The violence and rioting in Nuh and the adjoining areas need to be taken seriously not just because of its proximity to the capital but as a sign of how bad things can get if they are not addressed with a long-term approach. This incident should be seen as a man-made disaster and treated under the rule of four with a long-term perspective.
The rule of four is generally applied to natural disasters and involves four clear phases. The first and immediate rule is to respond and mitigate the threat in four days. In the case of Nuh, it was an attack by radical unemployed Muslim youths along with the illegal Rohingya refugees settled in the area. I have been warning for a long time that the presence of Rohingyas and the rise of madrassas is rapidly changing the culture of the district. The Meo Muslims never wore the skull caps and you hardly saw burqa-wearing women in the area.
This is changing with even the local MLA sporting a skull cap during his walk, immediately after the riots. Even the father of the local MLA never wore the skill cap, he always wore a turban. The Meo Muslims had a very smart and prominent turban that defined their identity, much like the Rajasthani pagri but with a different tie and mostly white colour only. This was the identity of the area and now under the advice and guidance of the maulvis, the turban is being replaced by a skull cap, a visible sign of radicalisation. The mitigation exercise by the administration was to evacuate the illegal immigrants who had settled on government land. Rohingyas have been settling in the region thanks to the political benefactors.
Mitigation also involves providing relief and ensuring the riot-affected individuals are provided medical and other aid. This was done speedily as the riots were almost covered in real-time by the rioters on social media.
The second rule is that the next four weeks after the incident should be used for repairing and resurrecting the damaged buildings and roads. Most of the shops that were burnt belonged to the Hindu community and there has been little done to repair them, by any organisation, that was involved in organising the Jal Abhishek Yatra. The full four weeks are not yet over, so there is still some hope that they will work to bring back the traders whose shops were burnt down by the mob. If working Hindu families start leaving this area, it would adversely affect the district.
The job of repairing the shops is not just the responsibility of the government, the samaj has an equally important role to play in it. Who are the leaders in the samaj (society), in Nuh or beyond, who are working towards this purpose?
Will the Mahapanchayat in Palwal or the Hindu Samaj do something about those people whose shops or homes were destroyed or whose vehicles were burnt on the road? Did the Maulvis call for a meeting to ensure that the safety of the traders is maintained? Because if they leave the district, a crucial cog of society will be lost forever and the economic fissures will expand in the area.
The administrative system has seen some changes with a new DC and SP. But the district in charge is an IAS officer who is seen as honest but ineffective in administration or execution. He needs to be replaced with some officers like T C Gupta who know the area well and have worked in the planning department. Even Devinder Singh, the former ACS of the irrigation department, has worked in the district and is known as an upright officer who can get the system to move at lightning speed. The state also has to give a tenure of minimum three years to all these officers to ensure that they are able to complete their tasks.
The third rule is for action in the next four months. What are the society, government, and people doing to prevent radicalisation? It is the rapid radicalisation of unemployed youth that is the root of the problem. This is creating a combustible, corrosive youth willing to attack the minority Hindus or indulge in criminal activities. They are led by local political or religious leaders. The line between these two leaders is so thin that they are indistinguishable in the area. Who will bring together the community leaders, stakeholders, and institutions together to work on this problem?
Therefore, the fourth rule is a road map for the next four years which will be supervised by the local community and stakeholders to ensure it is executed. It has to address both the problems of radicalisation and unemployment. The young generation in the district has to be guided and mentored and only institutions can do that. Take, for example, the state-created Mewat Development Agency (MDA) for long-term development projects in the district. MDA was disbanded a few years back by the state government and even before that, its funding was almost squeezed to a negligible amount. At one time, MDA was raising funds from even Middle Eastern countries, now the fundraising from the Middle East is being diverted to the maulvis for building masjids and madrassas. Society abhors a vacuum if the state abdicates its responsibilities and vacant space is filled by non-state actors.
The state has ignored basic infrastructure like schools and education institutions in the district. There were thousands of teachers on the rolls of MDA and there were schools being run by it. Overnight, these teachers were shunted out and the Mewat development schools were fallen into disrepair. MDA’s charter needs to be revamped and controlled by the district in charge instead of local politicians. The schools need to be revived otherwise the madrassas will take over the minds of the next generation.
Government schools in the district are in abysmal condition. Enrolment is falling as the facilities are poor and teachers are rarely present. The decline is a self-fulfilling exercise, the school building deteriorates as the state does not repair it for decades. Students don’t want to go to a school where the building will collapse at any time. As the enrollment falls, the state says that there are not enough students in the area for a school and the school is shut down. The students either start going to madrassa where there is no fee or private schools which charge heavily. Over the years, the decline of government schools in the area is a clear and visible signal of the youth moving away towards madrassas. Successive petitions and appeals to everyone from the education minister, education secretary, and even the district education officer have not resulted in any intervention. Even NGOs working in the area are now thinking twice about working in the district after these riots.
The state also needs to pass a resolution wherein all religious schools need to be registered with the state government. Curriculum and student performance need to be monitored and like Uttar Pradesh, their standards need to be improved with proper intervention, financial or manpower-wise. NGOs like Read India and others are the last hope for the district as they are running libraries, skill centres, livelihood training and even providing medical facilities. Till now, nobody in the state government has called these NGOs to ask them how they can help in resolving the root problem.
K Yatish Rajawat is a public policy researcher and works at the Gurgaon-based think and do tank Centre for Innovation in Public Policy (CIPP). CIPP has been working in the NUH area for years building a regenerative agriculture model. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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