 "P Chidambaram & Manmohan Singh")
Concern over the rising incidence of communal violence took centre stage on Monday at the 16th National Integration Council meet.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde urged state governments to crack down on those responsible. The meeting comes days after communal riots in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining areas in Uttar Pradesh led to the loss of 48 lives. Among those who did not attend the event were Narendra Modi of Gujarat, also the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh, Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal and J Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu.
Telugu Desam chief Chandrababu Naidu walked out after he was not allowed to raise the Telangana issue.
Naidu attempted to protest against the move to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh but was snubbed by the ruling United Progressive Alliance’s head, Sonia Gandhi, and Union minister P Chidambaram, who said the NIC was not the forum for this.
Chairing the meeting, the Prime Minister said, "The state should use all means at its disposal to punish those guilty for fanning communal violence and ensure a speedy crackdown on such elements, irrespective of their political affiliations or influence." Officials, he noted, were to be held accountable for a failiure to do so. “The local administration should prevent a small issue from snowballing into a huge controversy and arrest those responsible for spreading it.”
The PM and Gandhi had visited victims of the Muzaffarnagar clashes and those displaced.
Shinde said the frequency of incidents of communal violence, “especially in the last few months, seems to suggest a sinister motive...communal forces seem to have got emboldened and are trying to polarise society".
Some of those who spoke gave broad hints that the recent upsurge in such violence were being stoked by specific political groupings. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who has been criticised for his handling of Muzaffarnagar, said: "It seems that some of the main political parties are trying to dangerously harm the communal harmony of the state in view of the 2014 general elections. Efforts are on (by them) to polarise people of the state."
Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the violence in question, at Muzaffarnagar and elsewhere “are not spontaneous outbreaks but part of a planned effort ...designed by certain communal-political forces...The 2014 Lok Sabha elections seem to be a catalyst for communal activities. It can be easily identified who seeks to gain out of such communal polarisation".
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar whose party recently parted ways with the BJP, said: “Some forces fan the fire of communal tensions to polarise the situation in their favour. This kind of political thinking completely stuns me." Adding, on the UP violence: “This is a matter of deep concern. We cannot allow this violence to spread.”
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, head of the government in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, agreed the “immediate frenzy of communalism has a root in vote bank politics”, and added “the solution to this problem cannot be found by blaming a particular organisation or group and making it a scapegoat for the failure of others”.
West Bengal was represented by its finance minister, Amit Mitra, who sought effective measures to maintain inter-community relations and protect the rights of minorities. Apart from the communal riots in Assam which had led to an influx of refugees in certain border districts of Bengal, he said the “communal situation in the state remains largely unaffected”.
Through the meet, several speakers raised the issue of exercising control over social media websites, which during sensitive situations have of late been held responsible for fanning the violence. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, “An oversight mechanism to prevent and control such mediums (the social networking sites) in critical situations is the need of the hour." Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda cited the instance of Gurgaon and Rewari districts where trouble brewed on the issue of transportation of cows, allegedly for slaughter, spurred largely by social networking sites.
Last year, the same forum had witnessed vociferous protests from states not ruled by UPA parties over what they viewed as the “anti-federal” proposal of the Centre for a National Counter-Terrorism Centre.
