The Road To Azamgarh

Azamgarh, branded as "aatankgarh" by imaginative televisionreporters, could very well have been as nondescript a town as any other thatdots India's Hindi heartland. Small, congested, teeming with millions of peoplewith inadequate access to healthcare, education and other social indicators, itis a place that could do with a bit of good governance.

Take a left turn on the Varanasi-Azamgarh highway, and a new world emerges.This is Saraimeer block, a land that has seen a massive exodus of itsinhabitants since the late 1970s to the Middle East. Most people came back aftersuccessful tours of duty in the labour markets of the Gulf, rebuilding theirlives back home and using the wealth to build better houses, better shops,ensuring that Western Union money transfer counters share a place next to themore humble nationalised banks.

But, Saraimeer, since the 1980s also developed a tough reputation, muchtouted in the media as the home for the Mumbai underworld's"shooters", the men who would carry out the contract killings thatmade Dawood and Abu Salem media favourites. And that is a fact. Today, Saraimeeris still the home to many who would have family and economic ties to men whohave left these shores in search for greater notoriety, and have never lookedback. A cousin of Abu Salem recounts the story of how he needed a top actress tocome to Azamgarh and grace a mushaira  function."I called Bhai (Salem) up and he told me to talk to one actress, nowmarried to the son of a major Bollywood star. She was traveling in Switzerland,so she begged us to excuse her. We asked another actress, who came to Varanasibut quickly left, as riots broke out in Azamgarh the same day".

Perhaps, crime and Mumbai's underworld became an industry that the denizensof Saraimeer took to simply because they knew someone employed there, at somepoint in their lives.

But to get the real story of Azamgarh, a visit to the town is imperative.People traveling further east, to Gorakhpur to its North, or Chandauli andSonbhadra to its South, and further into Bihar, will have to cross Azamgarh atsome point of their journey. The neighbouring district of Mau has alreadydeveloped a tough reputation for lawlessness: When a reporter of a nationaldaily stationed in Kanpur brandishes his revolver, you get the message. Theseare parts that recognise power that flows out from the barrel of a gun -- acountry-made pistol or an AK-47, depending on your social standing.

Bahmol, another block in this district, has already become synonymous withthe best gunsmiths in the state. It caters to large orders for guns and otherhardware that an election somewhere close or far might require in the comingdays. Its clientele emerging from further east, the badlands of Bihar andeastern UP. Little wonder then that Superintendents of police here rarelysurvive nine months. In the past 61 years since independence, 64 Superintendentsdrawn from the Indian Police Service have spent a hasty few months in thedistrict before heading out to other districts. 

But Azamgarh has a far more gentle side to it that seems to be under siegefrom various quarters, including a militant faction of the BJP that sweeps infrom Gorakhpur, spewing hate and terror in its wake. The Shibli National Academyand degree college, which has produced generations of scholars and graduates is home to Dr Baber Ashfaque, a "second generation faculty" at theCollege's department of defence and strategic studies. Dr Ashfaque, like hisfather came back to the subject that he loved best and could hold forth on forhours.

Terrorism, is a word that has now been interpreted and re-interpreted inevery nook and corner of Azamgarh. But it is an issue that Ashfaque has beenstruggling with for years. "Why must we brand terrorism as 'Islamicterrorism'? To what purpose? Why can't we just look at people who spread terroras terrorists and use the same yardstick to view them instead of branding theminto convenient stereotypes that have been created by a certain politicaldiscourse?" he asks. His colleague Zahed in the department of computerstudies makes a similar argument, pointing out that Azamgarh;s children, nowbeing branded as members of the shadowy Indian Mujahideen, are only interestedin education.

