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Workshop on Police orientating on “The Role of Police in
Civil Society” conducted by CSSS (Mumbai) and COVA in
association with Hyderabad City Police.
A one day workshop
was organized on 27-7-11 at Madina Education Centre,
Hyderabad on “The Role of Police in Civil Society”
by CSSS (Mumbai) COVA in association with Hyderabad City
Police.
 25
senior level police officers and a few members of civil
society organizations working on Communal Harmony, Peace
and Social Justice attended this workshop. Dr. Asghar
Ali Engineer, Chairman, Centre for Study of Social and
Secularism, Mumbai was the guest speaker.
Mr. Mohammed Turab,
Executive Secretary, COVA welcomed guest speakers,
Senior Police Officers and other invitees from civil
society organizations and requested Dr. Anand Raj Varma
to preside over the workshop and to conduct the
proceedings.
While inviting Mr. Mahesh
Bhagwat, IPS for his opening remarks Dr. Varma recited
an Urdu couplet –
Yaqeen
Mahkam, Amal paiham, Mohabbat Faateh Aalam,
Yahi Mardon ki Shamsheerein hain, Jihad Zindagani Mein.
In his opening remarks,
Mr. Mahesh Bhagwath, IPS.,Joint Commissioner of Police,
Administration said that need of this workshop was felt
very much since long to sensitize police officers to
enable them to perform well.
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer in
his address said religion doesn’t clash with other
religion but interests of people in power. A truly
religious man can never be communal person. We have to
come out of prejudices and remove narrowness. There are
exemplary examples of communal harmony of olden days of
India. A Muslim sufi Hazrath Nizamuddin Aulia walking
one fine morning along the bank of Jamuna river glanced
at the river and said that the women bathing in the
river are worshipping Allah. Dara Shikoh translated
Upanishads into Persian language and King Akbar wrote a
book “Majmua Al Bahrain”. He referred to the
comparative works of Pandit Sundar Lal in his book
Geeta and Qura’n and tried to prove
similarities of teachings in both the holy books. In
the context of Europe the word “Communal” is positive
word meaning community action whereas in our context it
becomes a derogatory word connoting religious bigotism
and hatred. Wrong and out of context interpretation of
medieval history is the main cause of all misconceptions
and religious hatred and communal violence.
The British, who constitute
part of Europe culture who came to India to establish
colonialism,
 had
a monolithic religion and culture. In, they saw the
diversified plural India an opportunity of keeping
Indians non-unified by means of playing mischief of one
religion against another. Hence they assigned the
responsibility of distorting India’s history to two
scholars namely Eliot and Darson who embarked on the
task with a clear mind of creating a divide between the
two religions. We must always remember that anything
quoted out of context will lose its meaning and lead to
many interpretations.
He said that Savarkar and
Jinnah both modernists were non-religious and communal.
Moulana Azad felt humiliated when people told to him
that he is surely winning election from the constituency
he is filing nomination as majority population of that
constituency is Muslims, and he tore off the nomination
paper. He said I want votes of citizens of my country
not of Hindus or Muslims.
Auragazeb is the highly
misquoted king in the entire medieval history; labeling
him as a religious bigot and anti Hindu. In his personal
life, all his deeds are anti Islamic such as he killed
his all three brothers and imprisoned his father for the
sake of usurping power. On the other hand his main
general was a Hindu namely Tilak. Aurangzeb issued
farmanas and released magnanimous grants to many
temples and a Shiva temple, which was visited by the
speaker. The copy of the Firmaan was shown to him by
the Pujari of the temple. The king also built Jain
temples in Gujarat. Ghori is labeled as attacker of
Somnath temple but before coming to India he attacked
many Mosques in Multan of Afghanistan for the sake of
wealth. Those days’ temples were also the abode of
riches and the wealth was kept hidden right inside the
idols; hence he had to break the idol to amass the
wealth. When this background is not known and looked
only at the action, it gives wrong meaning.
Giving the chronological
account of all the riots he said before coming of the
British, only two riots took place in Ahmedabad in 1892.
