A riot in Nagpur over a long-dead emperor’s tomb

On the evening of March 17, Mohammed Aslam, a 61-year-old realtor, was sitting in his office with his son, 31-year-old Sohil Shaikh, in the Motha Taj Bagh area of Nagpur in Maharashtra, when he got a call from his wife, Shakeela Banu.

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Banu sounded really scared, recalls Aslam. “She said riots were taking place near our house and asked us to come home immediately. But minutes later, she urged us to stay put saying the situation had worsened,” he says.

Aslam’s home is 15 kilometres from his office in Mahal. His is the only Muslim family in the neighbourhood. Mahal. His house is located barely a kilometre from Dr. Hedgewar Bhawan, the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS is the ideological fountainhead of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the ruling party both at the Centre and in Maharashtra.

Defying Banu’s warning, Aslam and Shaikh rushed back, parked their car a few blocks away, and ran towards their house. They recall standing like human shields at the centre of the violence, pleading for calm, as hundreds of people hurled stones and abuses at each other, and torched vehicles. “With our hands raised, we kept screaming, ‘Stop, stop, stop!’” says Aslam.

“We didn’t think twice,” says Sohil. “The rioters, who were Muslim, were not from our area and didn’t recognise us. They began attacking us, too. They broke my phone and the CCTV cameras, and threw stones at our house.”

Aslam says, “Hindus then started throwing stones in defence, so we had to control both sides.” Aslam, who has spent his whole life in Mahal, has never seen communal strife in the area.

According to the police, early that morning, members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a right-wing organisation; and the Bajrang Dal, its youth wing, assembled at Chitnis Park Chowk in Mahal. They demanded that the tomb of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, which dates back to the 17th century AD and which is located 500 km away in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, be demolished. Aurangzeb, who had tortured and executed the second ruler of the Maratha empire, Chhatrapati (protector of the people) Sambhaji Maharaj, died more than 300 years ago. Sambhaji Maharaj was the son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the Maratha empire in the Indian subcontinent.

While there were similar protests taking place elsewhere in Maharashtra, the protests in Nagpur took a violent turn when demonstrators set fire to a chadar (cloth). This angered Muslims. The police say this was inscribed with verses from the Quran. Hundreds of people then started attacking homes with stones, petrol bombs, and sticks. As tensions flared, 33 police personnel and five civilians sustained injuries.

The colours of violence

Saffron flags flutter from the rooftops of homes and establishments in Mahal. A day after the incident, fading streaks of pink, yellow, and blue powder cover the roads and walls. These are the remnants of Holi, which was celebrated three days before the riots, on March 14.

The signs of rampage are also evident everywhere. Blackened cars and two-wheelers lie damaged, with their frames twisted. There are stones and cement blocks on the streets and a faint smell of ash in the air.

Shaikh’s neighbour, Swati Prashanth Dahikar, who runs a boutique, recalls what she describes as the “most terrifying moments of her life”.

“I get goosebumps just talking about the incident. I couldn’t sleep the entire night, fearing something else might happen,” says Dahikar, who remembers trying to protect herself and her 21-year-old daughter, Astha, from the rioters.

“The mob threw our air cooler and started hurling stones and glass through the window. They kicked our doors and hit them with sticks and rods. Some of the rioters were on foot, some were on bikes, and all of them had covered their faces. Though it all lasted less than 10 minutes, it was simply frightening,” says Dahikar, sitting in the hall of her house, which also functions as a workshop for her business. She trembles while pointing to the video footage of the violence that plays out on a Marathi news channel on TV.

According to Dahikar and the police, the mob entered the neighbourhood around 7.30 p.m., carrying bags filled with stones, and small packets and bottles of petrol. “As soon as some men from our locality gathered together and started throwing stones and sticks back in defence, the mob retreated,” says Dahikar.

The rioters moved from Mahal to Hansapuri, another area in Nagpur. Seema Gupta, a homemaker, says they came to her house, just 4 km away from Dahikar’s house, in Hansapuri, at around 10.30 p.m.

