Rahim Uchil: a victim of Muslim backlash?

April 14, 2012

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When the two assailants, with the help of two accomplices, walked out of the Karnataka Beary Academy office at Attavar after inflicting multiple stab injuries on its new president Rahim Uchil in broad daylight, everybody thought it was just a matter of time before the assailants were brought to justice. But even a month into the gruesome incident, the police appear to be still groping in the dark with no clear headway in the investigation. The two angles that have been pursued by the police, who have formed three teams to catch the culprits, are the retaliation by Muslim groups for his allegedly provocative statements in defence of Kalladka Prabahakar Bhat, the fire-brand RSS leader, and his allegedly 'dubious' personal dealings ranging from arbitration to 'links'.

The police have arrested a person named Umar Farooq, a resident of Ullal, but he is believed to be just an 'informer' who had passed on the information to the attackers or their masters about the movements of Uchil. “He is just an informer who had passed on the vital information about my presence at the office. According to the data recorded on his mobile, only during the half-hour time when the incident took place he was present in Attavar area,” Rahim told the CM correspondent in an informal chat from his hospital bed.

Whatever be the line of inquiry adopted by the police, Mr. Uchil hardly has any doubt in his mind that the attack was carried out by ‘an organisation’, who allegedly felt offended by his 'provocative' remarks. "This is a democracy. My country has given me the right to exercise freedom of speech. If someone feels hurt by my statements, he has all the right to attack me verbally. He can also heap abuses on me and make me zaleel. Attacking someone physically or trying to kill someone cannot be the right way," he says.

Rahim had raised hackles among the Muslim community with his unabashed defence of Mr Bhat, who in a public speech had hurled abuses against Muslims in Uppinangady earlier in January. With Mr. Bhat drawing flak for his virulent speech both from Muslim community and the secular organisations, Mr Uchil along with the chairman of Karnataka Minorities Commission Anwar Manippady had played devil’s advocate. Earlier, in an attempt to appease the RSS leader, Mr Uchil and his wife had participated in Vajapeya Yaga conducted near Kalladka and took part in the Vaidic rituals. He also spearheaded a dharna in front of the DC office demanding withdrawal of cases booked against Bhat in connection with the Uppinangady speech.

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But, many who followed his career closely rule out the possibility of the attack being a backlash. “This cannot be the handiwork of any organisation. This is something to do with his personal dealings. It looks like there is a rich woman who is at the centre of the present episode," says an eminent public figure, who chose to remain anonymous. Just a couple of weeks before the attack, rumours had spread thick and fast that Mr. Uchil had been attacked by a group of women in Padubidri. However, Mr. Uchil himself rubbished the rumour the same night and insisted that he had not stepped out of Mangalore that day. His proximity to the former Minorities Commission chairman Khusro Khuraishi had also raised eyebrows, with rumours suggesting that Mr. Khusro was made to "feel at home" in Mangalore. It is also said that the do fell out after a public spat.

However, Mr. Uchil rubbishes such allegations and firmly believes that the attack was masterminded by one particular organisation. "I don't know if the person the police caught knows anything about me. He has reportedly told the police that he does not know my antecedents. That can be true also. But, the person he has passed the message to could be an important conduit. Either he could be the actual person involved in the crime, or the person who had in turn passed the message on to the real masters. I am confident that the police will get to the bottom of the issue," he says.

According to Mr. Uchil, the person to whom the message was relayed had switched off his mobile ever since Farooq was nabbed. "The police have alerted the airport authorities about any possible attempt by the perpetrators to flee the country," he says. When asked about the tardy pace of inquiry, Mr. Uchil says, “everything is on the right track so far. They (police) are doing their best. The perpetrators cannot run away from the long arm of law”. When asked about his own party leader not coming in open to decry the attack and demand a speedy action against the culprits, he says: “People came to me saying they will hold protest. But I asked them not to resort to such steps. I have faith in the system.”

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Mr. Uchil can vividly chronicle the happenings of the March 15 afternoon and is confident that he can identify the attackers. His belief in destiny (taqdeer) has been strengthened after the attack and he says, no force in the world can harm you if you have protection from Allah. "I had read Shahadath kalima (Word of testimony). The two assailants must have thought that I was dead. But by the grace of God I escaped from the jaws of death. Now I am convinced that no-one can take the life of a person if God wishes otherwise," says Uchil, who has been shifted to the ward of the private hospital after spending about 10 days in the intensive care unit, battling for life.

