Mulayam's Mau mascot

Freelance mafia don Mukhtar Ansari could become a tacit trump card for the discredited SP and BJP in the assembly elections in UP

Pranay Krishna Srivastava Allahabad

Mafia don Mukhtar Ansari has been let off yet again. His dubious and transparent role in the Mau riots (October 14 to October 16, 2005) signified the emergence of a new, sinister combination in the high-intensity, but often invisible, communal politics of Uttar Pradesh (UP). It started at a conjuncture when the BJP was desperate for revival and Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was facing tough competition from the Congress to retain the Muslim base in the state, especially after the installation of the UPA government at the Centre. Mau fell victim to the unscrupulous, competitive politics of the power elite.

Mau used to be part of district Azamgarh in eastern UP. Now the district has a population of 18.6 lakh, with a rural population of about 15 lakh. Of this, 80 per cent are Hindus, most of who live in rural areas. Muslims constitute 20 per cent of the population of which 60 per cent are urban dwellers.

Mau is a significant centre of sari production, owing its fame in particular to silk saris. There are approximately 75,000 power looms of which nearly 60,000 are based in the city. On an average, almost 1.5 lakh saris are weaved on a daily basis. Several members of one family work on one loom and a full day’s labour produces on an average two saris.

Currently, the troubled sari trade in Mau is undergoing a period of economic crisis. Saris from Surat have begun to give tough competition to the sari industry in Mau with weavers unable to withstand this competition. This has led to a sharp decline in the weavers’ wages in Mau. Earlier, work on one sari fetched

Rs 80, but the wages have now been reduced to Rs 40. Similarly, embroidery fetched Rs 150 earlier, but now has gone down to Rs 80-85. The wages after a full day’s work is not of one worker only — it is the combined labour of many members of a family working on one loom.

Paradoxically, there is not only competition but also a certain commonality between the looms of Mau and Surat. They occasionally get burnt, sometimes along with those who work on them, when organised communal frenzy is orchestrated. Those familiar with the intermittent riots at Madanpura in Varanasi would testify that it unfailingly springs from the contradictions of the trade, whereby Hindu traders resort to non-economic means to oust Muslim traders who have graduated from the ranks of loom workers and offer better terms to the wholesale urban traders.

With a history of sectarian violence and the political atmosphere of surrounding districts manipulated by the mafias of Mukhtar Ansari (MLA from Mau) and Brijesh Singh, and the recent proliferation of communal networks in eastern UP led by VHP’s Mahanta Adityanath of Gorakhpur, Mau became an obvious laboratory for testing a new brand of vicious social engineering. On October 9, 2005, while the platform for Durga Puja was being set up, some beams crossed over into the premises of the Faiz-e-Aam madarsa building upon which some prominent Muslim citizens objected. This was followed by mild stone-pelting after which both sides sat together and resolved the issue with the help of the district administration.

On October 13, at about 8 pm, the loudspeaker at the Bharat Milap platform was blaring at high volume; this coincided with the taravi namaaz — the Koranic recitation in the month of Ramzaan at Katra Masjid, situated directly opposite the platform. This led to minor skirmishes, but finally, by midnight, the district administration reached an understanding with the RSS leaders on postponing Bharat Milap till October 29.