In the independent India, in 1961, Jabalpur riots were
 the
first major riots followed by Rourkela in 1964, Ranchi
in 1967 Ahmedabad in 1969, Bihar shareef in 1981,
Vadodara in 1982, Bhivandi in 1984, Meerut in 1987,
Bhagalpur in 1989, Bombay in 1992 and Gujarat in 2002.
After 1947 3300 riots took places in various part of
the country taking about 42,000 innocent lives.
Mostly the riots have the
hidden political and economic motives of defaming the
present regime or eliminating the competition as it
happened in the case of Kanpur riots or vacation of slum
areas. It happened in case of Gujarat where a simple
suggestion given by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer to Mr.
Chowdhary the successor of Mr. Solanaki, the then C.M
stopped the riots after distressed sale of land was
banned.
The question answer session
followed and one Police Officer said that he worked in
the old city of Hyderabad and learnt important verses
from the Holy Quran and quoted wherever required.
Through this way I won hearts of the people making them
receptive to my words. This helped a lot in maintaining
peace and harmony.
Dr. Varma inviting Mr.
Jeevan Kumar, President, Human Rights Forum recited the
following couplet –
Chhupe baithe hain gulshan mein bahaarein lootne waale,
Kali ki aankh lag jaayegi, to kharo, tum na so jana.
Mr. Jeevan Kumar in his
presentation illustrated about the plight of old city
and how the crimes and communal riots are emanating from
it. There are 35 localities in the old city of
Hyderabad. They did not comply with the government
norms prior to construction. The Government and urban
local bodies have jaundiced eye towards them manifested
in neglect of vital service sector like Health and
Education in the forms non availability of proper
infrastructure and staff in health care and education.
Important recommendations of Ramanachari Report were
given a go by and
 only
existing Govt institutions like High Court and
Administrative Tribunal are on their way to getting
shifted elsewhere. There is deprivation of Banking
facilities, no LIC office, no old age homes, no
recreational centers and limited ATMs facilities. Banks
don’t come forward to offer loans and ghettoization of
communities is happening rapidly leading to accentuation
of mental blockades.
There is similarity in the
behaviors of both Hindu and Muslim communities in terms
of their orthodox practices of going to witchcrafts. He
cited the other examples like Kakara palli and
Gangavaram port where attempts were made to forcefully
evacuate the people depriving of their livelihoods
intertwined with the natural resources available there.
In all these systematic and cruel plans of the Govt
machinery executed with hand in glove with the multi
national companies, police fully cooperated with them
leaving the Human Rights issues of people to wind. For
all thess Human Rights violations, government did not
take action against the erring officials but rewarded
with promotions, which raised strong objections from the
side of police officials.
Dr. welcomed Mr. King Shuk
Nag to speak reciting the couplet –
Mujhe os junoon ki hai justajoo, jo chaman ko bakhsh de
rang o boo,
Jo naveed o fasle bahaar ho, mujhe os chaman ki talaash
hai;
Mujhe os sahar ki ho kya khushi, jo ho zulmaton se ghiri
huee,
Meri shaam e gham ko jo loot le, mujhe os sahar ki
talash hai.
Mr. King shuk Nag Resident
editor of The Times of India, speaking to the police
officers said that when Gujarat riots were going on he
was present in Ahmedabad and is a witness to the unfair
attitude of the Chief Minister Mr Narendera Modi towards
Muslim Community. Police is always in a dilemma either
to follow the instructions of their higher ups and
people in power or go by rule position. To do either of
these two things will entail in inviting the wrath. Both
ways they are defeated. For the wrong instructions of
higher ups, the axe falls on the lower level officers
not on the higher ups. In urban areas police officers
are involved in land settlements, for any deal, they
 will
have to circumvent the rule position to execute it. Very
often situations are communalized by the political
bosses for vested interests and when it goes out of
control then are handed over to police to set it right.
Instead, if from the beginning, free hand is given to
the police, it will be handled dexterously by the
police. Continuous on field duties being away from homes
make the behavior of police violent and as a result they
tend to over react with the people. One way
communication in the name of strict discipline gives no
scope to ventilate the issues of lower rung police
officers. Competitive postures of Jhanda politics by
both communities is creating wedge between the two
communities.