Gupta says her multi-storey building had been partially demolished as part of a road-widening project some time ago. “The rioters caused another round of destruction,” she says, pointing to charred portions outside her house. “They set on fire more than a dozen vehicles parked in front of my house. We were terrified that the flames would spread inside.”

Residents claim that the police were unprepared to handle the riots. “The police came late, and when they did, they did not seem equipped to control the situation. They took refuge in our homes. At least six officers were inside my house while the rioters were roaming the streets,” says Sunil Peshne, a farmer who lives in Chitnis Park and whose car was torched by the mob.

A film, an emperor, and a tomb

The day after the riots, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, a legislator from the Nagpur South West Assembly constituency, held the Hindi film, Chhaava, depicting the life of Sambhaji Maharaj, responsible for the violence. Speaking in the State Assembly, he said the film’s graphic portrayal of Aurangzeb’s torture of Sambhaji Maharaj had “fuelled public anger” against the Mughal emperor. “This looks like it was a well-planned attack. People should not take law and order into their hands,” he said.

Chhaava hit the theatres on February 14 and has grossed more than ₹550 crore at the box office till date. The film, directed by Laxman Utekar, sparked extreme reactions from the audience. In one video that went viral on social media, a man was seen vandalising a cinema screen during an emotional moment in the film. Another video showed a fan riding a horse into a theatre, chanting “Har Har Mahadev!”

Criticising the film for being “historically inaccurate”, Samajwadi Party MP Abu Azmi first triggered controversy on March 3 while talking to the media in the Assembly premises. He said that Aurangzeb was not a “cruel administrator” and had “constructed many temples”. The Mumbai Police registered a case against him. Azmi was suspended from the Assembly for the Budget session.

But the anger did not die down. On March 7, a descendant of Shivaji Maharaj, Udayanraje Bhosale, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Satara, called for the demolition of Aurangzeb’s tomb while speaking to the media in Satara. A few days later, Fadnavis said at an event that while they all share the same sentiment (as Bhosale), the tomb is a protected monument of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and any action to remove it must comply with legal procedures.

Responding to the Chief Minister’s latest statement that the riots were provoked by Chhaava, the Maharashtra president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party, Imtiaz Jaleel, says, “Chhaava was promoted by the government. The entire Maharashtra Cabinet was taken to the theatre to watch the film. Now Mr. Fadnavis is blaming the film for the violence. There are so many important topics that need to be discussed, but Parliament and the State Assembly are busy discussing Aurangzeb. When the BJP is in power in both the Centre and the State, why are they playing such dirty politics?”

A driver in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, where Aurangzeb’s tomb lies, says he took his 10-year-old son to watch the film because he believes that it is important for every Marathi to know the story. He says, “My son was agitated after watching the film. I told him this is just a story from the past. But when he grows up, he must decide what side he takes.”

Putting out fires

As violence escalated in Nagpur, which is represented by the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, in the Lok Sabha, the police imposed a curfew in 11 areas.

On March 20, they partially lifted the curfew. Nagpur Police Commissioner Ravinder Singal says the police have filed 13 First Information Reports and arrested 99 people so far, including Fahim Khan, the city head of the Minority Democratic Party. Khan has been accused of sedition and spreading misinformation on social media during the unrest. The police allege that a woman constable was molested during the violence.

The police say restoring normalcy was their top priority not only because Nagpur is the headquarters of the RSS, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, or because it is represented by Fadnavis and Gadkari, but also because Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting the district on March 30, on the occasion of Gudipadva, the first day of the Hindu calendar. Modi will lay the foundation stone for the Madhav Eye Hospital, an RSS-backed initiative. He is also likely to go to the Hedgewar Smruti Mandir, a memorial dedicated to K.B. Hedgewar and M.S. Golwalkar, leaders of the RSS. This will mark his first visit to the site since becoming Prime Minister and the first visit to the site by any sitting Prime Minister.

While the VHP has denied any involvement in the burning of the chadar, the police say they have video evidence. Local leaders also allege that protesters set the chadar on fire. However, Fadnavis denied in the Assembly that any cloth with Quranic verses was burnt.

