HARYANARCHY: PART -6 / 9:- FACE TO FACE WITH ANARCHY

SOURCE:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/sunday-special/columns/face-to-face-with-anarchy/202004.html

REFERENCES :-

(K)Part- 11/X:-  https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/12/jat-reservation-agitation.html

(J) Part-10/ X:-      https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/sourcehttpwww.html

(I) Part-9/9:-  https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-videos-politics-of-denial.html

(H) Part-8/9 :-     https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-part-8-let-there-be-no-more.html

  (G) PART- 7/9:-  https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-part-79-let-truth-behind.html

 (F)  Part- 6/9:-    https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-part-6-9-face-to-face-with.html

(E)  Part -5/9:-    https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-part-5-days-later-govt.html

(D)  Part -4/9:-  https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-part-4-why-haryana.html

(C)  Part -3/9:-     https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/harynarchy-part-3-backward-march-who.html                                              

 (B)  Part -2/9:-   https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/03/haryanarchy-part-2-blunting-instrument.html

( A)  Part -1/9:-   https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/02/internal-security-indian-army-goof-up.html

Feb 28, 2016
 
     HARYANARCHY: FACE TO FACE
                           WITH ANARCHY
                                      BY

                                                    

                         HARISH KHARE


I have seen and written about violence, riots and mobs. Starting with the 1981 anti-reservation riots in Gujarat to the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, to 1985-1986-1987 anti-reservation-cum-communal violence in Ahmedabad, to the Ramjanmabhumi violence from 1990-1992. Only once, when the BJP had given a call for “Bharat bandh” after LK Advani’s arrest, was I roughed up by the mob. In all these experiences with violence, as a reporter I had a vague sense of who was directing the violence and against whom. Last Monday's encounter was of a different kind.

As it happened, Monday morning I was on my way to Chandigarh from Delhi. At nine-thirty, my Chandigarh-based colleagues had informed me that National Highway No. 1 — the old great Grand Trunk Road — had been cleared of obstructions and hooligans and was now open for traffic.

I had left Delhi at ten.

At 10.35, I had crossed Murthal. On both sides of the road, charred cars and other vandalised vehicles bore testimony to the violence of the last few days. 

I was on the mobile, talking to a friend, and admiring the capacity of the ‘law and order’ machinery to restore a semblance of order.

Fifteen minutes later, the journey came to a halt.

The vehicular traffic had stopped. Drivers and passengers had spilled out on the road. No one had any idea why. All that could be gathered was that ‘trouble’ had erupted again on the road, a few miles farther up. 

There was a frisson of apprehension in the air. 

Suddenly, a few existential doubts asserted themselves. One has always taken for granted that an Indian citizen can go to anywhere, travel to any place, any time. My identity gives me — provides me — this freedom.

All that sense of assurance, all that sense of security evaporated in that moment.

Those hotels, glorified, air-conditioned dhabas, really, always bustling with traffic and customers, wore a forlorn, abandoned look.

Before I could decide to ask the driver to drive back to Delhi and safety, word came that trouble had erupted also at Murthal. There was no escape route.

A frightening realisation dawns. No policeman is around, the old reliable, trusted guardian of order has deserted his post, or worse, has probably looked the other way. You are at the mercy of the unarmed, unpredictable and unanswerable lumpens, unafraid of law. And, if the elderly women have been made to join in the protest, there is a social acceptance, even sanction, for the violence in defence of this “cause” or that “demand”. 

A sense of being trapped creeps over. A helplessness because you cannot make sense of who is in control of the disruption and of the disruptionists. No confidence that that the 'law and order' will be able to get them.

Suddenly, you understand that anarchic forces are just lingering beneath the surface. The precariousness of it all, despite all the strong leaders we are blessed with. Parts of Rohtak were like scenes from Syria. 

How easy it was for a few hundred men to choke Delhi's water supply. There was panic and desperation in middle class neighbourhoods, even as the poor are used to water shortages. 

I was lucky that it could be arranged for me to take shelter in one of the deserted hotels. My driver and I were given food and a place to rest. Later, it was arranged that two local young men, on a motor cycle, would escort us to safety through the interior roads.

And, that journey was tense. but I could also observe that the area was reasonably prosperous. Pucca houses, bountiful fields, well-fed men and women, beauty parlours, stores, shops, — and, yet, still all this insistence on inventing a grammar of backwardness.

It was too grim to be humming John Denver's “Country roads, take me home….” 

Though I always had a vague sense that I would make it to the safety of Delhi or Chandigarh, imagine how a person feels when he has no option but to live with violence and the demands violence make on ethics, morale, relationships and notions of friendships. Violence always takes a toll on one's sense of well-being because it violates one's sense of fairness. The toll is lasting.

                               So it will be in Haryana.