Tribute to Asghar Ali Engineer on his 10th death anniversary

On 1st or 2nd December 1992, I was in Mumbai for a day or two to speak on the Bhagalpur riots, which had taken place on 24th October 1989. I had gone there to request documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan to make a film on the Bhagalpur riots. He said that today, except for BJP and Shiv Sena, all other labour leaders were meeting to prepare for a program to be held in Mumbai against what was going to happen in Ayodhya on 6th December. You should go to that meeting to speak on the Bhagalpur riots. So I went.

There was a meeting in some hall in Bandra or Parle. I saw almost all the labour leaders under one roof except BJP and Shiv Sena. And the meeting was being presided over by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer. Although I was familiar with his writings. But the first time I saw him in person was a week before the 1992 Babri demolition.

So in the meeting, many suggestions were coming up on what we could do in Mumbai on 6 December. The main suggestions were to form a human chain and the second was to hold a public meeting at Chowpatty or Shivaji Park. Anand told Asgar Ali ji that I want to speak on the Bhagalpur riots. So he immediately said yes and asked me to speak.

So I said that “riots are not a new thing in independent India. And no one knows this better than the Speaker of this House. Because the biggest work of his life is going to find out the reasons behind these riots. And he has published many reports on this.

But why has this situation come upon you people today? What will you do on 6 December in Mumbai for so long? This is being discussed. The age of your labour movement is more than my age. But because you people did not do anything with them in the labour movement apart from economic demands like bonus, salary hike, and some other facilities, today you people can do any program symbolically on 6 December in Mumbai. But whatever will happen in Ayodhya will be neither past nor future.

Because while coming from Bhagalpur to Mumbai, I have seen passengers in all the trains going with cloth strips tied on their foreheads saying “Mandir Wahi Banayenge” (We will build the temple there), and people arranging for them khichdi, tea, samosas, water etc. at all the railway stations. And the most surprising thing is probably that there were railway employees from your union too. Who were standing on the railway track to put ballast or for some maintenance. And were shouting slogans like “Build the temple there and come back successful”.

As far as I can observe, those kar sevaks included people from your own union. Because throughout your life you people have struggled for the economic issues of the workers. But since their cultural side was completely ignored, today they joined the temple movement. And I am seeing this situation in more or less quantity in the whole country. On the question of faith, all our unions, parties, organizations of different areas and even our families are not untouched by this. We can organize any symbolic program anywhere to entertain our hearts. But the process of communal polarization has been terrifying in the last few years. Bhagalpur is an example of this. After independence, there were many riots but all were limited to the streets and neighborhoods. But this is the riot of Bhagalpur. Which was spread in almost the entire area of Bhagalpur Commissionerate. And in which thousands of looms, which were the source of livelihood of Muslims and with which they used to weave silk cloth, have been burnt and destroyed. And this act has been done in more than 300 villages by a mob of thousands of people with traditional weapons. More than 3000 people have been killed. And except for a hundred and twenty five, all of them are Muslims. I do not understand how people who have been working, eating and living together for hundreds of years, generation after generation, can kill each other like this? That means, despite completing half a century of independence, this poison remains hidden somewhere in the hearts of the people. And it happens sometimes during the Shila Puja, or in any religious event, procession, Ganpati, Durga, Kali, Eid, Moharram, or on the occasion of any festival and throughout the year, something or the other keeps happening on cow, pig and many such occasions and inappropriately.

We have been working for the last 50-60 years on issues related to people’s common life. But have you ever wondered what our own cadre thinks about communal, caste and women? Bhagalpur is its manifestation.

The most worrying thing is that our society has been divided. And after seeing the horrific nature of the Bhagalpur riots, I have come to the conclusion that for the next 50 years, the focus of politics in our country will be only and only communal politics. No matter how much we work on issues ranging from water, forest, land, employment to inflation, displacement and economic questions, our Indian politics has become limited to communalism only.

After the mosque was demolished by the so-called kar sevaks on 6 December 1992, there were riots all over the country. And the management of Larsen & Toubro and Port Trust of India in Mumbai had issued a notice on their gate on 7 December 1992 that “If any worker from the minority community wants to come to work, he will come to work at his own risk and the management will not take responsibility for him.” And no worker union came forward for that. This happened within a week of my saying this.” It means that the confidence of our labour movement has ended. The same situation has happened with Dalits, Adivasis and Bahujan Samaj. I am saying and writing this continuously. And now the situation is even more frightening. For the last 11 years, this country has been an undeclared Hindu nation. And according to the fatwa of Guru Golwalkar, people of minority community will have to live their lives on the goodwill of Hindus. It means second grade citizens, which is what Hitler did with the Jews in Germany 100 years ago. And Hitler is the ideal of Sangh Parivar. Sangh has been teaching its followers to follow in his footsteps for the last hundred years. And the result of that is that people like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Adityanath, Vijay Shah are ruling the country today.

