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Journalism of Courage
It was 1989. At the national level, the Janata Dal under V P Singh was riding the anti-Congress wave at the height of the Bofors scandal. On the other hand, the BJP had intensified the Ayodhya movement with Ram Shila pujan planned at several places across the country. The era of Mandal and kamandal politics had begun and the Congress was struggling at the national level as well as in Bihar.
And the riots that year in Bhagalpur also went on to change India forever. Satyendra Narayan Sinha, the then Bihar chief minister, lost his job for not visiting Bhagalpur, which turned out to be the first communal flashpoint post the saffron surge. The 1989 Bhagalpur riots left Muslims completely disillusioned with the Congress, which lost much of its core vote bank in one stroke, and heralded the rise of Lalu Prasad in Bihar.
“Karbala Dar Karbala” by well-known Hindi and Maithili litterateur Gourinath in the historical fiction genre is not just a recall of what had happened in Bhagalpur, known as the Silk City, between October 24 to October 28, 1989, and beyond, but it also narrates the build up to the riots that left more than 1,000 people dead. Gourinath has weaved in some chilling facts with a dash of fiction, which he needed to avoid legal wrangles.
The book opens as a beautiful love story between a Hindu boy and his Muslim classmate, but the plot has its share of gore too. Years of social trust and camaraderie was vitiated by politics of hate. But the city of the Mahabharata’s Angraj Karna and the Vikramshila Buddhist university healed every time it was engulfed in communal fire. Be it 1946, 1967 or 1989. Love survived. So did the protagonists, Shiv and Zareena, but away from each other, lacerated and separated.
Zareena loved Shiv, who was good at poetry but expressed his love more through his eyes than words. Her parents were initially wary of the hostile society but allowed their relationship to bloom till that fateful day when Shiv’s love had to leave the Silk City, smeared in blood.
The 256-page book with 26 chapters, uses brick as a symbol of faith and friction: “…gaon gaon se chali Ramshila ki pavitra eentien Bhagalpur mein is tezi se gir rahi hai maano eenton ki baarish ho rahi hai. Gharon par eentien lagatar baras rahi hai aur ghar bhabharakar gir rahi hai… (Ramshilas are being brought to Bhagalpur from villages all over as if it is raining bricks. They are relentlessly hitting the houses, which are falling like ninepins…)”
The book mentions an IPS officer who ended up stoking the communal fire, and a local Hindu leader, whose arrest turned him into a ‘hero’ in the eyes of his followers. The book also portrays how students from different parts of Bihar lived in harmony in Bhagalpur before the riots.
The evidence of the carnage at Laugai village, where 116 bodies were buried under the earth and cauliflower plants were allowed to grow over it, is the most chilling reminder of the Bhagalpur riots. Gourinath tells the story of an ADM and a DIG seeing through the guile of local policemen and politicians, who never wanted the truth to come out. But the officers found a way out—the DIG brought personnel from Patna to dig out the truth, quite literally.
A portion in the book reads: “…when ADM (law and order) AK Singh visited the village (Laugai), he saw vultures hovering around. It suggested hidden bodies. He wanted a prompt investigation but an assistant sub-inspector did not let it happen. Then he informed DIG Ajit Dutta, who on December 8, 1989, ordered the digging of cauliflower fields and unearthed 116 bodies.”
The author has narrated the events unfolding in Bhagalpur in 1989 in lucid language, which, at times, reads like poetic prose. Even though the names of several characters have been changed to protect identities, the writer carefully refers to academic publications and reports of the riots commission and other published materials to further his narration.
The book is a mix of history and fiction. The description is cinematic and, needless to say, those who lived through the riots in Bhagalpur will find the events narrated in the book quite close to the bone. It is one necessary trip down memory lane to know what we have made of ourselves. “Tumne is zameen mein insaanon ke sar boye the, ab zameen khoon ugalti hai to hairan kyon ho (You sowed human heads here, why are you now surprised to find the earth spitting blood).”
Gourinath, who edits Hindi magazine, Baya, and Maithili magazine, Antika, is known for his story collections “Naach Ke Baahar”, “Maanush” and “Beej-Bhoji” – and novel, “Kosi Ke Kisan”. He is also known for his Maithili work, “Daag”.
