A meeting of the National Integration Council was held on September 23, 2013 after a gap of two years.
Issues such as terrorism, Maoist insurgency, activities of groups working against national interest was not on the agenda. The communal situation after the Muzaffarnagar riots, increased offences against women and SCs & STs were on the agenda of the meeting. These are also important subjects. Whereas there was a complete consensus on the final draft resolution passed, there could be a little basis for a contrarian opinion on the offences against women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The discussion on the communally tense situation in India, however, was inadequate in content. The anatomy of the riot that took place in Muzaffarnagar was insufficiently discussed. The one-sided violence which took place in Kishtwar was not properly analysed. The Chief Minister of UP was keen to pass the buck and invent conspiracies as to who engineered the riots. The Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir was not concerned with a large section of the local population which has lost confidence in his Government. He preferred trading charges rather than analyse as to what went wrong. Both the Chief Ministers indulged in self-certification of how well they controlled the communal violence.
Both Kishtwar and Muzaffarnagar have a lesson in store for us. In Kishtwar, violence started in the earlier part of the day. A Minister of the Government was stationed in Kishtwar. Mobs raising anti-national slogans, carrying anti-India symbols attacked members of a community and their business establishments. Finally, the Army came in the evening and normalcy was restored. There is still no answer as to why anarchy prevailed during all that period.
The lesson of Muzaffarnagar is why in communally surcharged atmosphere two separate congregations of both communities were allowed. Once congregations in such atmosphere are allowed, speeches become provocative. Affected people play a victimhood card and it becomes difficult to control the crowds. Rather than invent conspiracy theories, the Government of Uttar Pradesh should introspect whether its fundamental mistake was to allow the crowd to collect at both places which resulted in the situation going out of control.
The sub-text in the National Integration Council meeting was not an analysis of what happened in Kishtwar or Muzaffarnagar. It appeared to be a road towards the 2014 general elections. It defied logic that efforts were made in this meeting to link Narendra Modi with Kishtwar and Muzaffarnagar when none existed.
(The writer is leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha)