New Delhi: A fight between children in a remote Chhattisgarh village, which escalated and led to communal violence, has now gripped the poll-bound state in an unprecedented communal tension.
While the incident took place in the plains far from Bastar, the ripples have been felt in the tribal region, too.
Meanwhile, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party have milked the opportunity to practice their usual brand of pro-Hindutva, anti-Muslim politics. Leaders from the Hinduvta brigade have publicly vowed to boycott all non-Hindu businessmen.
The communal violence
On April 8, a Hindu youth was killed in a communal clash in Bemetara district’s Biranpur village. Then, on April 10, the night the VHP-BJP declared a state bandh, a Muslim father and his son were beaten to death with lathis in the same village. The latter’s bodies were found the next morning.
Chhattisgarh has generally managed to stay clear of any major communal killings. However, during the last four years of Congress rule, several Hindutva organisations have accused the churches of carrying out religious conversions, and carried out sustained attacks on the community. This was the case even during the previous regime.
However, this is possibly the first time that a communal murder has taken place in the state.
The village in question has a population of about 1,200, including 60 Muslim families. In the past few years, incidents of Hindu women marrying Muslim men have led to occasional tensions. However, the tensions rose after two women from a significant OBC caste married Muslim men in the village.
Meanwhile, in Kawardha, the headquarters of the neighbouring Kabirdham district, which is not too far away from Biranpur village, more than half a dozen Hindu-Muslim clashes have taken place in the last two years, without any fatalities.
Kawardha is the hometown of Raman Singh, the previous BJP chief minister of the state. He is also a former MLA from here. Singh and his sons have also been MPs from this seat but in the last assembly elections, the state’s only Muslim MLA from the Congress party, Mohammad Akbar, won from Kawardha, and since then Kawardha has been turned into a hotbed for Hindu-Muslim polarisation between the BJP and Congress.
A Muslim MLA and rising communal tension have made this assembly constituency a favourite among the anti-Congress forces.
When two Hindu women married Muslim men in Biranpur village, it was reported to the police, but their families could not take any action against their marriage as both of the women were adults.
The area hadn’t recovered from this communal tension that another minor incident of collision of children’s bicycles on the road in the village quickly turned nasty with the killing of one person followed by the lynching of two more, a couple of days later, amid the state bandh.
Heavy police have been deployed in the region. The communal violence also seems to have been curbed for now.
Meanwhile, in Bastar, the VHP leaders took an oath that they will not carry out any business or trade with a non-Hindu. Added to that, Hindu traders have been asked to display their religious symbols in their shops so that they can be easily identified.
A video of this oath is also circulating on social media. The state had never witnessed such communal rhetoric before.
लगातार हो रहे हिंदू विरोधी गतिविधि के विरोध मे आज जिला बंद,राष्ट्रीय राजमार्ग चक्काजाम,और प्रतिज्ञा ली की गैर हिंदू का आर्थिक बहिष्कार करेंगे.
विश्व हिंदू परिषद
जिला बस्तर छत्तीसगढ़ प्रांत#chhattisgarhband
BhuneshwarSahu @VHPDigital @vinod_bansal @BJP4CGState @ArunSao3 pic.twitter.com/LbAuCbupDO— Chhattisgarh Vishva Hindu Parishad (@cgvhp1) April 10, 2023
How the government is viewing the situation
In the past few years, however, tribal areas like Bastar have seen a gradual rise in communal tensions, where violent protests took place against some villagers who had converted to Christianity.
People were beaten up for converting to another religion, while bodies of those who died after conversion were refused a burial in the village cemetery. There were incidents where Hindutva organisations like the Bajrang Dal created ruckus by barging into Christian prayer meetings going on in homes across the state, and accused the persons of forced religious conversion.
Meanwhile, the Congress seems to have turned a blind eye to the fact that the BJP is openly targeting Muslims and Christians.
In fact, a local Congress MLA and one of the most powerful ministers of the state, Ravindra Choubey, did not even visit his constituency in Bemetara district, where the communal murders took place, even after four days. He is the second generation MLA of his family.
As a result, several junior Muslim office bearers of the Congress have put in their papers as I write this piece, in protest against the silence of the Congress government over the incident in Biranpur.
The Congress has MLAs in more than three-fourth of the seats in the state, however, none of them have stood up against the attacks on the minorities that happened in various places.
In a recent tweet, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel claimed that the Congress government has provided security to the victim’s family and the accused were caught immediately. His statement is clearly about the death of the Hindu youth because till now no one has been arrested for the murder of the two Muslims. He also added that the BJP’s presence in Biranpur has only added fuel to the fire.
बिरनपुर की घटना बेहद दुर्भाग्यजनक है। इस घटना में दिवंगत भुनेश्वर साहू के परिवार की पीड़ा हम सबकी साझा पीड़ा है। भुनेश्वर की अनुपस्थिति में उसके परिवार का संरक्षण हम सबकी साझी जिम्मेदारी है।
आज छत्तीसगढ़ प्रदेश साहू संघ के पदाधिकारियों से मुलाक़ात के बाद हमने निर्णय लिया है कि… pic.twitter.com/x0YTHpjrpM
— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) April 11, 2023
हमारी सरकार ने पीड़ित परिवार को सुरक्षा दी। जो आरोपी हैं वो तुरंत पकड़े गए।
कानून का राज है, कानून से बड़ा कोई नहीं। pic.twitter.com/LiT83l01AE— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) April 12, 2023
Jethuram Sahu, the sarpanch of Biranpur, has appealed to outsiders not to come to the village and let local residents establish peace because the presence of outside forces only adds to the rising tension.
So far the state had avoided any major communal violence like other states in north India, but after these deaths, and the VHP’s call for an economic boycott of Muslims, the six months leading up to the assembly elections will be unsettling.
Polls in the state are slated to be held during the end of this year.
Translated by Naushin Rehman.
Sunil Kumar is editor of Daily Chhattisgarh. He is an opinion writer, columnist, and YouTuber.