Muzaffarnagar riots: Muslim anger rises against Mulayam and SP

Amid reports that Muslims have fled their homes in Muzaffarnagar, senior Muslim leaders of the Samajwadi Party – the community has long been considered a core votebank for the party – have now begun to openly castigate the Akhilesh Yadav government. The Uttar Pradesh government failed to control a spate of violence that left nearly 40 people dead in this district. Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Saharanpur, Bijnor – these are parts of the large communal cauldron that is Western Uttar Pradesh, each with a population of Muslims between 35 and 45 per cent, in a state where the overall Muslim population is about 21 per cent. According to Muslim leaders in Samajwadi Party, the fact that this large constituency now fears for its safety, is a clear sign of where their prospects may be headed in 2014 despite the pro-Muslim stance. [caption id=“attachment_1103883” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Akhilesh Yadav. Reuters.[/caption] On the first day of the national executive meeting of the Samajwadi Party, which the party’s most prominent Muslim leader Azam Khan skipped in a huff, it was Maharashtra unit chief Abu Asim Azmi who spoke for his colleagues, in no uncertain terms, against Akhilesh. “Don’t give us laptops, unemployment allowance etc. Give us security. All our good deeds have been washed away by these riots,” said Azmi, according to a report in The Indian Express. “Members loudly applauded Azmi as he urged the party to go back to what he said was its Muslim-friendly image when Mulayam Singh Yadav was chief minister,” the report said. In the villages where violence had spread over the weekend, there are reports that Muslims who fled are still to return. Among those who did return to Kawaal village in Muzaffarnagar was Saleem, father of Shahnawaz, one of the three youngsters whose killing on August 27 had sparked off some of the violence. Speaking to The Indian Express, Saleem said, ““We were very scared, so we left and stayed with relatives in another district.” Saleem returned with one other family member – the rest are still to return. Earlier, several other Muslim leaders in the state expressed their anger and disappointment at the Akhilesh government too. Bareilly cleric Tauqeer Raza Khan, who Akhilesh had appointed as advisor to the State Handloom Corporation, threatened to resign. He said his support to the Samajwadi Party, including for the 2014 polls, could continue only if a commission is formed to probe various riots since Akhilesh took over. In a report in The Hindu, a Muslim elder named Inam Elahi Sabri ‘Pahalwan’, calls it a betrayal by Mulayam Singh Yadav’s party. “I have spent eight days at his home in Safai. I forced the entire qaum in this area to vote for SP. And look, this is what they gave us,” he said, surveying the street. “It is the biggest dhoka [betrayal].” Others also said that if the SP believes that a frightened Muslim population would vote for the Samajwadi Party in the hope of being protected from aggressive Hindutva forces in the future, then the party has not accounted for the fact that the community has changed significantly in the years since Mulayam was chief minister. Socio-economic progress meant they demanded better services from the government, they said, adding that poll-time polarisation would not guarantee the SP any votes.