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Communalism Repository - March 13, 2007
Yogi Adityanath's crocodile tears
Can The Drama Whitewash His Black Deeds ?
by Subhash Gatade
(Self-appointed custodian of Hindu
interests and member of Parliament from Gorakhpur from the Hindu
Mahasabha, Yogi Adityanath, is hell-bent upon repeating "Gujarat" in
eastern UP. He along with his militia of lumpen elements has let loose
a reign of terror in Gorakhpur, Deoria, Siddharthanagar and
neighbouring districts of eastern UP.
The head priest of world famous Gorakhnanth temple, is not a sadhu in
real sense of the term. Instead of preaching love and compassion among
his followers, he is a trader of hate preaching violence and communal
bias among hotheads and lumpens who happen to be Hindu but never bother
to read and practice the real message and teachings of this great and
ancient religion.
This young saint belonging to Sangh Parivar rushes to every place where
even a minor altercation takes place between two peoples belonging to
different communities.
- Yogi Preaching Hate, Attempts to repeat Gujarat in eastern UP, The Milli Gazette, Vol 3,No 18,)
There are very few moments in the house where one comes across
instances where a tragicomedy unfolds itself. The zero hour in the
Parliament on Monday (12 th March 2007) witnessed one such occasion
when a MP of the BJP Yogi Adityanath broke down, and MPs from either
side of the ruling dispensation rushed to console him and asked the
chair to look at his 'grievances'.
As the whole nation witnessed Yogi Adityanath, who happens to represent
Gorakhpur in UP and is the heir to the Gorakhnath seat at Gorakhpur,
tried to ( to quote The Pioneer) drew national attention to ' the
crisis like situation in his constituency and its environs' where 'a
section of state-backed hoodlums and minor politicians have carried out
religion-specific acts of mayhem'. People watching the TV might have
heard that supposedly because of this situation the 'Hindu middle class
is leading a terrified existence'
People who are familiar with Gorakhpur's metamorphosis from a oasis of
communal harmony to a communally sensitive city and the role of Yogi in
it, would vouch that Yogi's utterances on the floor of the house are
another pack of lies.
Of course, every wo/man has a right to express indignation in whatever
form s/he perceives it to be OK, and one cannot dispute Yogi's right to
do the same. But people cannot be left on their own to decide their
take merely on the basis of such emotionally laden act as tears
at times prove to be deceptive. Definitely one need to go into few
details about the man and his 'mission' in the 'badlands' of UP where
supposedly the young MP is engaged in 'patriotic' acts.
And the most recent one of his actions is his and his organisations
role in the communal buildup in Eastern UP in recent times. Perhaps one
can gauge the quality of the intervention by Yogi from the fact that
today this area which did not witness any communal riots at the time of
partition, an area which did not witness any flareup when Babri Mosque
was demolished, has today metamorphosed into an area which comes under
highly sensitive communal zones in UP. Indepedent analysts also agree
that the recent flareup in Gorakhpur and adjoining areas were a direct
outcome of Yogi's actions, because of which the whole region had to
face curfew or similar situation for around two weeks. It is true that
this unprecedented curfew proved to be backbreaking for most of the
population.
Much has been written about the riot like situation created at the
instance of Yogi and his gang of lumpens called Hindu Yuva Vahini,
which saw deaths of innocents, who intervened in a private scuffle at
the time of a marriage party. But for the timely intervention by the
then district magistrate Hari Om and the Superintendent of Police, the
situation would have turned worse. The D.M ( who was immediately
transferred by Mulayam for his prompt action) saw to it that the main
troublemaker(s) in this whole episode be interned to calm the
situation. It was worth noting that this strategy worked and for the
first time in his whole political career Yogi found himself on the
defensive. Within a week of his internment the 'sporadic and
spontaneous actions' by his followers in different parts of Eastern UP
died down, the traders association also decided to resume work which
had initially declared a closure till the release of Yogi. While
charges were clamped against Yogi under breach of peace and danger to
communal harmony, many of his close associates found themselve cooling
their heels with charges under National Security Act filed against them.
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It was a marker of things to come that when Gujarat was burning in the
aftermath of Godhra (Year 2002)with the fire directed at minorities
Gorakhpur was not far behind. Many parallel instances of terrorizing
the minorities , razing their houses to ground all under the leadership
of this 'firebrand' leader had come to light. Loud proclamation of
turning Gorakhpur into Godhra-Gujarat were also heard. In the
post-Godhra bandh a leader of Hindu Mahasabha and considered as
the right hand man of Yogi in his speech had declared, "If only Yogiji
permits us we will repay a hundred per each."The local MLA Dr. Radha
Mohan Das Agarwal in his speech which was reported in papers had
defiantly declared ,"Gorakhpur is a Hindu Rashtra. Yogijee is both its
President and Prime Minister ."
A key feature of the Hindutva experiment engaged in by Yogi is to
always keep Muslims in focus and win over the dalits and backwards to
his side. In order to organise the Dalits against the Muslims he has
made it a policy to interfere in all small or big quarrels between them
and endeavour to paint it in communal black. There are no two opinions
that Yogi has succeeded in instigating anti-Muslim feelings from
Gorakhpur, Deoria, Siddharthnagar to Baharaich . The geographical
layout of Gorakhpur has also helped him in this. At one end it abuts on
Ayodhya and on the other on Nepal. Like the RSS the bogey of ISI
training camps on Indo-Nepal border is also raised by Yogi. Every
day there is a plethora of propaganda in papers about increase in the
ISI activities through the madarsas on the Indo-Nepal border or
again The clandestine relations between the ISI-Maoist .Needless
to say all based on figments of their feverish imagination.