He has received multiple injuries and fractures on his both hands, besides a hit on the backside of his neck. The impact of the attack on the neck has affected the mobility of his right leg. "I knew what they (assailants) were up to. They had not even hid their face. I held the sharp weapon with my right hand when one of them flashed it in front of me. I held it for a while and tried to take an evasive action, but the other person attacked the same hand. Within moments I was down on the floor. One of them attacked me on the neck. They were sure that I had died," says Mr. Uchil, recalling the gruesome incident.

“I was worried that his blood sugar would come in the way of speedy recovery. He had high blood-sugar level. But God has been kind to us,” added his wife Shahina, who is by the husband’s side ever since he came under attack.

Mr. Uchil says he had received threat calls 10 days back and had even given a written complaint to the police commissioner. The mobile number was traced and the man had also been picked up. But, during inquiry he had said that he did not have any intention of harming him and was just playing a prank. "I was also very careful and moved around taking all precautions," he says.

Rahim, who has seen it all in his controversy-ridden public life of nearly two decades, had risen from a peon at the Unity ILM centre, to one of the coveted posts of a literary body. He literally climbed the ladder with his communication skills and maneuvering abilities. From being a blue-eyed boy of M.B. Abdul Rehman during his days of blood camps under the aegis of Blood, Brain Biome, Banking Trust to becoming the anchor of local TV channel and editoring a tabloid, Mr. Rahim donned several roles. His penchant for drama and theatre saw him work in several dramas. He also played a cameo in the national-award winning movie Beary. After flirting for a while with the Kannada Nadu of Vijaya Sankeshwar, Rahim found his footing in BJP, the party which desperately needed some Muslim faces. Interestingly, Mr. Uchil always played with fire and nearly paid a price for his adventurism. Whatever be the provocation, the attack on one of the talented and versatile public personality, needs to be condemned unequivocally.

Photos by Ahmed Anwar

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CAA and Religious Minorities in South Asia

Ram Puniyani

January 14,2020

In the beginning of January 2020 two very disturbing events were reported from Pakistan. One was the attack on Nankana Sahib, the holy shrine where Sant Guru Nanak was born. While one report said that the place has been desecrated, the other stated that it was a fight between two Muslim groups. Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan condemned the incident and the main accused Imran Chisti was arrested. The matter related to abduction and conversion of a Sikh girl Jagjit Kaur, daughter of Pathi (One who reads Holy Guru Granth Sahib in Gurudwara) of the Gurudwara. In another incident one Sikh youth Ravinder Singh, who was out on shopping for his marriage, was shot dead in Peshawar.

While these condemnable attacks took place on the Sikh minority in Pakistan, BJP was quick enough to jump to state that it is events like this which justify the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Incidentally CAA is the Act which is discriminatory and relates to citizenship with Religion, which is not as per the norms of Indian constitution. There are constant debates and propaganda that population of Hindus has come down drastically in Pakistan and Bangla Desh. Amit Shah, the Home minister stated that in Pakistan the population of Hindus has come down from 23% at the time of partition to 3.7% at present. And in Bangla Desh it has come down from 22% to present 8%.

While not denying the fact that the religious minorities are getting a rough deal in both these countries, the figures which are presented are totally off the mark. These figures don’t take into consideration the painful migrations, which took place at the time of partition and formation of Bangla Desh later. Pakistan census figures tell a different tale. Their first census was held in 1951. As per this census the overall percentage of Non Muslim in Pakistan (East and West together) was 14.2%, of this in West Pakistan (Now Pakistan) it was 3.44 and in Eat Pakistan it was 23.2. In the census held in Pakistan 1998 it became 3.72%. As far as Bangla Desh is concerned the share of Non Muslims has gone down from 23.2 (1951) to 9.6% in 2011.

