The first trickle of Muslim families that fled Uttarakhand’s Purola town under the shadow of threats made by Right-wing groups three weeks ago have started returning to the city, this newspaper reported on Tuesday. This presents a renewed chance for the local administration to redeem itself after it failed miserably to safeguard the life and liberty of these families the first time around, and to set an example of law-and-order that encourages every family that was forced to leave the town under a fog of communal tensions to come back and resume their lives. The sequence of events in Purola over the last few weeks underlined the dissonance between the word of the law (and pronouncements of the Supreme Court) and the actual policies and tactics employed by local officials, and state governments on the ground. Neither when tensions first flared up after the alleged abduction bid of a minor girl on May 26, nor when local groups used the situation to fan communal passions and issue boycott calls, did the local administration step in and take decisive steps. Instead, elements with vested interests were allowed to rampage through town and attack shops and establishments owned by Muslim traders. The fringe actors were no doubt emboldened by unmistakable signs that divisive sentiments were on the rise — rallies against Muslims were taken out in the towns of Barkot and Chinyalisaur, and the villages of Naugaon, Damta, Barnigad, Netwar and Bhatwari — and discredited conspiracy theories around interfaith relationships were finding wider acceptance, even among the higher echelons of the political establishment. The chief minister himself hinted at a conspiracy to convert women and steal land. In the end, tensions ebbed only after the Uttarakhand high court stepped in.
The return of some families to their homes and businesses should be a sobering moment, and a reminder that the social fabric torn apart by hate speech takes time to be stitched back together. The administration must redouble its efforts to assure residents that the law-and-order machinery will protect all its citizens, forestall any future efforts to drive a wedge between communities and must heed the apex court’s directives on immediate registration of first information reports (FIRs) and investigation in hate speech cases. No modern society can tolerate calls to boycott a particular community. The episode at Purola showed that local communal disturbances can snowball. It cannot be allowed to be repeated.