Uttar Pradesh PUCL as well as another
organisation-Insaaf˜in their Enquiry Report ,'UP Ab Gujarat ki
Rah Par' ( UP On Way To Gujarat) had given a long list of deeds of Yogi
out to become a mini-Mody. On the basis of this Report based on spot
investigations into the incidents at Mohan Mundera , Nathua and
Turkmanpur a representation was also made to the NHRC (5th July 2002)
inter alia clarifying how Yogi gives lurid communal colours to what is
after all just a criminal misdeed ; the police and administration
adopts a purely defensive posture before the attach resulting into
engulfng the Muslim population in terror and insecurity.The unfortunate
fatal attacks on Muslims at Mohan Mundera (Dt.Kushinagar) on 19th
June 2002, at Nathua(PS-Pipraich ) on 23rd June or again on
the 25th June 2002 at Pande Hata (Gorakhpur)are links in the same
chain. It may be mentioned that under the provocation of alleged rape
of a backward class girl by an antisocial element who happened to be a
Muslim a mob of thousands of people had attacked the Muslim locality
setting their houses on fire.Hindutva terrorist had a hand in it.There
are reports that after heaping destruction on the Muslims at
MohanMundera the mob descended on Nahua (PS Piparaich, Dt.Gorakhpur)
where following the harassment of a Dalit Hindu girl there were some
incidents of stabbing.The mob set fire to three Muslim houses there.
This was preceded by a public meeting and when sufficient strength
gathered the locality was challenged and the attack mounted.
However, in this case a complaint has been filed against the members of
Hindu Mahasabha and the rowdy Deepak Agarwal, a right hand man of
Yogi.
October 2005 witnessed a communal flareup in Mau based in Eastern UP on
the eve of the Durga Pooja celebrations. It saw killing of nine
innocents apart from the hundreds of wounded people.While the rest of
the world came to know of the controversial role played by the local
MLA Mukhtar Ansari during the riots or the lethargy exhibited by the
law and order machinery while controlling the situation, the aggressive
role played by Yogi Adityanath was not much talked about.
In their report on the Mau situation after the riots, 'Saajhi Duniya' a
group of intellectual and social activists rightly noted
(www.sabrang.com) this fact :.
"Whatever is happening in Purvanchal is
occasionally discussed but there is no serious initiative to analyse
the same. For last one decade the aggressive activities of heir of
Goraksha Peeth and BJP MP Yogi Adityanath to organize Hindus was
clearly reflected in the riot in Mau. During the last decade the Yogi
has made this entire area, specially the area known as Gorakhpur during
the times of Britishers, his laboratory. ...
This organization comprises mostly unemployed youth, small level
criminals and the youth struggling for identity. For them any small
event involving Muslims becomes very important. As soon as they receive
the information of such an event, the workers of Hindu Yuva Vahini
reach there as the messengers of Yogi and later Yogi himself reaches .
Most of their acts are destructive like arson, destruction of property
and beating. A lively example is Mohanmundera episode in Kushinagar.
Here a Muslim boy raped a Hindu girl and the girl died during
treatment. After 3 days when Yogi came to know about this, he reached
there with his Vahini workers. The property of all the 72 Muslims
families was looted. Their houses were put to fire. Masjid was damaged.
Police remained a neutral witness. There are several such examples."
Yogi had organised a three day international conclave named
ŒVirat Hindu Mahasammelan‚ (22-24th December 2006) in
Gorakhpur which was attended by thousands of people which not only
included many leaders of the Sangh Parivar, but had enough presence of
local Sadhus as well as more than five hundred delegates from Nepal.
The congregation not only called for declaration of Nepal as
ŒHindu State and restoration of monarchy there but also
resolved for the construction of a grand temple in Ayodhya, and
"liberation" of the Kashi and Mathura shrines, ban on cow slaughter.It
also criticised the Indian Government stand on Nepal and said no
political party was taking Maoists‚ activities seriously.The
Mahasammelan also deliberated on the 'pathetic' condition of the Hindus
in Nepal and the alleged activities of ISI of Pakistan there which was
supposedly spreading its network to create disturbance in India.
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While parties which are part of BJP alliance would naturally support a
man like Yogi, it was really pathetic to see one of the left MPs in
Parliament rushing to console him and asking the chair to intervene.
Definitely either the left or its honourable MPs are not aware of the
local situation and the sectarian role of Yogi in its aggravation or
they are looking at the whole episode vis-a-vis their aversion/support
to Samajwadi party. Perhaps they better do their homework and
then take a stand.
There are many types of tears: While one type of tears act as purifiers
the other category is meant to hide. It is for everyone to decide how
they plan to look at Yogi's tears . But as far as ordinary masses are
concerned they have already given their verdict. For them
it is another futile attempt by the Yogi to gain some sympathy so that
he could once again reinvigorate his politics of hate which has faced
reversals in recent times.
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