Moradabad riots
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1980
Shyamlal Yadav, May 17, 2023: The Indian Express
The 1980 Moradabad riots which are back in the news after the Yogi Adityanath government announced it would table a report in the Assembly on it, 40 years after the findings were submitted, hold an uncommon place in Uttar Pradesh’s history.
Beginning with clashes between Muslims and Dalits in a locality in the West Uttar Pradesh town, they were the first riots of this scale in UP since Independence. Even when several parts of the country burned during Partition, UP had been peaceful.
V P Singh was a first-time chief minister, having taken over just two months earlier at the head of a Congress government. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was caught up in the fast-spiralling Punjab crisis, as well as a brewing one in Assam. Both the state and Centre fumbled in handling the violence, that spread out from Moradabad to other places in UP, and simmered for months.
The V P Singh government set up a commission headed by then newly retired Justice Mathura Prasad Saxena to probe the riots. It submitted its report in November 1983, but never saw the light of day. This is the report the Adityanath government has now decided to table, as part of a special drive to locate all reports in the state that were prepared but not produced before the Assembly.
A city known for its brass and wood ware, Moradabad was one of the Muslim-dominated areas where the Muslim League – fighting on the plank of demand for Pakistan – faced defeat in the 1946 Assembly polls.
The timing of the riots was bad for Indira Gandhi, with her Independence Day speech just two days away. In her August 15, 1980, speech at the Red Fort, the PM mentioned the Moradabad violence, saying it had “inflicted an injury on our country”. “I would like to say that whoever has played mischief or is guilty, whether an official or a non-official, will be punished very severely.”
But, hours after her speech, violence sparked by Moradabad was reported from metres away, in Delhi’s Ballimaran and Chawri Bazar areas. Curfew was imposed and the Army was called in.
The Moradabad violence had begun on August 13, 1980, Eid-ul-Fitr day, near an Idgah, flanked by a Hindu settlement comprising Dalits on one side, and Muslims on the other. Over 50,000 Muslims had gathered at the Idgah to offer namaz when suddenly a rumour spread that a stray animal had been spotted near the ground.
The Muslim devotees requested the police to remove the “animal”, but this ended in heated arguments, followed by stone-pelting on the police. As the crowd turned restive, the police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) personnel deployed at the spot opened fire.
The deaths that resulted caused the violence to spread further, to Sambhal, Aligarh, Bareilly, Allahabad (now Prayagraj), and the rural areas of Moradabad; stray incidents continued till early next year. The official death toll, given by UP Home Minister Swarup Kumari Bakshi in the Assembly, was 289, including those who were missing and presumed killed, and District Magistrate D P Singh.
PM Indira Gandhi hinted at a “foreign hand” behind the violence, which was trying “to damage the stability of the country” – the go-to reason cited by governments of the time for any unfortunate incident. After visiting the affected areas, however, Indira admitted there was no “foreign hand”.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Yogendra Makwana alleged that the BJP (which was formed in April 1980) and R S S were responsible for the riots.
V P Singh admitted before the UP Assembly that “intelligence (officials) had, on August 12, reported that any stray animal could cause trouble the next day when a large assembly of Muslims would meet at Idgah after prayers”.
During the Assembly debate, Janata Party MLA from Iglas Rajendra Singh compared the Moradabad riots with the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar during British times. V P Singh, who had taken over on June 9 that year, responded, “I am here not to give any explanation. I am here to seek punishment (for myself).”
As criticism mounted, V P Singh wrote to Indira – significantly, not to the Governor, the right authority – and offered his resignation. He then skipped the Assembly session.
There was talk that V P Singh’s dissidents wanted him to be replaced with Lokpati Tripathi, the son of former CM Kamlapati Tripathi.
But Indira Gandhi rejected V P Singh’s resignation, and he made a return to the House.
On August 19, a six-member team of MPs seeking to visit Moradabad to assess the situation was turned away by the local authorities.
During a discussion in the Lok Sabha on the violence a few months later, a Janata Party MP from Mumbai North, Ravindra Verma, questioned the Indira government’s handling of the issue. “(The government says) All over the country, there are foreign hands and my honorable friend gets up and says, ‘We will cut the foreign hand’. But we have not seen a single hand that has been cut down.”
On October 28, 1980, the Indira government dug out a circular issued back in November 1966, that stressed “the need to ensure secular outlook on the part of government servants” and to “eradicate communal feelings and communal bias”. It went on to add: “Any government servant, who is a member of or otherwise associated with the aforesaid organisations (R S S and Jamaat-e-Islami) or with their activities, is liable to disciplinary action.”
In December 1980, a motion was moved by GM Banatwala, a Muslim League MP from Ponnani in Kerala, in Parliament, calling the “situation arising out of recent communal riots” to be of “serious concern”.
During the debate, Forward Bloc MP Chitta Basu, from Barasat in West Bengal, called Moradabad “an example of unbridled violence of the State perpetrated upon Muslims”.
Several people arrested under the National Security Act for the Moradabad riots, as preventive action, were released only after March next year (1981) after the Holi celebrations had ended peacefully. CM V P Singh refused to let them out, saying the choice before him was “innocents dead or innocents in jail”.
Dharamvir Mehta, who was Senior Superintendent of Police, Moradabad, during the riots, told in an interview to India Today in June 1997 that the “iron-hand” strategy of the police and PAC then was justified. “I had to be Mr Poison to cure cancer. Desperate maladies need desperate remedies,” he said.
The Saxena report on the riots, which is now to be tabled, is believed to be critical of both the Muslim leadership of Moradabad and the then state government.
But, it might not bring closure to anyone. Among the key players, hardly anyone is alive.
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Moradabad riots
