Delhi Riots 2020 An untold Story - Monika Arora

 

20th of 2021, completed on 22nd Feb is Delhi Riots  2020 An untold Story - Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar, Prerana Malhotra . Monica Arora is the Convener of Group of Intellectuals and Academiciansin addition to being senior advocate of Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India. She has been council for various ministers and institutions.  (GIA) My thoughts on this was recorded live as the events unfolded here:

http://arunoday.blogspot.com/2020/02/namaste-trumph-delhi-burning.html

The book begins with an Introduction on Delhi, the melting pot of people has seen a huge churning in its way of being, thoughts, cuisine, culture and attitudes. The communal violence of post including 1947, 1984 and then focuses on the one from 23 to 25 February. The writers call it Not Riots, but a First-of-its-kind Urban Warfare in India. The old fault line of Indian Society was being exploited and first of its kind strategy adopted, with Shaheen Bagh protests and rioting being just the Prelude. 

The next chapter is the theory of Urban Naxalism and Jihadism. Urban Naxalism falls within the ambit of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). It derives legitimacy from genuine developmental issues on the ground. The ultimate aim of the Naxalas is to achieve an Indian (communist) revolution. The ideology of Jihad has two sources - one in relation to Khilafat Movement and Ali Muslaiyar. The other is a contemporary study of the ideas of ISIS and Ghazwa-e-Hind. A number of organisations are alligned to this viz: Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI); Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).

The Background to the Delhi riots 2020 was obviously The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) tabled  in the parliament on 10th Dec, 2019 and which came into effect from 10th Jan 2020. Targeted at six minorities suffering religious persecution in three of  India's neighboring, Muslim-majority countries - Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Migrants who entered India before 31 Dec 2014 had suffered or feared religious persecution in their country of origin were eligible for citizenship. The amendment also relaxed the residence requirement for the naturalization of these migrants from eleven to five years. The immediate beneficiaries from this act would be 31,313. (Unfortunately many more lives were disrupted in implementing this) This was all blamed on the Propaganda to Create unrest. 

The Prelude was violence in universities, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) , Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), JNU and DU. 

The Interlude was the Shaheen Bagh Model, when the state assembly elections were held in Delhi. Typically women of all ages took centre stage at Shaheen Bagh, who came from all parts of the country, while it is believed that men were at the back end, working on planning. The location of most Anti - CAA protest sites were in close vicinity of a local mosque. Art was used as a tool of protest. Hate speeches formed a very important part in escalating the general atmosphere of violence and aggression in the protest. The final riots happened the day Trump visited India. They had planned to block other roads to Delhi, after blocking the metro area, being aware that once a dharna site was established, it would become impossible to dismantle it. Next targets were Road Number 66 and Wazirabad Road. The Maulanas tried to ask the crowd to return, but they would not agree. There were fear psychosis among the locals in the area. High rise buildings and schools were used to launch attack. 

Many unanswered questions still need to be examined and investigated in detail. To create a plural society all sides of the event has to be looked at. The main sufferers were the common people. Now is the time for all of us to take stock and pledge that this sort of barbarous brutality never occurs again. 

Willfully choosing to ignore accumulated evidence will only help bring about another exigency. The level and degree to which civil society has been weaponized is a mater of concern.  It needs urgent attention to avoid further conflagration.

Kapil Mishra was singing  Bhajan at the site, there is no mention  of his uttering  anything  else nor the slogans  raised during  Delhi election , while  there are speech excerpt of all Anti CAA members.

As rightly said, every story has three sides, your version, my version and the Truth, May Truth Prevail. 

Don't remember reading  anything  about  this Rahul in the book.

Thanks Shouvonic for recommending  this book.