Change only in appearance, not in deed

Just when we had all given up on Bihar, it has seen a makeover, its notorious bahubalis (powerful men) who ruled the streets put behind bars. Uttar Pradesh, too, has seen action against its gun-toting dons. Mumbai’s elite never refer to these states without a shudder and a smirk. But are their own city and state better?

The myth of ‘modern’ Maharashtra continues to endure, perhaps because of cosmopolitan Mumbai. But, for the last 26 years, the entire state, its glittering capital included, has been at the mercy of a group of bahubalis.

They were in power once for a brief five-year span. For the remaining 21 years, the Congress and its offshoot, the NCP, have ruled, giving us heavyweight chief ministers like the no-nonsense SB Chavan; Sharad Pawar, once a leader who knew the pulse of the people; and the progressive Sushilkumar Shinde. Mumbai has had its share of upright police commissioners: the legendary Julio Ribeiro, Satish Sahney, Ronnie Mendonca, Hasan Gafoor.

Yet, the clout of the bahubalis has not diminished.

There is now a young, English-speaking second and even third generation of bahubalis, but this has meant only a cosmetic change. The thrust of their politics has remained the same: using violence to make their point. At times, this violence is against a religious or linguistic group; at others, it’s just a display of petulant anger. Every time, they have got away with it.

As the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh police once did with their bahubalis, the police in Maharashtra, too, who claim to be ranked second in the world, voluntarily give up their vast powers of prevention and control when faced with these bullies. Unfailingly, they mouth the same justification: “Arrests would have aggravated the situation”, though, every time, allowing these bullies to exercise their terror has led to an aggravated situation anyway.

Pune’s police commissioner Meeran Borwankar used the same words to justify not making preventive arrests of those who had organised the violence during the Shiv Sena’s bandh on December 28. The bandh was called to protest against the shifting of Dadoji Konddeo’s statue from Shivaji’s childhood home by the NCP-ruled Pune Municipal Corporation, a decision announced long back.

Surprisingly, the police had, this time, actually tapped the phones of Sena leaders, anticipating violence. So they knew the night before the bandh that Milind Narvekar, personal assistant to Sena CEO Uddhav Thackeray, had directed Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe to gather a mob, stone and burn buses, and inform TV channels.
But when the Maharashtra police deals with the Sena, forewarned is never forearmed. Neither Gorhe nor Narvekar, nor Pune’s leading Sainiks, were taken into preventive detention. Fifty-four buses were destroyed during the bandh. Home minister RR Patil justified this inaction, saying the police’s priority was to “safeguard law and order and protect the public”.

As a two-term home minister, Patil must know what he is talking about. So, all these years, it’s to protect us that the police have never made preventive arrests of Sena leaders!

In 1992, violence broke out in Mumbai within hours of the demolition of the Babri Masjid. By December 9, the date of the Sena-BJP’s bandh, “unprecedented” communal rioting (so described by the police to the BN Srikrishna Commission) was in full swing. A day before the bandh, the police commissioner ordered that Shiv Sainiks be arrested. Not one police station obeyed him.

On December 26, the police knew that Sena strongman Madhukar Sarpotdar was to lead a rally the next day.

The city had barely recovered from the riots, with the death toll of 253. Yet, the rally was a resounding success, inflammatory placards, slogans, et al.

All through January 1993, the Sena and BJP held maha-aratis which, intelligence reports warned, would lead to violence against Muslims. The maha-arati schedule was displayed on street boards. They did lead to violence. But no maha-arati was stopped.

Senior police officers deposed before the commission that taking Sainiks or their leaders into preventive custody would have “aggravated the situation”. As Justice Srikrishna commented, “Not that Bombay did not burn even otherwise.” There are other startling echoes of the 1992-93 riots in last yearend’s Pune bandh.

The Srikrishna report recounts journalist Yuvraj Mohite’s testimony of having witnessed Bal Thackeray giving orders on the telephone to his “boys” to kill Muslims. When Chhagan Bhujbal became home minister in 2000, he decided to act against Thackeray, his bete noir.

But RPI leader Chandrakant Handore, the only man who could corroborate Mohite’s account, refused to do so.

Handore was rewarded with a place in chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s cabinet in 2004. And Bal Thackeray remained untouched, free to pass on his legacy to son, nephew, and grandson. The only difference is, as a CEO, you don’t soil your hands.

The brutish Sadhu Yadavs and Raja Bhaiyyas have been tamed in the badlands of the north; but in Maharashtra, the Thackeray legacy of violence flourishes.