To make a case for his argument, Zahed takes you to the house of Zeeshan, oneof the many arrested in Delhi after the Jamianagar encounter. Zeeshan, a boypursuing an MBA from IIPM Delhi, had an excellent academic track record and wasknown for a good attendance record. His father, sitting in a low-lit livingroom, shares details of the enormous loans he has taken to put his son throughmanagement school. His dreams are the dreams of any middle class father, tryinghis best to ensure a future for his child that is better than his own past. Theloans, taken from a variety of nationalized banks have neatly worked out EMIsthat would take a lion's share of the father's salary. "Would such a boy,good at academics, do something to endanger all that we have built? Look at hisattendance record at college and tell me if he ever had the time to travel toall the places that the police now claim he has been to," he wails.

Naturally, most conversations turn to the growing presence of the BJP MP fromthe neighbouring parts, Yogi Adityanath, who promises to make UP into another"Gujarat." For the motorcycle-borne youth who pilot the Yogi'sfrequent cavalcade, the Gujarat being referred to is Gujarat of 2002 when thestate's law and order machinery clearly failed to prevent the massacre ofhundreds of innocents. "Gujarat yahan banainge, Azamagarh se shuruaaatkarenge," they shout with glee, making no bones of their intent. Whereis the law? most people ask, when Yogi's cavalcade decides to march rightthrough the town, instead of using the by-pass, which has traditionally been theroute taken by political parties.

For the youth of Azamgarh, facing chronic poverty and malnutrition, this is alife that has been scripted post Babri Masjid demolition. The money that hascome in from the Gulf has not gone towards building of more schools but moremadrassas, many of which are not registered or recognised. What is taught thereis anybody's guess.  It just becomes another element in acocktail that could only breed violence. 

So does the violence, therefore, turn into the Indian Mujahideen? Theprofessors of Shibli National Degree College counter it by asking about Kanpur,where truckloads of improvised explosive devices was found in the house of aknown Bajrang Dal activist when the roof of the house blew up. "Is that notterror? Is that not the same as the Indian Mujahideen?" asks a professorwho has been closely tracking the issue for years.

Dr Shahid Badr Falahi, a hakim of some repute, with a gentle demeanor andradical ideas, has spent his life battling the law. He was the last president ofthe Student Islamic Movement of India, just before a central government bankicked into place. "I was jailed and tortured for months and all thosepeople who were not arrested but named in the same chargesheet are today beingdepicted as the Indian Mujahideen," says Falahi. His makeshift clinic isthe only access to medical care that his village can boast of. Falahi took thelegal route, now fighting the ban on SIMI in the Supreme Court. Ask him aboutSIMI's stand on Islam and its constitution which aims to build a "Islamicsystem" in India and he is silent. "These are issues that need to bediscussed at length," insists Falahi. His answers to questions areselectively straight but make no mistake. His is an active mind that isconstantly seeking answers as he spends time administering traditional medicinein small white paper pouches.

Falahi's one-time colleague, Safdar Nagori was arrested earlier this year bythe police and is considered as a "violent" faction of the erstwhileSIMI. "But Nagori was never a hard core member. He doesn't even know Urduto understand the finer aspects of Islam, and in fact, had a lovemarriage," counters Falahi. How could such a man take to violence in such ashort span of time? Falahi asks. The other "dreaded mastermind" of theIndian Mujahideen, Tauqeer Subhan Qureshi from Mumbai was the editor of theSIMI's English mouthpiece. "I appointed him as the editor of our Englishmagazine and he was very good." Ask Falahi about the features in themagazine praising the Taliban's Mullah Omar and the Al Qaeda's Osama Bin Ladenand he resumes a silence that is impenetrable. "This is not the time totalk about such issues," he offers.

That is Azamgarh. Caught between many versions of terror, silences, protests,crippling poverty -- and its many academic contradictions. Where governance hasretreated to a few sarkari bungalows and the people have been left tofend for themselves. From the middle of the town, several roads head off indifferent directions, carrying tales for its travellers, taking them to adifferent destiny. Which one will the next generation of Azamgarh take? That isa story that needs to be explored if the Indian Mujahideen and the Bajrang Dalhave to be understood.