Patna: Union home minister Amit Shah’s statement that “Dangaiyeon ko ulta latka dengein (We will hang the rioters upside down)” if the Bharatiya Janata Party is voted to power with full majority in Bihar has shocked the Nitish Kumar-led ruling Mahagathbandhan as well as the state’s police and administrative personnel.
“Nitish Kumar ke Mahgathdbandhan ki sarkar ke tustikarann ke wajah se Sasaram aur Biharsharif mein aag lagi hui hai. Purna bahumat se hamari sarkar banegi to hum dangaiyon ko ulta latka dengein (Because of the appeasement of the Nitish Kumar-led Mahagathbandhan government, Sasaram and Biharsharif are in flames. We will hang the rioters upside down if we form the government with a full majority),” Shah said, addressing a public meeting in Hisua in south Bihar’ Nawada district on Sunday (April 2).
Senior socialist leader and Rastriya Janata Dal’s national vice-president Shivanand Tiwary said, “The Union home minister has talked about handing down instant justice by calling for hanging people upside down. He has spoken the language of a street goon. But this is how the top RSS-BJP leaders speak. They have no respect for the law, Constitution or the position they hold.”
In fact, the manner in which Shah cancelled his meeting in Sasaram, headquarters of central Bihar’s Rohtas district, on April 1 has stunned the Sasaram administration and the people. The newly nominated Bihar BJP president, Samrat Choudhary, called a press conference on April 1 announcing, “The honourable Union home minister has cancelled his meeting because Section 144 of the CrPc had been clamped in the wake of the riots in Sasaram. The government had imposed prohibitory orders to stop Amit Shah’s programme.”
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Shah was scheduled to address public meetings at Sasaram and Biharsharif to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Mauryan emperor Asoka.
Contrary to what Choudhary said, Section 144 has not been imposed in Sasaram and the city didn’t witness any largescale violence. Soon after the BJP claimed that Shah’s meeting was cancelled because of Section 144, Rohtas district magistrate Dharmendra K. Sinha called a press conference and said, “Section 144 could have been imposed either at my order or the same of the sub-divisional officer (SDO) concerned. Neither of us issued such an order, nor was it required. Of course there were minor skirmishes during the shobha yatra (procession), but they were immediately controlled.”
An assistant sub-inspector of police walking on the streets with a portable PA system asked people to stay indoors. “The police personnel might have done it for tactical reasons to maintain peace after the skirmishes. Still, we are probing his role,” the district magistrate said, adding, “The situation is fully under control.”
However, Choudhary met Governor R.V. Arlekar and submitted a memorandum detailing the “communal conflagration gripping Sarasaram and Biharsharif”. He also complained to the governor as to how the Mahagathbabadhan government and cadres “conspired” to stall Shah’s.
Shah, when he landed in Patna, met the governor.
What has surprised Bihar’s political circles and also the bureaucracy is why the office of the home minister didn’t speak to the district magistrate or the chief secretary. “The office of the Union home minister could have easily called the DM to find out about the situation. It could have called the chief secretary or the director general of police (DGP),” said a senior IPS officer, requesting anonymity.
In fact, Bihar stayed by and large peaceful during the Ram Navami festival. The state witnessed as many as 1,832 processions on the festival day, March 31. “There were of course some clashes between the two groups which left one dead in Biharsharif. But nothing of that sort happened in Sasaram. Ram Navami largely passed off peacefully in large parts of the state,” a senior officer said.
Still, the Bihar chief minister called a high-level meeting which the chief secretary, the DGP and other officials attended on April 2 to monitor the situation. “No one will be allowed to take the law into his own hands. The troublemakers will be identified and brought to justice…strong action will be taken,” Nitish Kumar said at the end of the meeting. Police have detained 109 persons in Sasaram and Biharsharif as part of preventive measures.
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Senior journalist Kanhaiya Bhelari, from Rohtas district, said, “When Amit Shah talked about tustikaran, it meant he was targeting the Muslims. The Hindutva operatives had conspired for riots on a big scale during the Ram Navami festival in Bihar for political gains. But the vigilant Mahagathbandhan government has foiled the plan.”
What Bhelari has observed doesn’t appear too off the mark. Hindutva operatives associated with the ubiquitous wings of the RSS – Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Ram Sena and others – fuel anti-minority rhetoric during such festivals, particularly in the run up to elections. For instance, Munger witnessed communal violence in the run up to the 2020 elections, which the administration later found to have been engineered by Hindu right groups.
Moreover, the BJP leaders have been in the habit of deploying anti-minority rhetoric in the run up to the elections. For instance, the same Amit Shah (he was not Union home minister then) had said at a public meeting at Supaul during 2015 assembly poll campaigns, “Agar Nitish-Lalu jitengein to Pakistan mein pataake chhootengein (If the Nitish-Lalu Prasad alliance will, firecrackers will go off in Pakistan).”
During the same campaigns, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in Bhagalpur, “Upadraviyon ko unke kapdo se pahchana ja sakta hai (The troublemakers can be identified from their cloths).” Observers had termed the prime minister’s speech as anti-minority.
Folklore and tradition
Bihar was hardly known for violence or clashes during Ram Navami till 1990s. The festival marked the celebration of the birth of Lord Rama and prayer to Goddess Kali. The women in the villages would put a sanctified earthen picture on the base of barley, rice and sands on the first day of the beginning of the nine-day festival and pray around it for nine days.
Besides, most of the villagers had specialised folk singers to sing sohar (the songs celebrating the birth of a male child) to celebrate the birth of Rama to Kaushalya and Dasrath. Bihar has a large population of Muslim barbers. The barber would accompany the singer, clipping the nails and cutting the hair of the imaginary Rama during the song.
The folk singers would also sing the song related Ram’s marriage to Sita (in Sitamarhi) of Bihar. The barber was required to be present during various rituals that the singer would conduct while singing Ram-vivah (Ram’s marriage).
It used to be a community festival with all sections of society involved.
The 1980s marked the RSS-BJP initiating the movement for the demolition of the Babri mosque and construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. RSS operatives began collecting bricks from villages for the “Ramsheel pujan” in Ayodhya in this decade. The period marked the various RSS’s wings changing the course of the Ram Navami festival. The 1980s and ’90s began witnessing the procession, with people crying “Jai Shri Ram”.
“The rule of Narendra Modi has witnessed young people brandishing swords at the processions. They had amassed the swords on a big scale but couldn’t brandish them, with the administration keeping a vigil this time around,” Bhelari said. Various RSS groups had supplied around 45,000 swords to the youth in Bihar during the 2015 Ram Navami festival, according to police records accessed by The Wire.
Nalin Verma is a senior journalist, media educator and independent researcher in social anthropology.