In relief camps, Mulayam sees political rivals!
Terming Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's statement on the Muzaffarnagar and Shamli relief camps as insensitive and hurtful is an understatement. The Samajwadi Party patriarch's contention, that the riot victims languishing there are in fact political workers, illuminates the dark chasm that exists between the Government that his party heads in lucknow and the people of Uttar Pradesh. Indeed, it is a telling comment on how terribly the Samajwadi Party has lost the plot in the State. Mr Yadav's absurd and outrageous conspiracy theory notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is that the miserable folks fighting for survival in the relief camps are not rival political activists seeking to give his party a bad name in the run up to a general election. They are victims of the State who have lost their homes, families and livelihoods to mindless violence that the Samajwadi Party's Government was incapable of controlling. Worse still, the State Government has also failed to restore normalcy in the affected areas. More than three months after a local brawl escalated into a major Hindu-Muslim riot causing deaths on both sides of the religious divide and displacing as many as 50,000 people, communal tensions are yet to abate.
The sense of insecurity hangs heavy in these areas and the fear is palpable as skirmishes and scuffles erupt on a routine basis and something as innocuous as a fight among children playing together can lead to violence among adults. In fact, according to some reports this is possibly what happened on Tuesday leading to group clashes in Sandhavali village where one person also sustained bullet injuries. Ironically, on the same day, in the relief camps, yet another child, unable to weather the bone-chilling cold, lost its life. About 40 others have already died in similar circumstances. Viewed together, these two instances provide a heart-wrenching account of life in Muzaffarnagar, under the criminally negligent regime of the Samajwadi Party. If the villages are too unsafe, living conditions in the camps are equally hostile — and the State Government seems to have all but washed its hands off the matter. Initially, it tried to make a show of doing relief work by announcing compensation packages but not all problems can be solved by throwing money at them.
As for Mr Yadav, galling as his Monday rant may have been, it was not entirely out of character. Communal politics has been his trademark, and it is no surprise that the comment came in response to criticism from Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi about the deplorable conditions in the refugee camps. Whether Mr Gandhi, who only months ago had accused riot victims of colluding with the Pakistani spy agency, has the moral authority to point fingers at the State regime is a question that can be answered on another day. But for now, it is increasingly clear that Mr Yadav, his party and the Government it leads are on the back foot. They have long lost the faith of the people and now they are losing the support of their political allies as well. For instance, apart from being censured by the Congress, the Samajwadi Party patriarch was also rebuked by Muslim leaders for his thoughtless remark. It is time he read the writing on the wall.