In a video message, VHP general secretary Milind Parande said, “Houses of Bajrang Dal workers were attacked. The Muslim mob targeted many houses of the Hindu community and even women were not spared. We condemn all this strongly. It is extremely shameful that on one hand, the lie was spread that the Hindu community had burnt the verses of the holy book of a community and on the other hand, a despicable attempt was made to incite violence.” He added that strict action should be taken against all anti-social elements.

Shakib ur Rehman, a leader of the AIMIM from Nagpur, says, “As Muslims, we have no objections to people burning effigies of Aurangzeb. But why target the chadar, which is inscribed with verses from the Quran?”

Although the State government labelled the violence as “pre-planned,” the police say they managed to contain it in a few hours and prevent it from spilling over into other parts of the city. According to a senior police official, the police force across the State remained on high alert to ensure that the unrest did not spread to other cities and towns, especially Sambhajinagar.

At the heart of the controversy

In Khuldabad town in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district lies Aurangzeb’s austere tomb, at the heart of the controversy, surrounded by barricades. It is March 19. District Superintendent of Police (Rural), Vinay Kumar Rathod, says security has increased over the last eight days. Tourists continue to trickle in. Later that day, the tomb was covered by the ASI with tin sheets.

Police and State Reserve Police Force personnel, ASI staff, and home guards with vans outside the property are all on duty. “There is no conflict here, but we have to be on duty. Prevention is better than cure,” says a SRPF member.

Rathod says, “We have restricted tourists and visitors from offering flowers at the tomb. From March 19 to April 18, we have banned the use of drones in the area.”

Every day, the security personnel deployed here participate in sehri (the morning meal eaten by Muslims before the sun comes up during Ramadan) and iftari (evening meal at the time of Ramadan) with the tomb’s caretakers and workers.

Parvez Kabir Ahmed, a 31-year-old caretaker of the tomb, is a khadim (priest). Ahmed’s family has taken care of the tomb for six generations. “Aurangzeb was born in 1618 in Dahod (now Gujarat) and passed away in 1707. His body was brought here. He did not want any tomb over his mazaar (shrine) and wanted to be laid here like an ordinary man, under the open sky,” he says. “In 1921, Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy of India, was disappointed when he visited the tomb and asked the Nizam of Hyderabad to beautify it with a marble floor and marble lattice screen.”

In the same premises lies the tomb of Aurangzeb’s teacher, Khwaja Syed Zainuddin Shirazi. This portion is privately owned and maintained with the help of donations from visitors. The caretaker Javed Ahmed, 58, says, “Most people who come here are history enthusiasts and have a secular mindset. We have many non-Muslim visitors throughout the year. They offer flowers and chadar on the tomb,” he says.

Parvez’s uncle Nisar Ahmad, 65, a senior caretaker of Aurangzeb’s tomb, lives in Bazaargalli village behind the tomb. He regrets undergoing knee replacement surgery at a time when the area is under heavy police security.

“Khuldabad has always been a secular society where people have lived together in harmony for generations,” he says. “All this is happening because a few miscreants are trying to cause communal disputes. It is always the poor and jobless youth who are pushed to the front of these protests. And they are the ones who die or get injured, not the people who ignite the flames.”

Ahmad is particularly upset about the timing of the controversy. “The miscreants are trying to provoke us during an auspicious month. If they want to destroy all historical evidence of the Mughals, they will have to rewrite the history of this country. That is dangerous,” he says.

A few metres away is Lahaniali, a Maratha-dominated area. Shivani Deepak Lagad, 15, says, “For years, my friends and I have been visiting the Urus festival (commemorating the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, Zar Zari Zar Baksh). Every time their mothers make sheer korma or mutton, they invite me. My mother invites them when we celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi or Diwali.”

A stationary store owner, 40, says he has watched Chhaava and believes that it portrays only a fraction of the torture that Sambhaji suffered. “If people are losing their minds watching just 10% of the violence, what will they do if they read Marathi literature,” he asks. “Certain news channels are spreading fake news that Khuldabad is affected due to a Hindu-Muslim conflict. Do you see anything here? Politicians are just playing politics and pitting people against each other.”

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