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Delhi Riots 2020 Delhi Riots 2020 The Untold Story MONIKA ARORA SONALI CHITALKAR PRERNA MALHOTRA BLOOMSBURY INDIA Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt. Ltd Second Floor, LSC Building No. 4, DDA Complex, Pocket C – 6 & 7, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi 110070 BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY INDIA and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 2020 Copyright © Monika Arora, 2020 Monika Arora has asserted her right under the Indian Copyright Act to be identified as the Author of this work All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes ISBN: 978-93-00000-00-0 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Printed and bound in India To find out more about our authors and books, visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters Contents Foreword vii Preface ix List of Abbreviations xv 1. Introduction 1 2. The Theory of Urban Naxalism and Jihadism 11 3. The Background to the Delhi Riots 2020: The Citizenship Amendment Act 28 4. The Prelude: Violence in Universities 41 5. The Interlude: The Shaheen Bagh Model 58 6. The Finale: Riots in North-East Delhi 77 7. Conclusion 98 8. Ground Stories and Narratives of Pain 106 Annexures 135 Annexure I : Medical Report – Amit Sharma 135 Annexure II : Postmortem Report – Ankit Sharma 138 Annexure III : Riots in Eastern Range 147 Annexure IV : Postmortem Report – Ratan Lal 150 Annexure V : FIRs 153 Foreword It is my privilege and a very pleasant duty to write the foreword for Delhi Riots 2020: An Untold Story, which is not a normal kind of book but a serious document of intense research. It is the result of the painstaking efforts of visiting ground zero of these communal riots and the hotspots by the spirited citizens that go by the name Group of Intellectuals and Academicians (GIA). They are committed to the cause of steadfastly maintaining the integrity and sovereignty of our country and see that it remains united and rock solid. The findings of this report need to be seriously studied by the Government of India and the awakened citizens of the country. It is not one of those documents which are given a cursory look and then kept on the bookshelf. I have read the book thoroughly. It was very engaging and extremely informative. One really gets unnerved about the kinds of plans that are afoot to break up our beloved nation. The fact is that certain segments of our nation could never have imagined that the narrative they had built up after the Partition of India under the leadership of Pandit Nehru would ever be challenged and that too with such a fatal blow, first with the 2014 mandate and then in 2019—and most unfortunately for them, when they are not very hopeful for what lies ahead in 2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is so devoted to making our nation affluent and a powerful arbiter in the comity of nations that he has become the pride of all Indians and their most adorable leader. viii Foreword Over the last several centuries, we got uprooted from our cultural heritage first in the Mughal period, when the Islamic culture under the garb of so-called ‘Ganga Jamuna tehzib’ had its sway and then under the British rule, when we gleefully accepted the English lifestyle and deprecated our Indian traditions. We forgot that we were a 5,000-year-old civilisation. We ceased to be proud Hindus. I would like to quote Pandit Nehru, who famously said, ‘By education I am an English man, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim and Hindu only by accident of birth.’ He had no emotional attachment to Hinduism and the Hindus but would get terribly disturbed if any alleged wrong was said to have been committed to Muslims. V. Shanker, the private secretary to Sardar Patel had once said, ‘Sardar Patel was particularly critical of Pandit Nehru and Gandhiji devoting themselves mostly to voicing their feelings for the oppressed Muslims … and without saying comparable to, though not necessarily proportionate to what Hindus and Sikhs were suffering both in India and Pakistan. Secularism did not mean the abandonment of Hinduism or utter disregard of Hindus or Hindu interests but an objective and fair attitude to other religions and interests of other communities. He was opposed to an obsession with Muslims or Muslim interest and insisted on a supreme test for all, namely loyalty to the nation.’ This was the narrative post-1947. Hindus always considered themselves second-class citizens. We remember what former Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh had said about giving minorities first right on the resources of the state. Then came the resurgence of Hinduism in 2014. India will have to reckon with a huge challenge from the Left-liberal lobby, Urban Naxals and the Islamic Jihadi gang. It will be a long haul and the nation has to be prepared for it. These Urban Naxals/Marxists Leninists believe in breaking India into small independent nations based on ethnicity. They Foreword ix will woo Islamic Jihadis and some vulnerable sections of Hindu Dalits to form a formidable ‘break India’ gang. Professor Nandini Sundar, a well-known protagonist of break India, had told Karan Thapar in an interview on now-defunct Tiranga TV channel that she stood for the breaking of India into smaller independent states premised on ethnicity and religion. So, as a nation, India will have to be well prepared at all times to combat the toxin being spread by Islamic Jihadis and the Urban Naxals, of course, backed by certain political elements. I congratulate the GIA for making this stupendous effort to awaken our nation. Shri P.C. Dogra Former IPS