Manesar (Haryana): More than 300 Hindutva activists – including members of the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other organisations – attended a ‘mahapanchayat’ to protest the gruesome murder of a Hindu tailor, Kanhaiya Lal, in Rajasthan’s Udaipur by two Muslim assailants. At the event, there were calls to boycott Muslims and ‘if need be’ to pick up weapons against them.
Manesar is a part of the National Capital Region, around 50 km from New Delhi, and an important hub of the Indian automotive industry. The call to boycott Muslim shopkeepers and vendors was reported in the national media.
While many saw the Manesar meeting as a random expression of intolerance, its connection to the wider arc of Hindutva mobilisation in which online mobilisation links up to ‘offline’ events remained hidden. One of the trending Twitter hashtags in the days leading up to the ‘mahapanchayat’ was #TotalBoycott. Though the call was in open violation of Section 153 A and B of the Indian Penal Code, the fact that an organised push could be made to trend that hashtag on social media is symptomatic of the impunity enjoyed by its sponsors.
The Wire spoke to the three Hindutva leaders who organised the Manesar panchayat about their wider agenda. Dharmender claims to be a social worker committed to the building of a Hindu rashtra, Aachary Swami Ishodass Om Ram is vice president of the Sant Samaj with close links to Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and Devender Singh is the general secretary of the Manesar branch of the VHP – an organisation that is part of the same Sangh parivar to which the BJP belongs.
Of the three, Ishodass Om Ram has a significant online presence, with over four lakh followers on Instagram. He has shared pictures of himself with top BJP leaders like party president J.P. Nadda and Bhupender Yadav, currently minister for labour and environment in the Modi government. Apart from that, he has also posted pictures of himself with Kulbhushan Bharadwaj, the man who led the anti-namaz protests in Gurugram, and controversial Hindutva seer Paramhans Das. Recently, Paramhans Das was reported as threatening to set ablaze the Hyderabad MP Assaduddin Owaisi during a protest against the Udaipur murder.
Following are excerpts from the interview, translated into English from the Hindi original and edited for clarity. The Wire has not verified the claims and allegations made, but they are being published as they portray the ideological framework in which Hindu Right leaders operate.
What made you take this decision [to call for a boycott of Muslims]? What is the motivation behind such a move? Were you facing any problems because of the Muslim vendors?
Dharmender: When there was a lockdown in 2020, the people earning even Rs 50,000 had to leave with their families because there was no certainty about the situation. Nobody knew how they would pay the rent. A lot of people in our area left their houses and went back to the villages. But you look at the jhuggis (slum settlements). They (Muslims) offer namaz there. Their language is different from ours. They are mostly Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. And they have rented the jhuggis. When nobody was allowed to step out of their homes at that time, how did they manage to eat? Who paid their rents? This is my concern.
You go to any juice seller here, ask him his name. He will say ‘Raju’. You check his ID and the name would be different. Many times, we have found that the ID is with a Hindu name but the person offers namaz on Friday. These people (Muslims) have arranged fake IDs. Such elements are increasing in our area. We constantly get such complaints from our (Hindu) tenants – ‘My daughter has been abducted.’ ‘My wife has gone (run away).’ Considering all these issues, we took such a stand. If you look at the bus stand, there is a biryani stall. We Hindus don’t eat biryani. He has mentioned ‘Veg/Non-veg biryani’ on the board. What if our kids someday go there and eat non-veg? Who knows what they (Muslims) put in their food? Go to any lane, only these people have their shops. Our people are left with no jobs. Why? Whatever job a Hindu would do for Rs 5, these guys would do it for Rs 2. Why? Because they would do anything to just get inside your house. So, we need to check if any bad element is breeding in our locality. What if in the coming days they become so dangerous that neither us nor the government are able to control them? Any bad element – Hindu or Muslim should be inspected. We must know if a person is claiming to be Rohit, he is actually Rohit.
When in the Shaheen Bagh protests they can give a call to boycott Reliance because its money funds the weapons bought by BJP and RSS, why can’t we do that? Don’t we have a responsibility to empower our people- the Hindus? If a poor person in our community wants to work, shouldn’t we help him set up a business? These people get money from masjids. Look at their homes, they stay in jhopadpatti but their shops are plush. If we don’t wake up today, when will we?
Courtesy: The Wire
