Some Trouble with Cows. Beth Roy

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       Politics in Panipur

      Altaf-uddin was one of the advantaged few, a local man whose father before him had been the elected chairman of the Union and who had himself succeeded to that position in the Pakistani period. In 1971, a quarter-century after Pakistan was formed, the Bengalis rebelled against exploitation and formed the independent nation of Bangladesh. Throughout these changes, Altaf remained in office. His position fell somewhere between that of county chairman and ward boss; his influence cannot adequately be described by the duties of his elected office. It was he who represented local wants to higher authority. He was the man on the spot with access to power, the liaison between ordinary folk and the distant and mysterious government. That relationship had remained constant through two generations and three eras-British, Pakistani, Bangladeshi-and through many changes of government. Altaf was a force to be reckoned with.

      He lost no time in letting me know how central his role in the riot had been:

      So at ten o'clock in the night, the Hindus came to me. First came the Hindus, then came the Muslims. I told both parties to stop thinking about rioting; “I'll take whatever steps are necessary to prevent a riot.” But I was afraid that there might be a riot, in spite of my warning, because I knew that Hindus were already out recruiting other Hindus. So I informed the police station about this development, and asked them to send some forces to come here.

      The police staff came to my house an hour before dawn. Then I took them to that locality.…I saw many people gathering already. Communal feelings had been aroused. Neither Hindus nor Muslims could be stopped.

      No question about Altaf's importance: both Hindus and Muslims called on him for help. Realizing, however, that he could not control the tempers of his people, he performed the prestigious task of calling in the police. They acknowledged his centrality by assembling first at his house and using him as their guide to the community. Altaf identified his role precisely: he was the connecting link between villagers and authorities.

      He was also the only local player carrying a gun, a fact of symbolic significance in a number of later accounts, as well as his own:

      I first went to the Hindus' house. I had a gun with me. I asked them to hand over the cow to me. In the meantime, I asked the police officer to stay with the Muslims, to prevent them from doing anything suddenly.

      Wait a minute: First I asked the policeman to go to the Hindus' house while I stayed back with the Muslims. But the officer said, “No, I'll stay with the Muslims, you go to the Hindus.”

      It was not immediately clear to me why Altaf'stopped himself to emphasize this seemingly trivial point. As he went on with his story, however, it seemed to me he was underscoring the courage he had needed to confront the rage of the opposing community. He was also suggesting once again that his position was that of nonpartisan leader of the entire community. Perhaps, too, he was letting me know that his presence at the Hindus' compound was innocent, lest I suspect his complicity in what soon followed:

      It was early in the morning, but there were already four or five hundred Muslims gathered. So I went to the Hindus, and they gave me the cows.

      I was taking the cows back, when all of a sudden I saw the Muslims attack the Hindus' house and set the haystack on fire. At that time, I was inside a Hindu house; I quickly left, afraid that they could harm me, too, because I am a Muslim.

      I came to the Muslim side and yelled to the police officer, “Why couldn't you stop them?” It had been his choice to stay back with the Muslims. After that I took the Muslims back to their side. Because there was a fire in the haystack, the Hindus couldn't stay silent. They, too, started to come into the field with their weapons, dhal katra [weapons of war]. I was running from one side to the other….

      By ten o'clock in the morning, there were almost ten thousand people, altogether ten thousand on two sides. Now I no longer have enough courage to go to the Hindu side, because there are many unknown Hindus coming from other places. They won't recognize me, so they might strike me. My identity as a Muslim was quite visible. I wore this long kurta and toupee and beard. I was all along asking the Muslims to stop. But they wouldn't listen to me.

      Who started the fire in the haystack was a point of some controversy among subsequent informants. Altaf's story placed responsibility on the Muslims' side, but his fiercest blame was for the police officer. He had chosen to stay with the Muslims and yet had failed to control them. It is not clear whether Altaf meant to suggest complicity, or simple incompetence. Certainly he was telling me that he himself was not responsible, since the police officer had directed him to the Hindus. In any case, once the Muslims moved, the Hindus, in his version, had no choice but to retaliate.

      With the fire Altaf retreated to the side of his co-religionists: “I quickly left, afraid that they [the Hindus] could harm me, too, because I am a Muslim.” Still, he continued to run from side to side, until the numbers grew so large he feared that his reputation could no longer protect him. Too many among the mob were strangers. All the symbols of his person—his beard, kurta, and cap—identified him as Muslim, not as chairman. His influence over the rioters was at an end.

      What Altaf described here was a clear point of demarcation in the progress of the riot. Local authority had lost its meaning as the crowd grew to include people from other localities. No longer was the fight about particular issues; it had become engulfed in something else, something that drew on more universal passions. It had become a “communal riot.”

      The Namasudras

      When we finally left Basantibala's house, we headed to the homestead of Sunil Mondal, a Namasudra farmer and a representative of the third force in the drama. Our boat left the river and took us through the paddy fields. Now and then it became entangled in lilies or beached on a rise. But the boatman, with considerable lament and heroic effort, literally pulled us through. At last we landed on a steep and muddy bank at a homestead. We were still in Panipur Union, at a village called Shirachi. We walked past outbuildings and through yards filled with jute-green, cut jute in piles; jute poles bunched teepee-style to dry; jute fiber in huge skeins. Everywhere women and men were working. The women wore sarees, short and wrapped around their breasts, with no blouses. In the parting of their hair was the vermilion mark. One young woman was arranging food in front of a statue of Lakshmi, the elegant Hindu goddess of wealth.

      At the third or fourth courtyard we came upon an older man, short, muscular, wearing a lungi hiked to his knees; he moved with efficient energy to finish his task of arranging jute skeins in the sun, and then he ushered us into a tiny outer room off the yard. The room was bare except for two wooden chairs and a bench, a large clay pot containing paddy, and a basket filled with some sort of seed, probably jute. The floor was covered with the beautiful, curved patterns of mud generally used to keep village homes tidy. Balancing the tape recorder on my lap, I asked Sunil about his farm. He began by bemoaning the declining fertility of the land. In his childhood, he said:

      Crops СКАЧАТЬ