On May 27, Muslims kept their shops shuttered, fearing the Hindutva brigade’s protest rally scheduled for the afternoon. Through the next 48 hours, many Muslims left Purola, for yet another rally was announced for May 29. On that day, to the chants of Jai Sri Ram, the Hindutva brigade tore down flex banners of shops either owned or rented by Muslims. They shouted slogans promising to free Purola of love jihadis. 

Last week, Nazi style, the Hindutva brigade marked shops of Muslims with an X sign, in black, and pasted posters on their shutters, declaring that these must be vacated before June 15, the day a mahapanchayat is scheduled, or else waqt, or time, will determine the consequences. Hindutva leaders also called on landlords to get shops they had rented out to Muslims vacated. Some agreed.

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Purola’s Muslims can be divided into three categories on the basis of the number of years they have lived there. The first category comprises families who have been living here for three generations. The second is made of first-generation migrants who have been residing in the town for five to 15 years. Migrant labour constitutes the third category. They have not been threatened with expulsion as Purola’s Hindus need them for back-breaking tasks.

I spoke to Muslims in the first and second categories. In tremulous voices, steadily rising as they grew angrier, they described the decades through which they had lived in Purola, in houses they built. A Std XII student confessed she was too scared to have a good night’s sleep. They said Purola betrayed them although they adjusted to the dominant Hindu culture—refraining, for instance, from constructing a mosque. Why? One of them answered, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

During this year’s Ramzan, the devout gathered on the terrace of a prominent retailer’s house for Taraweeh, a special prayer offered during the month of fasting. This is one of the principal grouses of the Hindutva brigade, which is opposed to Muslims publicly displaying their religiosity, now a countrywide trend. 

Now, the ironies: All Muslims here belong to the Pasmanda category. There is not a single upper-caste Muslim here, residents say. Not even Ubaid Khan, whose surname is an identity marker of the Pathans. Ubaid belongs to the Mansoori biradri, a Pasmanda community. 

No less ironical is that a large number of Muslims here are BJP members. They joined the party in the hope they would be protected from Hindutva hotheads. One such Muslim is Zahid Malik, who is the BJP’s Uttarkashi district minority cell president. He became so anxious at the hounding of Muslims that he had to be hospitalised. Zahid has decided not to return to Purola. The landlord of Salim Ahmad, president of the BJP’s minority cell, Purola Mandal, was asked to vacate his shop. He is in the process of shifting to Dehradun.

Local BJP leaders have not reached out to Muslims who are too scared to open their shops until the mahapanchayat is held. Nor has the BJP guaranteed protection to those who fled Purola in case they choose to return. Muslims who do not have properties there are mulling shifting to a town where their community has a substantial presence. Their trauma shows becoming a BJP member and being a Pasmanda make no difference to their fate during communal conflicts.

Yet hope is symbolised by 80-year-old advocate Dharam Singh Negi, whom Hindutva leaders asked to turn out his Muslim tenant. Singh told them, “If you tell me what crime he has committed, I will ask him to vacate the premises overnight. Where would he go if I turn him out? He and his family have been living here for decades!” Advocate Ravinder Singh Rawat persuaded his tenant not to flee Purola. Rawat said, “They are Indian citizens, not terrorists. To turn them out would be against the constitution. Those who pasted the posters are cowards, for they did it under the cover of night.” It is moot whether they will not wilt under Hindutva pressure.

Muslims are aghast that the community is being targeted for the alleged criminal act committed by one among them, and that their Pasmanda identity and allegiance to the BJP have failed to insulate them from the Hindutva brigade’s manufactured fury. Truly, the BJP’s Pasmanda rhetoric is full of sweet words and promises signifying, in reality, nothing.

The writer is a senior journalist

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