The death toll in the communal clashes that erupted in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring districts of Uttar Pradesh has reached 48. Even as the violence has subsided, normalcy is yet to return and panic-stricken villagers continue to flee to safe places fearing trouble could erupt again. However, instead of showing any real concern for the impact of such civil strife on the life of the residents, the blame game among politicians belonging to parties seeking to consolidate their vote banks has intensified. While the Samajwadi Party (SP) ruling in the state has blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) allege that it is the outcome of a mock battle between the BJP and the SP. Factions within the SP are curiously at war with each other over the role of the state government in dousing the communal fire.
Amidst this acrimonious political discourse, one key factor responsible for the riot in Muzaffarnagar and similar clashes in the past elsewhere seems to have been missed. While the seeds for communal strife may be sown by the politicians, it is the criminal and anti-social elements that participate in the riots, which actually reflect the failure of the law enforcement agencies to rein them in. And this failure is the direct outcome of the attempts to communalise the administration of criminal justice by the political class.
Union minister for minority affairs K Rahman Khan sought to do this when he recently proposed a special mechanism for handling terror cases against members of a community and the Akhilesh Yadav government in UP when it sought to withdraw terror cases against followers of a religion. This discourages officials tasked with maintenance of law and order from acting against anti-social elements belonging to a select community. The divisive strife of the type UP is witnessing can be curbed only when the government machinery is allowed to enforce the law without fear and favour, irrespective of the caste and creed of those who break it.