The largest minority of Pakistan is Ahmadis, (https://minorityrights.org/country/pakistan/) who are close to 4 Million and are not recognised as Muslims in Pakistan. In Bangla Desh the major migrations of Hindus from Bangla Desh took place in the backdrop of Pakistan army’s atrocities in the then East Pakistan.

As far as UN data on refugees in India it went up by 17% between 2016-2019 and largest numbers were from Tibet and Sri Lanka. (https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publication…)

The state of minorities is in a way the index of strength of democracy. Most South Asian Countries have not been able to sustain democratic values properly. In Pakistan, the Republic began with Jinnah’s classic speech where secularism was to be central credo of Pakistan. This 11th August speech was in a way what the state policy should be, as per which people of all faiths are free to practice their religion. Soon enough the logic of ‘Two Nation theory” and formation of Pakistan, a separate state for Muslim took over. Army stepped in and dictatorship was to reign there intermittently. Democratic elements were suppressed and the worst came when Zia Ul Haq Islamized the state in collusion with Maulanas. The army was already a strong presence in Pakistan. The popular formulation for Pakistan was that it is ruled by three A’s, Army, America and Allah (Mullah).

Bangla Desh had a different trajectory. Its very formation was a nail in the coffin of ‘two nation theory’; that religion can be the basis of a state. Bangla Desh did begin as a secular republic but communal forces and secular forces kept struggling for their dominance and in 1988 it also became Islamic republic. At another level Myanmar, in the grip of military dictatorship, with democratic elements trying to retain their presence is also seeing a hard battle. Democracy or not, the army and Sanghas (Buddhist Sang has) are strong, in Myanmar as well. The most visible result is persecution of Rohingya Muslims.

Similar phenomenon is dominating in Sri Lanka also where Budhhist Sanghas and army have strong say in the political affairs, irrespective of which Government is ruling. Muslim and Christian minorities are a big victim there, while Tamils (Hindus, Christians etc.) suffered the biggest damage as ethnic and religious minorities. India had the best prospect of democracy, pluralism and secularism flourishing here. The secular constitution, the outcome of India’s freedom struggle, the leadership of Gandhi and Nehru did ensure the rooting of democracy and secularism in a strong way.

India so far had best democratic credentials amongst all the south Asian countries. Despite that though the population of minorities rose mainly due to poverty and illiteracy, their overall marginalisation was order of the day, it went on worsening with the rise of communal forces, with communal forces resorting to identity issues, and indulging in propaganda against minorities.

While other South Asian countries should had followed India to focus more on infrastructure and political culture of liberalism, today India is following the footsteps of Pakistan. The retrograde march of India is most visible in the issues which have dominated the political space during last few years. Issues like Ram Temple, Ghar Wapasi, Love Jihad, Beef-Cow are now finding their peak in CAA.

India’s reversal towards a polity with religion’s identity dominating the political scene was nicely presented by the late Pakistani poetess Fahmida Riaz in her poem, Tum bhi Hum Jaise Nikle (You also turned out to be like us). While trying to resist communal forces has been an arduous task, it is becoming more difficult by the day. This phenomenon has been variously called, Fundamentalism, Communalism or religious nationalism among others. Surely it has nothing to do with the religion as practiced by the great Saint and Sufi traditions of India; it resorts mainly to political mobilization by using religion as a tool.

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If Malaysia implement similar NRC/CAA, India and China are the loser.

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‘Shoot the Traitors’: Manufacturing Hate and Violence

Ram Puniyani

February 10,2020

Noam Chomsky is one of the leading peace workers in the world. In the wake of America’s attack on Vietnam, he brought out his classic formulation, ‘manufacturing consent’. The phrase explains the state manipulating public opinion to have the public approve of it policies—in this case, the attack of the American state on Vietnam, which was then struggling to free itself from French colonial rule.

In India, we are witness to manufactured hate against religious minorities. This hatred serves to enhance polarisation in society, which undermines India’s democracy and Constitution and promotes support for a Hindu nation. Hate is being manufactured through multiple mechanisms. For example, it manifests in violence against religious minorities. Some recent ghastly expressions of this manufactured hate was the massive communal violence witnessed in Mumbai (1992-93), Gujarat (2002), Kandhamal (2008) and Muzaffarnagar (2013). Its other manifestation was in the form of lynching of those accused of having killed a cow or consumed beef. A parallel phenomenon is the brutal flogging, often to death, of Dalits who deal with animal carcasses or leather.