Ms Mah Jabeen of Phoenix,
NGO said there is no gender sensitivity in the whole of
police department. She felt anguish at the way foreign
Prime Ministers or other leaders come to India with
their own baggage of security arrangements and even
vehicles and frisk the Indian leaders in their country
frown her as if our police is not capable enough to
handle them. She dreams of a peaceful egalitarian
society where every body enjoying all the human rights.
She said track record of the police and their behavior
during communal riots is far from satisfactory as they
tend to become partisan. She quoted the dream of Ram
Manohar Lohia of a society without any police stations.
A.P has become the most violent state with increasing
State violence and other forms of violence.
In his concluding speak Dr.
Asghar Ali Engineer took the names of legendary police
officers like OP Bali, Suresh Khopade and Vibhuti Narayan
Roy with their exemplary behavior who took people
into confidence and they became his ears and eyes; he
exhorted all the higher officials to emulate them. It is
observed that in general at lower constabulary level,
police tend to have communal behavior than at higher IPS
officers. After Godhra bogy burning incident, for three
days police maintained peace in the town because of the
duty conscious Police Officer who was transferred and
only when orders from state Government were given, then
communal riots started. He quoted the faulty and
immature policy of late Rajiv Gandhi of appeasing
Muslims by overturning the order Supreme Court of Shah
Banu case and to appeasing Hindus got the Babri Masjid
unlocked opening a Pandora’s box and engulfing the
entire country into communal carnage. The decade of 1980
-90 was the decade of most communal riots. In most of
the riots, Police behavior was partisan against Muslims.
He said Bomb blast and
Terrorism is the offshoot of communal attacks and
reaction to injustices done during the riots by one
community against others and by the State. Ajmal Kasab
confessed that during his terrorist training, he was
shown repeatedly the CD of Gujarat riots and upon asking
didn’t he get the feeling that he was killing innocent
about his indiscriminate firing, he retorted back saying
when they killed innocent Muslims in Gujarat, when they
didn’t get such feeling, why should he get. First Bomb
blast came as a reaction to the Bombay riots. Further he
said that 3 Ds namely Democracy, Diversity and Dialogue
are important for promotion of pluralism, harmony and
peace.
In creation of Pakistan
opinion of only 4% of Muslims was taken. Those Muslims
who migrated to Pakistan were and are treated there as
second grade citizens and called as Mohajirs. Highly
regarded religious body Deoband‘s Jamait ul Ulama e Hind
bitterly opposed to creation of Pakistan. Local Punjabi
Muslims in Pakistan dominate the whole populace. Khan
Abdul Gaffar Khan didn’t like that after death his body
is buried on the soil of Pakistan and as per his desire
his body is laid to rest in Afghanistan.
Dr. Varma concluded his
presidential remarks with the following messages:
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Shakti se Bhakti Badi, Sookhe ko Hariyaye,
Shakti se jo na tare, Shraddha se Tar Jaye.
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Freedom without discipline is license,
Discipline without freedom is tyranny.
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Jalaao dil ko, ujaala karo khayalon mein,
har ek dil ki kasak ho tumhare naalon mein;
Andheri Raat hai, Uttho khuloos e dil le kar,
koi pucaar raha hai tumhein ujalon mein.
He read the following
message for the invitees:
“Open your
eyes and look for some man, or some work for the sake of
men, which needs a little time, a little friendship, a
little sympathy, a little sociability, a little human
toil – it is indeed in every nook and corner. Therefore
search and see if there is not some place where you may
invest you humanity.”
Mr. Mahesh Bhagawat, IPS.,
Joint Commissioner of Police, Administration said it is
the schooling where wrong history lessons were taught
and hatred is cultivated into the young minds towards
other community people. If really police shows the will,
the riots can be quelled in the beginning. He expressed
that the orientation given by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer is
useful and hoped that the police officers will make use
of the learning they carry from this workshop. He
expressed thanks to Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer and other
speakers of the workshop and also thanked to COVA for
organizing this workshop.
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