‘Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai’ Exposes Our Government’s Not-So-New Divide and Rule Strategies
By: Keerthi Gaddam
Tags: India, Fascism, Student Protest, Politics, Politics And Protest

‘Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai’ Exposes Our Government’s Not-So-New Divide and Rule Strategies

It’s only when we hear the unvarnished voices of the oppressed do we know the real story behind their oppression.

‘Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai’ is a heart-wrenching, eye-opening, extensively researched documentary film on the communal riots that took place in Western Uttar Pradesh in September 2013. Directed by Nakul Singh Sawhney, the film was released in January 2015.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdTSff1ZElc (Full movie available on Netflix)

Initially, the screening was blocked in Delhi University by ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad — right-wing Indian student organization affiliated to RSS and BJP) who protested its screening by attacking the professors and filmmakers, claiming the film promoted anti-nationalism. In response to this, 200 protest screenings of the film were held across the country. “Stop us at one place, we’ll spring up at a hundred,” Nakul Singh unapologetically proclaimed.

Nakul Singh Sawhney graduated from Kirori Mal College, Delhi University. He is an Indian filmmaker whose work extensively revolved around social justice, communalism, honor killing, and labor rights. He runs Chalachitra Abhiyaan, a film and media collective that produces a range of video formats like documentary films, news features, interviews, and live broadcasts. It focuses on making heard the voices of the local marginalized communities of Western Uttar Pradesh, whose voices are often suppressed by the mainstream media due to political and corporate influences or because of gender, class, religious, and caste biases. In Chalachitra Abhiyaan, they are given an opportunity where they can step forward, tell their stories, and demand their rights.

‘Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai’ unyieldingly shows the extent to which political parties will go in order to harness votes. From disrupting peace and instigating communal rivalry to directly encouraging and funding violence against one another. This documentary film is a collection of interviews, a hard look at the causes and aftermath of the riots in the eyes of the locals affected by these riots. The Director did not contribute his views but simply showed. Showed how political parties plotted one religious community against another, showed the lives of those displaced by the riots and the true horrors they witnessed upon their own family members, showed the views of the extremist Hindus and the views of the women whose ‘safety’ was falsely used by guileful political leaders to plot one community against the other.

In-between these interviews, there is silence — accompanied by small uncensored clips of the aftermath of the destruction. The silence is almost as loud as the words. Each little break of silence gives you the time to register what has been revealed, compels you to dwell on it. Angers you. Enrages you.

Without saying a word of his own, Nakul Singh allows the viewers to develop their own opinion by showing the multiple sides of the story, as told by each community involved in this massacre; because it’s only when we hear the unvarnished voices of the repressed do we know the real story behind their oppression.

The British used one simple strategy to bring a country as vast as ours under control: divide and rule. Turn one community against the other. Break them, fragment them, tear them apart until they can no longer stand together. This evil that once divided our country in two and caused the death of thousands of Hindus and Muslims has been kept alive and breathing by our Indian politicians. This isn’t a mere statement, but a fact backed by this documentary film.

“What wrong have we, Muslims of Lissad, done to you?”

The Muslims and Hindus of Lissad held hands through every significant communal outrage across the country. Be it in 1947, 1957, or with the desecration of the Babri Masjid. But their unity couldn’t holdfast against the tireless efforts of the politicians and mainstream media to break them apart.

For over six months prior to the riots, all major newspapers of the area would consistently report communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims. A man of one religious community molested the girl of another religious community. A man of one religious community threw something into the place of worship of another religious community. The Hindus assumed the suspects were the Muslims and Muslims assumed the same of the Hindus; the tension slowly started building.

Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

Three months prior to the riots, the people knew something was coming. People tried to warn their communities, to bring them together, to stop it. Activists like Pravendra started handing out leaflets door-to-door in a desperate attempt to warn people of the same.

But their voices were unheard over the howl of the political leaders and mainstream media urging Hindus against Muslims, and Muslims against Hindus.

Many of the locals were clear about who they believed was responsible for the riots — the BJP. The most irrefutable fact is that most people of Wester UP didn’t even know of the existence of BJP until just before the commencement of the riots. It wasn’t, however, just BJP trying to benefit from these riots. The Samajwadi Party was equally responsible, as the administration let these riots happen. People believed that they did this in hopes to capitalize off of it and point fingers at the BJP if and when questioned. Other political leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Azam Khan also tried to take advantage of these riots to harness the people’s votes.

These riots also led to the breaking up of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. The sugarcane farmers of Western Uttar Pradesh were once, together, able to negotiate the rates of the sugarcane with the Union and, in turn, with the mill-owners. But with the collapse of the Peasant Union, post-riot, the peasants had no one to cater to their needs, and hence the mill-owners were primarily benefited.

The overwhelming reality of the nature of this country’s politics and the brutality of these riots were shown in the documentary film. The final scene was, however, incredibly moving. It shows the attempt of a small, but growing, section of the society to forget the past and reinstate the peace and harmony that once existed in Muzaffarnagar. They walk with banners and sing songs, attempting to “light the flame of a society that visionaries like Bhimrao Ambedkar, Ashfaqulla Khan, and Bhagat Singh had once dreamt of.”