TILL October 15 Mau was a small textile town in eastern Uttar Pradesh where the path of its Muslim and Hindu populations crossed frequently. Mixed neighbourhoods were the norm. The business interests of the two communities were linked. The powerlooms—there are a lakh of them in Mau district—are owned by the Muslims who make up 70 per cent of the town’s population whereas Hindus who also run cloth shops, supply them with threads and yarn. Then the events of a single day changed Mau forever. And ironically it was Mau’s secular custom that became its undoing. For years Mau followed this tradition: Hindus would knock the hand-drawn rath of their idol three times against the gate of the Shahi Katra mosque on the busy Kotwali-to-Chowk Road during Bharat Milap, while the Muslims would climb three steps of a neighbouring Sanskrit pathshala during Moharram. On October 14 the custom was about to repeat itself when trouble began. Muslims attending Ramzan prayers asked the Ramlila organisers to switch off their loudspeakers. An argument broke out which got increasingly graver. The next day it worsened when Ajeet Singh Chandel, district president of Hindu Yuva Vahini, opened fire from a terrace. Then entered Mukhtar Ansari, an independent MLA from Mau, who drove around town in an open Gypsy with his cronies, armed with rifles and revolvers. The riots on October 15 left nine dead and many injured. Skirmishes during festivals are not unheard of in Mau but never before has a riot like this taken place. And for the first time there is real fear that the scars could be permanent and could break off the once strong socio-economic bond between the two communities.
