Purola from a young girl’s eyes

Members of right-wing outfits at the mahapanchayat on the Yamunotri highway in Purola, Uttarkashi on June 15. Pic/PTI

I spoke to five schoolchildren and a college student on their experience of living through 20 days of Nazi-style witch-hunt at Purola, a town nestling in the hills of Uttarkashi district, Uttarakhand. Their trauma began on May 26, the day Ubaid Khan and Rajinder Saini were nabbed allegedly abducting a minor Hindu girl. Declaring it to be a case of love jihad, Hindutva groups organised rallies, marked shops of Muslims with an X sign, and stuck posters asking them to vacate the premises before a mahapanchayat of June 15. The administration foiled the mahapanchayat and, in protest, Purola and neighbouring markets observed a bandh. Two days later, some Muslims opened their shops.

Among the six I spoke to, Tabassum (name changed), a Std X student, articulated her thoughts and feelings with the vividness of those who maintain a diary of daily jottings. Since she echoed, with minor variations, the other five, I have chosen to abridge her story and retell it.

May 27: A rally of Hindutva hotheads stops outside her house. Behind closed doors, Tabassum, her younger sister and brother are huddled together. Abuses against her father and grandfather rend the air. Their ashen faces compound her fear. Hoodlums will break into the house, Tabassum thinks. She and her two siblings begin to howl. They howl until the procession wends past her house.

It is 1 pm, time to fetch her cousin from school. Who will go pick him up? No, Father cannot go, Tabassum argues, for he might be lynched. A Std X student is unlikely to be harmed, Tabassum says, stepping out gingerly, with her sister in tow. The neighbourhood's customary benign gaze has turned malignant, silently accusing her of conspiring in the alleged love jihad case. She wonders: "Why should I be blamed for the action of another person?" Forget the question; quick, pick up the cousin, hurry back, she tells herself.

Over the next 48 hours, Father's phone keeps buzzing. A bigger rally is scheduled for May 29. So and so have left the town. Just too risky to hang around. May 29 arrives: they get the news via Father's mobile. Flex boards of shops of Muslims have been torn, their shutters battered. All Muslim members of the Vyapar Mandal's WhatsApp group have been expelled.

Purola has changed overnight.

Tabassum thinks of two classmates closest to her. They are Hindu. Nah, they do not believe in the Hindu-Muslim antagonism. But why have they not called her? She shivers as she imagines the worst: Will her friends stop talking to her? Will they come over home on Eid, or work together on lessons? Will her class boycott her? She pines to hear friends assure her that they are not like some of Purola's elders.

One day, Sister confesses: "My friends have blocked me." Tabassum consoles her.

Later in the night, in bed, she wonders: "Why haven't my friends called?" She imagines a life without friends. Sister calls out: "Take me to the toilet." She is afraid to go alone. Why? There could be an intruder lurking around, Sister says.

Often, Tabassum's imagination furiously churns out images: her house is on fire, Father's shop too, the family reduced to penury. Ferocious men holding daggers dripping with blood. She shuts her eyes tight, hoping to beckon sleep. Tabassum remembers the chapter on Partition in her textbook. Now, she knows what it must have felt to be a Hindu in Pakistan and a Muslim in India. Is she witnessing another Partition in the making? Will they be turned out from Purola? Where will her family go?

Inexplicably, shoots of hope sprout in her. Purola will rediscover its peace, just as summer follows every winter, she reasons. Her mind quietens. But that question surfaces again, "Why haven't my friends called?" She worries until the sky lights up with a soft glow and stars disappear.

This was how Tabassum spent 17 nights - worrying to sleeplessness.

On June 14, Tabassum is at her ancestral village in Uttar Pradesh, to attend a family function. I tell her: "Why must her friends take the first step? Why can't you call them?" Perhaps she does not want to discover that her friends, like those of Sister, have blocked her. I tell her of two girls who received calls of support from their friends. The next day, in a bubbly voice, she says, "I called one of my friends. She said, ‘I am with you.'" Tabassum's friend was not at Purola during its tryst with the Indian variant of Nazism.

Not all had their friendship affirmed. Afnan Malik, 23, was in the midst of vacating the shop of his father. Suddenly, a gaggle of men appeared, chanting slogans such as Vande Mataram and the like. Among them was Afnan's friend, who, last year, claimed Purola's personality is not anti-Muslim. A local leader threatens to burn Afnan's goods stacked for transportation.

Police arrive.

Afnan's family will not return to Purola.

Later this week, American President Joe Biden will raise a toast to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Manipur burns. Purola's children discover Hindutva's capacity to poison friendships. Yet, NRIs in the United States will chant, "Modi, Modi, Modi."

Members of right-wing outfits at the mahapanchayat on the Yamunotri highway in Purola, Uttarkashi on June 15. Pic/PTI

The writer is a senior journalist.
Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.