“In the blink of an eye, my home was demolished,” said the 45-year-old fruit seller, whose kitchen, fruit cart and livestock shed were destroyed. “While I was standing there watching … (the police) just left.”
There are pieces of wood, rusty metal and rubbish on the sandy pavement in front of his house, where his four young children play.
His home was one of several properties in the Chhoti Mohan Talkies district of Kargone, India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh, which he says were destroyed by authorities after violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims erupted on April 10. Hindu Day Ram Nawami Festival.
Experts say the demolition is the culmination of a much deeper problem, and that it is just the latest in a series of attacks on the country’s Muslim population, fueled in part by the rise of India’s Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata (BJP).
They claim that Muslims in the BJP-led Madhya Pradesh have been disproportionately punished following the violence, raising fears that members of the country’s largest minority religion – some 200 million of India’s 1.3 billion people are Muslims – have been persecuted by BJP.
They cited similar problems in the capital, New Delhi, where eyewitnesses told CNN that authorities began demolishing shops and other structures in the predominantly Muslim neighborhood of Jahangirpuri on Wednesday, days after violent clashes erupted between Hindus and Muslims after the holiday. on the birthday of the Hindu god Hanuman.
There is an additional sense of injustice for Beig.
Baig said he and his neighbors were not near the scene of the clashes.
“I don’t know what’s going on in my country,” said Beig, who has lived in the property for more than 30 years. “But all I can say is that I pay the price to be a Muslim.”
“My shops were demolished because I am a Muslim”
Public violence in Hargon erupted after groups of Hindu men wearing saffron flags – a color associated with Hinduism that has become increasingly politicized in recent years – marched through the Muslim-majority neighborhoods of Ram Nawami, a festival celebrating the birth of worshipers. The Hindu god, Lord Ram. The details of the clashes are controversial. Violent clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims, with some men throwing stones and holding weapons in the air, according to a video in local news. Houses and cars were set on fire and at least one person – a Muslim – was killed in the clashes, state police told reporters. A curfew was imposed in the city to quell the violence on April 10th, and some restrictions were lifted after 11 days, they said. The government said it had set aside a cumulative $ 131,000 for families affected by the violence.
But the most attention was drawn to scenes of government officials bulldozing property, with activists and citizens condemning the move as unfair and illegal.
Dr Tameezuddin Shaikh was at home on April 11 when he received a phone call from a friend informing him that authorities were demolishing his son’s medical store in the predominantly Muslim Talab Chok district of Hargon.
“I was stunned,” said Sheikh, who said he often provided free services to poor and marginalized families. “A curfew has been imposed in the city and no warning of illegality has been sent to me. I live far from my medical store, and with curfew, there was no way we could go and stop the demolition. “
About a dozen shops in Talab Chowk were destroyed by Hargon authorities, according to Sheikh.
Madhya Pradesh Interior Minister Narotam Mishra described the state’s actions as a form of revenge, telling reporters on April 11th: “From the houses where stones were thrown, we will turn those houses into a pile of stones.” He offered no evidence that residents whose homes were destroyed were linked to the violence.
The sheikh said neither he nor his son were involved in the violence. And he has been serving the local community from this store for more than five decades without a problem, he added.
“I am a respected name in Khargone because I have served people all my life,” he said. “But all the drugs and everything in my clinic worth over 10 lakh rupees ($ 13,000) turned into rubble.”
The Muslim group Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind has filed a petition with the Supreme Court of India, demanding intervention in the destruction and calling them a “violation” of India’s constitution.
According to lawyer and activist Kawalpreet Kaur, district officials “cannot take the law into their own hands and cannot be the deciding body.”
“They can’t decide who the criminal is,” she said.
Rahul Verma, a fellow at the Center for Political Studies, said the destruction in Madhya Pradesh was “unprecedented”.
“It is not the job of the municipal service to punish people who may be involved in stone-throwing or violence,” he said.
Ayub Khan, a resident of the Aurangpura district, about 2km (1.25 miles) from Talab Chowk, lost seven shops when authorities demolished them the day after the violence.
Khan says he lost more than $ 26,000 in the destruction and now faces the difficult task of recovering without enough money. He plans to file a petition against government officials in the country’s Supreme Court.
“The destroyed shops have been there for more than 70 years and we have never received any (government) notice,” he said. “Indeed, my shops were demolished because I am a Muslim who refused to bow to the BJP leaders. The way the district administration is targeting Muslims after the Hargon violence, it is clear that they hate a certain community. “
CNN contacted the secretary of the interior minister, Madhya Pradesh, the interior minister, the Khargone district collector and the police, but received no response.
Support for the Hindu right
Tensions between Indian Hindus and Muslims have been a hotbed for decades – even before India gained independence from the British. But when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP came to power in 2014, promising economic reform and development, experts feared his rise could signal an ideological shift from the nation’s secular norms to those of a Hindu nationalist state.
The BJP has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu group that counts Modi among its members and adheres to the Hindutva ideology – which seeks to make India the land of the Hindus.
Analysts and activists fear that Modi’s choice will make Muslims in India – about 14% of the country’s population – vulnerable to exploitation.
According to Debashish, Roy Chowdhury, co-author of Killing Democracy: India’s Transition to Despotism, “demonstrable obedience and domination of Muslims through their constant humiliation and disempowerment” is “central” to the BJP’s Hindutva project.
“He is charging the party’s Hindu electoral base, as well as helping to attract more supporters by constantly polarizing voters based on their religious identity through a relentless hate campaign,” he said.
And according to Chowdhury, Hindu vigilant groups are gaining “increasing freedom of action.”
In the last eight years, several BJP-ruled countries have imposed new laws that critics say are rooted in Hindu ideology. At the same time, reports of violence and hate speech against Muslims are increasingly appearing in headlines across the country.
The most controversial new laws are in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, ruled by a Hindu monk who became a Yogi Aditianat politician. The state has introduced laws to protect cows, an animal considered sacred to Hindus, from slaughter and make it difficult to transport livestock. He also introduced a bill against baptism, which makes it difficult for interreligious couples to marry or convert to Islam or Christianity. Most recently, the BJP-ruled southern state of Karnataka banned Muslim girls from wearing religious headscarves in classrooms, prompting several to challenge the state’s Supreme Court ruling, a battle they eventually lost.
According to Muslim author and journalist Rana Ayub, Muslims are “made to feel like victims in their own country.”
“From what I see in India right now, I have feelings for my Muslims,” she said. “I sympathize with my brother every time he goes to prayer with a hat during the month (Ramadan).”
And the destruction of property owned by Muslims during Ramadan, according to Ayyub, is “demonizing and demoralizing.”
“It’s as if (the state authorities) are doing it purposefully,” she said. “They are trying to tell us that (during) a month that is sacred to Muslims, ‘we will humiliate your beliefs and your system.’
The future
Beig continues to live in a small room in his home – the only one spared the destruction – with his wife, children and ailing father.
They have no running water or electricity. The food is running out, he says, and after his livelihood is destroyed, Beig doesn’t know how he can afford to feed his family.
“At temperatures as high as 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Fahrenheit), we are struggling to calm our crying children,” said his wife, Parvin.
Meanwhile, officials in the Khargone district posted numerous photos and videos on their official social media showing police patrolling the streets and bulldozing more properties. “Don’t let harmony get in the way,” he tweeted Tuesday. “Create an atmosphere of peace and harmony.”
But Beig believes that the very institutions created to protect him and his family betrayed him by destroying their home.
“I want to ask the government how a person who struggles to make ends meet but feeds his family by working hard every day can have the means to engage in (violent) activities?” Beig asked.
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