Bhiwandi: In a spirit of give and take

BHIWANDI: In a spirit of give and take

In Bhiwandi in Maharashtra, local public bodies defuse potentially troublesome matters – from communal issues to civic problems, through open discussion. Their rate of success considerable.

As violence in the wake of the demolition in Ayodhya rocked the country, the town of Bhiwandi, 65 km from Bombay, was described in official parlance to be “tense, but strictly under control”. Bhiwandi witnessed widespread rioting in 1970 and again in 1984, caused in part by the absence of cohesiveness in a community that began expanding rapidly in the 1960s due to the influx of Muslim labour from Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar to meet the demands of the power-loom industry.

Bhiwandi, with 4 lakh power-looms, is the biggest power-loom centre in the country. Bhiwandi maintained the peace this time because of the involvement of public participatory bodies, set up over the last two years.

These bodies were brought into existence jointly by local Hindus and Muslims, with the help of the local administration, to settle peacefully a dispute in 1991 that was thratening to tear apart the Muslim-majority town. In July that year, Bhiwandi was gripped by communal tension because Hindu organisations wanted to use a plot owned by Ismail Farid Khan for cermonies prior to the immersion of Ganesh idols in the adjoining Kasaili river.

Customarily, Farid Khan’s permission was formally sought every year to use his plot, but in 1991 some Hindus, led by local Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader Anna Palaye, decided such permission was unnecessary. However, before the situation could deteriorate, senior police officers with the approval of the official bureaucracy arranged for influential members of both communities to come to the negotiating table. They were able to persuade Khan to donate his plot to Bhiwandi municipality.

But tension built up again when the municipal authorities decided to reciprocate Khan’s largesse by naming the plot after him. Local RSS and Shiv Sena activists, asserting a place being used to hold a Hindu festival should not bear a Muslim name, were adamant the site should be named after Lord Ganesh. The Muslims were equally insistent that Khan’s gesture should be acknowledged.

Once again local authorities summoned the town elders, who deliberated and then decided to name plot for a hero of the freedom struggle, Lokmanya Tilak, and the approach road to the plot after Farid Khan.

Assistant commissioner of police Kesav Sahasrabudhe, who played a key rle in the community negotiations, said this marked the turning point in the inter-community relationship in Bhiwandi. “For the first time,” he said, “people in Bhiwandi began to take the mohalla committees seriously. Even the cynics began to say that it was possible to solve religiious and emotive issues peacefully.”

Today, after just over a year of rapid growth, 70 of the 75 municipal wards of Bhiwandi have set up mohalla committees, which form the main channel communication between the two communities. These communities tackle potentially dangerous religious and community issues.

Each committee has upto 30 members drawn from both communities and with varied backgrounds, ranging from loom workers to schoolteachers. There is no formal structure for the working of these committees. They meet at least once a week and can choose to deliberate any local issue, whether leaking water pipes or a mohalla child not getting admission to school.

“We do this because the only way to avoid tension is by ensuring that our citizens do not feel they are left alone to fight their way through their problems,” says Bhiwandi municipal president Ananta Bhoi.

The efficacy of mohalla committees can be gauged by Shiv Sena leader Appa Palaye opting to ignore a call last month from senior party leaders in Bombay to hold maha arti – the much feared symbol of Shiv Sena militancy – in Bhiwandi. Palaye said he decided against holding maha arti because of reports received by local police from various mohalla committees that when maha arti was held on an earlier occasion, it had deeply hurt Muslim sentiments. Meanwhile, the fate of the slum is suspended in bureaucratic wrangling. In return, the Muslims agreed to ensure that when they said namaz by the roadside, they would not hinder traffic.

But the peace initiatives in Bhiwandi were scoffed at by the rest of the country. Muslims in Bhiwandi contended that when they offered to send relief packages to other riot-hit Muslims, they were taunted and told to “wear burqas (veils)” like women, if they were unable “to do something at a time when Muslims all over India were being massacred by Hindus”.

Rafiq Ansari, a rich power-loom owner and municipality vice-president, says, “The people elsewhere thought the Bhiwandi Muslims should do something because they are in the majority here.” Most of Bhiwandi’s power-loom owners are Muslims. Ansari also pointed out that the Hindus in Bhiwandi were equally under pressure from the rest of their community for their “refusal to teach the Muslims a lesson”. There were rumours that Hindu leaders had been insulted and sent chooris (bangles).

Despite the scathing criticism, the fact remains that for the first time in Maharashtra, Hindus and Muslims agreed to respect each other’s sensibilities and the community’s convenience when holding their rituals.