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HVK Archives: A view to the killings - Ramabai colony riots

A view to the killings - Ramabai colony riots - The Afternoon Despatch and Courier

Tavleen Singh ()
21 July 1997

Title: A view to the killings - Ramabai colony riots
Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: The Afternoon Despatch and Courier
Date: July 21, 1997

The Buddhist monk was an eyewitness to the killing. From his little,
blue-washed house on the edge of Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar he saw the
policemen as they ran towards the Harijan colony around 7.30 a.m. on the
morning of July 11. "They had guns" says Bhante Kashyap "but I had no idea
what they were planning. They shouted to me to go into my house, then I
saw them kill a woman just out there in the road. I could not believe what
I was seeing, it was like war on the India-Pakistan border. The firing
seemed to continue for ten minutes, they shot anyone they saw. There was
no warning. No teargas. No firing in the air. A boy going to the toilet was
killed. I've never seen any-thing like it, they were like terrorists."

Then, pointing to his saffron robes, he emphasises that he is a monk and
would not lie, that he has no reason to. He just wants to tell the truth
about what happened, he says, and looking me straight in the eye adds, that
he would like me to write the truth as well because the newspapers have
been lying. The small group of young men who have brought me to their
'Dharam Guru' get agitated at this and tell me the newspapers are printing
only what the police have told them and that the police is lying. A youth
called Vilas Jadhav says, 'They are lying when they tell you that they have
identified four youths from the Republican Party as the people who put the
garland of chappals. They just want to discredit the Dalit Samaj and
frighten us into submission like they have been doing for thousands of
years. They did the same to our Muslims brothers. They made them out to be
'thugs' and 'goondas' and now they are trying to do the same to us.'

When I visited the Ramabai Colony it was five days since the killings, but
the anger against 'them' was tangible as was the tension in the air. The
desecrated bust of Dr. Ambedkar now had a fresh garland of marigolds around
its neck and policemen in khaki and para-militaries in blue fatigues lined
the road leading to it. But, in the colony's main bazaar, that leads off
from the square with the desecrated bust, people stood around in small
groups like they do just before a riot and just after.

It was the, sort of situation that the police like to describe as 'tense
but under control'. What this means is that there was a return to surface
normalcy. women on the pavements sold peanuts, corn, wilting vegetables and
over-ripe fruit. Behind them were shops that also seemed to have returned
to normal. Ice-creams,, cold drinks, rations, spices. Everything was
available and a bare-chested tailor worked furiously at his sewing machine
in a small shed. But, every few feet were the small groups of men who
talked worriedly amongst themselves and glanced nervously at the policemen.

I stopped at the first large group and asked them to tell me what had
happened on the morning that they found the statue of Dr. Ambedkar with a
garland of slippers around its neck. A plump man in white kurta-pyjama who
identified himself as Bhaskar Barve of the Republican Party of India said
he would tell me exactly what had happened as he was an eyewitness. That
morning around 5.30 am. a woman, on her way to the public toilets, noticed
the two crossed slippers on a string around DL Ambedkar's neck- She raised
a hue and cry and Barve was among those who went to try and get police
help. Meanwhile, word spread and quite soon there was a crowd of about a
thousand people, some of whom were pelting stones at passing vehicles. Then
the police opened fire. There was no warning. No teargas. No firing in the
air. No attempt to control the crowd without killing Innocent people.

"This is why it was people going about their routine business who were
killed' said Padmakar Dhenah who spoke in English "they just fired blindly.
It was like history repeated, like the Jallianwallah Bagh tragedy".

What about the oil tankers, I asked, was it true that a group of rioters
was trying to set fire to an oil tanker? This question adds to everyone's
anger. "Lies" says a man called Chintamani Gangurde "These are the kind of
lies that the police are telling. There was no oil tanker anywhere near
here. Later on they brought it and filmed it, so they could cover up for
what they had done. You people keep printing the lies they tell you like
this story about them, having identified some RPI men who desecrated the
statue. Well, one of them is supposed to he me."

I met nobody in the hour I spent in Ramabai Colony who showed any trust at
all in either the government, the police or the press and that really is
the most frightening thing about the incident. That and the atmosphere of
hatred and revenge that the killings have caused. Harijans constitute 99
per cent of the population in this locality that has been around for more
than thirty years and they all seem convinced that the police firing was
part of a Shiv Sena plot to frighten the Dalit Samaj into submission.

They also believe firmly that the garland of slippers was placed around Dr.
Ambedkar's neck by Shiv Sena activists who hoped that they could use It to
discredit the RPI. They blame a local Shiv Sena activist called Subhash
Jadhav who they claim was taking his revenge on them for his having lost
the last election.

Until things calm down enough for there to be a proper inquiry (and local
people believe it will only be fair if it is conducted by the CBI) it is
hard to say how much truth there is in the angry charges. But, what is
clear even without there needing to be an inquiry is that the police firing
could, and should, have been avoided. Riots take place all over the world
and usually do not result in deaths from police firing. India is one of
the only countries left where modem methods of riot control, appear not to
have even been considered yet.

This was alright in the days when poor, underprivileged people were too
scared and weak to fight back. They are not too scared now and Mumbai's
police force is going to have a lot of explaining to do before they can
convince an inquiry commission that they had no choice but to kill eleven
people to control the violence in Ramabai Colony.

If the killings were not bad enough in themselves we then had Maharashtra's
Home Minister, Mr. Gopinath Munde to inform reporters on the day after the
violence that water cannon would be used next time Why not last time, Mr.
Munde? It would have saved eleven innocent lives.


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