Deepening divide

THE war between Hindu and Muslim communalists continues in the Jammu region, and the towns of Rajouri and Poonch remain its most intense battlefields. The month of March has seen communal riots break out in both towns, and there are signs that the situat ion may worsen. Many people expect a dramatic escalation in terrorist violence this summer, eroding what little remains of the region's syncretic traditions.

Photographs of the burning of the Koran by Hindu fundamentalists in New Delhi appeared in Rajouri newspapers in mid-March. At Friday prayers at the town's main mosque on March 16, local residents decided to hold a peaceful protest the next day. Unlike in the Kashmir Valley, where protests were led by far-Right figures like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, those in Rajouri did not have a political shape. Muslims decided to close their shops as a mark of protest, and no mass protests were planned. The protests were peaceful in small towns and villages too.

Trouble broke out when a small group of students took out a procession and threw stones at some businesses owned by Hindus. Muslim leaders intervened, putting an end to this early confrontation. Another group of students, however, marched through Hindu-d ominated Jawahar Nagar, shouting slogans against the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. If residents are to believed, there were slogans in favour of Pakistan too. That claim is denied by Muslims who say they were present at the spot.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Hindus in Jawahar Nagar attacked the protesters. The police intervened with teargas shells. As the students fled the area, a small group of Muslims beat up a Hindu bystander.

Prompt action against this group proved enough to prevent the prospect of Hindu retaliation the next day. It took just one day's curfew to cool down the town. But just as things seemed to calm down, news came on March 23 about the burning of the Koran by activists of the Hindu Bachao Sangharsh Samiti in Amritsar and Patiala. The Samiti's cadre were also reported to have thrown pieces of pork into an Amritsar mosque. The residents of Rajouri again set up their barricades.

In Poonch, Hindu and Muslim revanchists ended up waging battles with stones, and curfew was imposed.

TERRORIST violence lies at the centre of this communal feuding. On March 14, the mutilated bodies of two Sikhs, Mohan Singh and Lakhbir Singh, were discovered near Poonch. Both had disappeared five days earlier after they chose to walk to their villages when the driver of the truck they had hitched a ride on refused to travel further in the dark. Hindus and Sikhs living in Poonch inferred, probably correctly, that the two had been killed by terrorists in the area. That became a pretext to attack Muslims in the town. There were no deaths, but the ground had been laid for a cycle of communal attacks and counter-attacks.

It is not that such violence is new in the region. Last September, a riot broke out in Rajouri when a shot by a Muslim student playing football at the local college hit a Hindu student watching from the sidelines. Abuse and brawling followed, and large g roups of people gathered, throwing stones. The police were forced to use live ammunition and four people died.

The incident came less than a month after six Hindus were killed by terrorists at Kot Dhara village. As reprisal, activists of the Hindu Right attacked B.A. Runyal, District Commissioner of Rajouri who was a Muslim, and set fire to his car.

Such incidents, as well as personal feuds that were given a communal colour, have become alarmingly routine in the region since the mid-1990s.

HINDU revanchists try to obscure the fact that Muslims are the principal victims of violence in the region. Less than six weeks before the most recent riot in Rajouri, 15 Muslim villagers were executed by terrorists at Kot Charwal as a punishment for the ir assisting the Army. When 16 policemen and ancillary staff were killed on the night of March 1 at Gambhir Mughlan in Rajouri, few people noticed that they had gone to the area to investigate the killing of two Muslims. Mohammad Bashir, a newly-elected panchayat member, and his friend Abdul Majid were executed by terrorists for their pro-India affiliations. On the night of March 11, Munshi Khan, a Muslim panchayat leader, was killed at Mendhar, while Habib Gujjar, the father of one-time terrorist Raj M ohammad, was shot dead at Darhal in retaliation for the surrender of his son.

All this should have been the basis for building communal solidarity in Rajouri and Poonch. But Muslim communal politicians, like their Hindu counterparts, seem determined to divide people, and not unite them. In the months to come, the friction is certa in to increase. The ongoing ceasefire has meant that the Army has slowed down offensive operations, leaving vast areas around Buffliaz, the Kalaban forests, Mohra Bacchai, Hari Buddha and Fazalabad in Poonch, Pathana Tir in Mendhar, and the Manjakote, Fa tehpur Enclosure and Gambhir Mughalan in Rajouri vulnerable to the depredations of large groups of terrorists.

Without a secular political leadership, Rajouri's residents, Hindu and Muslim, are vulnerable to the tactics of deliberate provocation.