[Kasganj was not always like this. For much of its history, Muslims and Hindus coexisted peacefully in this dusty city about 100 miles east of New Delhi. As the price of land shot up in the area, the city prospered. Now, rows of mustard-colored crops, markers of the region’s agrarian roots, frame Honda dealerships catering to a population eager to trade bicycles for motorbikes.]
By
Suhasini Raj and Kai Schultz
 |
|
Rahul
Upadhyay, who was rumored to have been killed in clashes
between Hindus
and Muslims in India last month, is very
much alive. Credit
Suhasini Raj/The New York Times
|
KASGANJ,
India — Rahul Upadhyay, a
wiry journalist with a shock of black hair, was at home when he received news
of his death.
During celebrations on India’s Republic Day,
Jan. 26, a clash broke out between Hindus and Muslims in the city of Kasganj.
Schools, shops and a mosque were damaged. One person was killed; another nearly
had his eye gouged out.
Mr. Upadhyay, 24, stayed away from the
violence, bunkering down inside his home in a nearby village. But the following
evening, a friend called to share a peculiar bit of news: “You have been
elevated to being a martyr.”
In the span of a few hours, messages on
WhatsApp and Facebook mourning “martyr Rahul,” and saying he had been killed in
clashes, went viral across Uttar Pradesh State, which includes Kasganj.
Candlelight vigils paying respect to Mr.
Upadhyay, who is Hindu, lit up the streets of seven districts, some with the
participation of local politicians.
By the time Mr. Upadhyay found out, there was
little he could do: The riots had become so bad in Kasganj that the authorities
shut down the internet.
“No media house or politician bothered to
visit my place or call me first to confirm that I was indeed dead,” he said.
“The marketplace of rumors had heated up beyond control.”
Kasganj was not always like this. For much of
its history, Muslims and Hindus coexisted peacefully in this dusty city about
100 miles east of New Delhi. As the price of land shot up in the area, the city
prospered. Now, rows of mustard-colored crops, markers of the region’s agrarian
roots, frame Honda dealerships catering to a population eager to trade bicycles
for motorbikes.
In the years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in 2014, violent
outbreaks between Hindus and Muslims have become more common in some pockets of
India.
But locals said the energy did not change in
Kasganj until last year, when Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand politician with ties
to far-right Hindu nationalist groups, was chosen as chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh, home to over 200 million people.
The clashes began with a flag. On Jan. 26, a
group of Muslims gathered in an open square in Kasganj, unstacking rows of red
plastic chairs and preparing to hoist a flag into the air to celebrate Republic
Day, which marks the enactment of India’s constitution in 1950.
Around the same time, dozens of men on
motorbikes affiliated with a far-right Hindu student group approached the
assembly, asking that the Muslims move the chairs so they could pass. Accounts
of what happened next vary.
According to a police report filed by Sushil
Gupta, the father of Abhishek Gupta, the man who was actually killed, a group of
Muslims began taunting the Hindus, shouting “Long Live Pakistan,” and telling
them that they would have to chant “Hail Pakistan” if they wanted to pass.
Shamsul Arafeen, 70, a Muslim tailor who was
part of the crowd, remembered the encounter differently, describing a “big mob”
of Hindus who demanded that the Muslims move the chairs before boiling the
argument down to religion. Others said the Hindus told the Muslims to go back
to Pakistan.
“They started abusing us, saying, ‘If you
want to live in Hindustan, you must chant ‘Hail Sita and Ram,’” Mr. Arafeen
said, using another name for India and referring to two Hindu gods.
The confrontation became physical soon after,
with rioters from both sides throwing stones at each other and burning shops to
the ground. Videos of the confrontations spread rapidly. The authorities shut
down internet service in the area for hours.
By the end of the clashes, which stretched
over a week, over 100 people had been arrested, both Hindu and Muslim. Mohar
Singh Tomar, an investigating officer with Kasganj’s police force, said it was
unclear who started the clashes, brushing aside suggestions that either
religious group had received unfair treatment.
Purnendra Pratap Singh Solanki, the district
president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, took a harder line, characterizing the
confrontation as a “preplanned conspiracy” by a growing Muslim population to
target Hindus.
“What is very problematic for us is that
Muslims are ruled by their religion first,” he said. “They consider themselves
Muslims before Indians, whereas the Hindus consider themselves Indians first
and then Hindus.”
“The solution to such problems is to control
their population,” Mr. Solanki added. “Their religious education at the
madrassas must be combined with nationalism, peppered with nationalism. The
problem is they don’t want to get educated at all.”
Reacting to the violence in Kasganj, R. V.
Singh, the district magistrate in Bareilly, also in Uttar Pradesh, described a
recent episode involving a Hindu march in a village in his district.
“A strange trend has started of carrying out
processions through Muslim localities and raising anti-Pakistan slogans,” he
wrote in a Facebook post that was subsequently deleted after he faced pressure
from the state government. “Why? Are these people from Pakistan?”
At the same time, the always rocky
relationship between Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan has
notably worsened in recent months.
Around Kasganj, many people said they were
terrified to leave their homes and return to work.
“Our children are sleeping on hungry
stomachs,” said Mohammad Shadab, 24, who works in a soap factory. “The kind of
fear in the community has never been felt before.”
As for Mr. Upadhyay, he still has not figured
out who first reported his death or why he had been singled out. Over the last
weekend in January, he fielded over 400 calls from people asking if he had
died. “My mother had to serve endless cups of tea to visitors and convince them
that I was alive,” he said.
Eventually, Mr. Upadhyay figured that if he
could not control social media, he might as well participate.
“I am Rahul Upadhyay,” he said in a recorded
message sent out into cyberspace. “I am well and I have not even received a
scratch.”
Still, he said, the damage was done. Hundreds
of miles away, in the city of Gorakhpur, posters with his photograph had already
been distributed.
Near his face was a warning: “We will take
revenge for the death of martyr Rahul Upadhyay.”
Suhasini Raj reported from Kasganj, and Kai
Schultz from New Delhi.
Follow Suhasini Raj and Kai Schultz on
Twitter: @suhasiniraj and @Kai_Schultz.