Yet another form of this was seen when Shambhulal Regar, indoctrinated by the propaganda of Hindu nationalists, burned alive Afrazul Khan and shot the video of the heinous act. For his brutality, he was praised by many. Regar was incited into the act by the propaganda around love jihad. Lately, we have the same phenomenon of manufactured hate taking on even more dastardly proportions as youth related to Hindu nationalist organisations have been caught using pistols, while police authorities look on.

Anurag Thakur, a BJP minster in the central government recently incited a crowd in Delhi to complete his chant of what should happen to ‘traitors of the country...” with a “they should be shot”. Just two days later, a youth brought a pistol to the site of a protest at Jamia Millia Islamia university and shouted “take Azaadi!” and fired it. One bullet hit a student of Jamia. This happened on 30 January, the day Nathuram Godse had shot Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. A few days later, another youth fired near the site of protests against the CAA and NRC at Shaheen Bagh. Soon after, he said that in India, “only Hindus will rule”.

What is very obvious is that the shootings by those associated with Hindu nationalist organisations are the culmination of a long campaign of spreading hate against religious minorities in India in general and against Muslims in particular. The present phase is the outcome of a long and sustained hate campaign, the beginning of which lies in nationalism in the name of religion; Muslim nationalism and Hindu nationalism. This sectarian nationalism picked up the communal view of history and the communal historiography which the British introduced in order to pursue their ‘divide and rule’ policy.

In India what became part of “social common sense” was that Muslim kings had destroyed Hindu temples, that Islam was spread by force, and that it is a foreign religion, and so on. Campaigns, such as the one for a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Rama to be built at the site where the Babri masjid once stood, further deepened the idea of a Muslim as a “temple-destroyer”. Aurangzeb, Tipu Sultan and other Muslim kings were tarnished as the ones who spread Islam by force in the subcontinent. The tragic Partition, which was primarily due to British policies, and was well-supported by communal streams also, was entirely attributed to Muslims. The Kashmir conflict, which is the outcome of regional, ethnic and other historical issues, coupled with the American policy of supporting Pakistan’s ambitions of regional hegemony, (which also fostered the birth of Al-Qaeda), was also attributed to the Muslims.

With recurring incidents of communal violence, these falsehoods went on going deeper into the social thinking. Violence itself led to ghettoisation of Muslims and further broke inter-community social bonds. On the one hand, a ghettoised community is cut off from others and on the other hand the victims come to be presented as culprits. The percolation of this hate through word-of-mouth propaganda, media and re-writing of school curricula, had a strong impact on social attitudes towards the minorities.

In the last couple of decades, the process of manufacturing hate has been intensified by the social media platforms which are being cleverly used by the communal forces. Swati Chaturvedi’s book, I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP’s Digital Army, tells us how the BJP used social media to spread hate. Whatapp University became the source of understanding for large sections of society and hate for the ‘Other’, went up by leaps and bounds. To add on to this process, the phenomenon of fake news was shrewdly deployed to intensify divisiveness.

Currently, the Shaheen Bagh movement is a big uniting force for the country; but it is being demonised as a gathering of ‘anti-nationals’. Another BJP leader has said that these protesters will indulge in crimes like rape. This has intensified the prevalent hate.

While there is a general dominance of hate, the likes of Shambhulal Regar and the Jamia shooter do get taken in by the incitement and act out the violence that is constantly hinted at. The deeper issue involved is the prevalence of hate, misconceptions and biases, which have become the part of social thinking.

These misconceptions are undoing the amity between different religious communities which was built during the freedom movement. They are undoing the fraternity which emerged with the process of India as a nation in the making. The processes which brought these communities together broadly drew from Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar. It is these values which need to be rooted again in the society. The communal forces have resorted to false propaganda against the minorities, and that needs to be undone with sincerity.

Combating those foundational misconceptions which create hatred is a massive task which needs to be taken up by the social organisations and political parties which have faith in the Indian Constitution and values of freedom movement. It needs to be done right away as a priority issue in with a focus on cultivating Indian fraternity yet again.

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