role in forming and breaking governments in India. Congress to heel. Consequently, the Congress in Assam is gradually but surely finding itself in a tight spot. Ironically, while the Muslim electorate in this state has helped the larger secular consolidation, the government they voted to power tries to label them as “foreigners”. It is clear that the Congress had adopted the policy of ‘use-and-throw’. On every alternative day, arresting five to
six Assamese Muslims and labelling them foreigners does not make a big difference. Most miserably, the violence in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD) last year snagged news headlines, rendering homeless lakhs of Muslims, which traumatized the whole Muslim community. Surprisingly, this issue has hardly evoked any sympathy from any political party. On the contrary, some socalled political leaders, like the BJP hardliner LK Advani, not only fanned communal flames in the state, by announcing repeatedly that these homeless Muslims, subjected to internal displacement-- were foreigners. The methods adopted by Congress and BJP in Assam, though uncanny, seems to follow a tried-andtested pattern. Both the Congress and BJP seem willing to tolerate any heightened level of violence against Muslims in Assam. The other worrying factor of the Indian politics is about the unusual unrest of Muslim community in Kashmir valley—the heaven of natural beauty on earth. Observing the brutality being faced by the Kashmiri Muslims at the hands of the police and the army makes the blood of the minority community boil.