After the meeting Asgar Ali hugged me and said “Hey brother where were you all these days? We are meeting after a long time.” He took me to his house. And after feeding me he came to drop me at the station. Since then we have been in constant touch for 25 years. He established All India Secular Forum. And I myself have been its convenor and one of the helpers in forming its units in Maharashtra, Bengal, Bihar, Delhi and Gujarat. In those twenty years there is hardly any incident that happened in the country and the world and his call did not come early in the morning. Today for the last 10 years I am missing him. Because now most of the anti communal work has been taken over by professionals. And their work is project oriented. Just like in government jobs they do use the word comrade. But the meaning of the word comrade is not visible anywhere.

Asghar Ali was different. He had mastered his subject. And he too formed an NGO and carried out his work. But there was a sense of belonging in it. He was a true comrade. He was a personal friend of mine. He was one of the people who came to me immediately after my younger son met with a road accident. When I had a heart attack, he immediately rushed me to the hospital. This is a great support system for a worker in public life. Which is no longer the case. It is becoming like a bureaucracy. And this situation has caused a lot of damage to the organisation of change. And this is also a reason for our secular movement to fade. When the workers are servants and the people running the NGO are the masters, the government, this is the story of most of the NGOs in India.

Well, now this government has cancelled most of the NGOs. And they are only supporting the NGOs of the Sangh Parivar. This is a matter of concern.

But on this pretext, the NGOs need to think introspectively and improve themselves. Some of them were fraudulent too. And there were a lot of irregularities in the accounts. I hope they will try to improve themselves. In 50 years of public life, I have seen very few NGOs like Asghar Ali.

Asghar Ali was born in the Shia Ismaili Dawoodi Bohra community. His father also wanted him to work for religion. But he went to Indore to study engineering. His room partner was a practitioner of Marxism. He told me that I read all those books in my hostel instead of going home during one of the holidays. After completing my engineering studies, I worked for 20 years in Mumbai Corporation. And along with that, he used to write for Times of India and various newspapers. Which I used to read regularly. I was familiar with his name from his writings even before 1992.

And the most important thing is that people like Hamid Dalwai (Dalwai was a Sunni Muslim) have also worked as a reformer of the Dawoodi Bohra community by risking their lives. Syedna Saheb, who is the supreme authority of the Dawoodi Bohra community and is also the religious Guru, has to be paid money at the time of birth, marriage and death. And every Bohra member has to give three to four percent of his income. What can be said about Syedna Saheb’s wealth? He owns palace-like houses and other luxurious things in important cities across the country and abroad and is the owner of immense wealth.

After independence, despite the existence of the Indian Constitution, this has been going on for how many years on the lines of Khap Panchayats? When Asgar Ali Sahib raised the question, he was first explained, then when he did not agree, he was threatened, intimidated, attacked and finally he had to bear social boycott till his death. There was a lot of uproar over the burial of his wife after her death and also about his own burial 10 years ago. Ultimately, he was buried in a Sunni burial ground.

During his lifetime, many times fanatics made lethal attacks on him. Once, a flight from Bhopal to Mumbai had to wait for a long time at Indore airport. And a heart patient needed to reach Mumbai as soon as possible. But the plane was stopped. And no other reason was known. So a gentleman boarded the flight from Indore with his security. Then the other passengers got angry and started expressing their objection to the airline company, one of whom was Asghar Ali.

No one else was told anything. But the security guards of that special guest started kicking and punching Asghar Ali ji in the moving flight. And immediately after landing at Mumbai airport, they kicked him out like a football ball and brought him out. They were Syedna’s bodyguards.

And all this was happening in front of Syedna Saheb. Now the matter did not end there. In the evening of the same day, they broke into his Shantakruj house and destroyed his TV, computer and the books he had collected from all over the world, including very rare copies of the Quran from 37 different countries. But no action has been taken on this.

The next day a delegation was going to the ministry regarding the attack on Asghar Ali. Before them, Syedna’s people, led by a BJP MLA named Raj Purohit, were returning after meeting the minister. And till date nothing has happened regarding that attack. I am reminded of the friendship between Jina and Savarkar.

This is an example of how Hindu-Muslim fundamentalism works together. Bal Thackeray and the current Prime Minister are the people who personally meet Syedna Saheb. The Prime Minister did attend a big Dawoodi Jamaat function in Indore, but the Prime Minister, who is an expert in publicly rejecting Islamic caps, wore a Bohra cap in the Indore function. And to support the Waqf Bill, I have seen photos in the newspapers of some Shia community people meeting Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. And due to the depletion of water in some parts of Dal Lake in Kashmir, the Central Government is specially providing facilities to the Shias and settling them on that land for doing homestay business.

The entire last part of Asghar Ali sahab’s life was spent fighting communal bigotry. And in this, despite disgusting things like boycott and life threatening attacks, he continued with his work till his last breath. And the All India Secular Forum that he started is almost defunct after his death. Whatever comradeship I have with him in the 25 years of fight against communalism, I feel that the right tribute to him on his death anniversary or birth anniversary would be to save the flame he lit and to make it bigger.

Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal