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The Batla House effect in Azamgarh

Venkitesh Ramakrishnan

The widespread hurt and anger among large segments of the Muslim population over the September 19 , 2008, Batla House encounter in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar will impact on the elections in eastern Uttar Pradesh. In local parlance, it is called the Batla House effect, something that mobilised a sizeable segment of the Muslim community under new organisations such as the Ulema Council (UC) and Peace Party of India (PPI).

Both the UC and the PPI espouse a particular brand of secularism that not only opposes the Hindutva politics Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but also that of mainstream parties such as the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Over the past six months, the UC has highlighted the plight of those it terms as the “Batla House victims of state terrorism.” It took a trainload of protesters to Delhi during the last Parliament session and held a huge demonstration raising this issue.

According to UC leader Tahir Mahdani, the Muslim minority has been repeatedly let down by the leadership of all the secular parties. “For 44 years since Independence, the upper caste leadership of the Congress took the minority community for a ride. Those such as the SP and the BSP, with non-upper caste leaderships, also did the same after 1991. This serial betrayal has led sincere secularists within the community and outside to come together and look for alternatives,” he told The Hindu.

The UC has put up candidates in seven constituencies, including Azamgarh, the constituency to which most of those killed and captured during the Batla House encounter belonged. The UC has fielded candidates in Lalganj, Jaunpur, Machli Shahahar, Ambedkar Nagar, Kanpur and Lucknow. The PPI has candidates in Khalilabad, Deoria, Varanasi, Basti and Gonda.

Popular response

The UC’s Azamgarh candidate Javed Akthar and PPI’s Khalilabad candidate Rajesh Singh have evoked such a popular response that supporters of the BSP and the SP are complaining that these organisations will ultimately help only the BJP. Both seats were won by the BSP in the last election.

The workers of the UC and the PPI brush aside this argument as inconsequential.

“What is the big difference between a victory for the BJP, the Congress, the BSP or the SP? When the Batla House encounter happened under the Congress regime, did any of the parties or their leaders come forward with real, concrete help? All they did was to make sympathetic noises,” argues Khalid Mohammed, a young PPI activist from Basti.

According to Tahir Mahdani, the SP and the BSP leaderships are trying to create apprehensions within the minority community by citing a possible BJP gain.

“We are winning this seat and all right-thinking people are with us. With each passing day, we are gaining ground even in Hindu-dominated villages,” he says.

The young activists of the UC and the PPI are on a high, particularly in the Azamgarh and Khalilabad constituencies. However, a section of Muslim elders were apprehensive about “the final effect that the fervent enthusiasm of the youngsters” would create. “It could well lead to a resurgence of Hindutva communalism in the region,” says a retired Muslim Professor of Sociology, who did not want to be named.

Obviously, the Batla House effect is too strong to be taken on frontally. Whether they like it or not the effect is becoming a greater threat to secular parties electorally.

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