On 2nd November, a group of us visited Bawana in north west Delhi to observe the proceedings of the mahapanchayat held there. The embers of the violence in the resettlement colony of Trilokpuri were still smouldering and Bawana, where a taziya (Muharram procession)has been taking place since 2004, seemed to be on the verge of becoming the latest addition to the urban violence.
On our way to Bawana, we chatted with our autorickshaw driver. The Aam Aadmi Party is useless, he said; it was given a chance, but blew it. I don’t want to talk politics, he added, but Narendra Modi is a good person. “He means business and wants to do things for the country. I don’t really like politics or want to talk about it,” he repeated and trailed off.
Rural-urban relationsWhat was once Bawana village has, over the last decade or so, transformed into a bustling urban locality. In addition to government infrastructure projects, such as the 6,000-acre Bawana-Narela industrial area, it also hosts one of Delhi’s best-known resettlement colonies that houses former residents of slums and bastis . A short distance from the sprawling Rohini sub-city and home to some of Delhi’s best roads, Bawana is also at the centre of another life of the city — where older caste and ethnic affiliations meet new processes of the market and party politics.
While urban Bawana may have swallowed its village heart, the rural continues to meet the urban in complex ways. In the current environment, a significant aspect of the rural-urban interaction in Bawana is the consolidation of new identities and new feelings in ways that are startlingly different from the past. These in turn alter everyday relations between people who, otherwise, have lived as neighbours and co-workers.
The mahapanchayat was held at a marriage hall in the heart of Bawana. The organisers announced that 25-30 villages were represented and villagers had come of their own free will. The event was scheduled for 4 p.m. and crowds began to gather half an hour earlier. There was a steady inflow of young men and these easily formed the bulk of the gathering. They came on motorcycles, in cars, buses and tractors. As the crowd built up, the master of ceremonies shouted slogans about protecting Mother India and the cow, and called upon a local singer to entertain the gathering. The performer sang of the sanctity of village bonds, having respect for elders, protecting women, and the attack on Hindu culture by aliens. The gathering — about 700-800 men and three women — broke into frequent applause. Soon after, a procession of about 50 slogan-shouting young men entered the venue, many waving the national flag. The mahapanchayat was now called to order and a village elder was nominated as head of the gathering. We will not talk about politics, the master of ceremonies said; we are simply here to defend our ways of life. The “other” community, he continued, believes in violence and we are capable of answering their violence with our own show of strength. Why don’t we push them in front of running trains and into canals to match their violence, he asked to a great deal of laughter and applause. Various politicians and local leaders, some protected by armed guards, pledged to support “the will of the people.” The taziya procession, the mahapanchayat resolved, must be stopped or, various speakers asserted, there would be terrible consequences. Some young men distributed flyers that said that if the population of Hindus was to diminish, the country risked partition. We do not wish to talk politics, the announcer intoned in the background.
Hyper-masculine spaceAs we departed the marriage hall that had taken on the form of a hyper-masculine space — the only woman on the dais was presented as a village leader but was not invited to speak — there was another announcement: should the taziya procession not be cancelled, a “secret” message outlining further action would be circulated through mobile phone to those in the gathering who had volunteered their numbers to the organisers. Outside the venue we ran into some locals who were, however, more than willing to be open about their thinking. When we were ushered into the office of a local residents’ group, an elderly man told us that this was all a plan to divide the community for political benefit, and that Hindus and Muslims had been happy neighbours in the area. This is all a plan by the Congress, he continued, to block the “Modi wave.” He showed us photocopies of a letter signed by some local Muslim leaders to the administration urging it to cancel permission for the taziya procession. The local Muslims, we were told, do not want the procession. It is the Muslims from the Bawana resettlement colony that insist on it, and the Congress has encouraged it for vote-bank politics. He did not wish to talk politics and this was not a political event, the old man insisted.
So, what is politics at a time when no one wishes to talk politics? First, it is the task of identifying the goals of organised party politics with the politics of everyday life. Despite the fact that the organisers of the taziya procession had agreed to change its route, some groups have been assiduously working to propagate the idea that the only a show of force from beleaguered Hindus would put an end to it. This contributes to the idea of a community whose ways are under threat and the making of a “sensitive” area.
Second, at urban peripheries, older and economically better-off groups have become involuntary neighbours to newer arrivals. The Jat-dominated Bawana township is right next to the resettlement colony with its mixed population. There is no lack of interested groups, of all political shades, who seek to portray this situation in terms of “threats to our life-worlds from outsiders.” Our young men, the mahapanchayat organisers repeatedly announced, will happily spill their blood for the sake of their traditions.
Finally, it is the young men at the gathering we need to think about: how do new forms of urban masculinity manifest in power games beyond local communities? How is masculinity deployed to reinforce community identity? Who stands to benefit from the exhortations to young men to protect the honour of their women and community?
Trilokpuri shows us that no one does.
(Sanjay Srivastava is professor of sociology, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and author of Entangled Urbanism, Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon .)
