IT MIGHT be hard to imagine the BJP, Samajwadi Party and Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) on one platform in Uttar Pradesh. However, they find themselves on the same side in the Muzaffarnagar row involving a school principal getting other students to beat up a Muslim primary school child, while allegedly making communal remarks against the community. BJP leader and Union minister Sanjeev Kumar Balyan has said there was no communal angle to the episode, while the SP and BKU were present at a panchayat held to broker truce between the principal, Tripta Tyagi, and the parents of the minor. The reason appears to be the political hold of the Tyagis in western Uttar Pradesh, who identify as a group cutting across religious lines. Balyan, who met Tripta Tyagi on Sunday afternoon, said the people of the boy's village had held a meeting and resolved to solve the issue “through mutual dialogue”, as they did not want intervention of political leaders “whose only job is to wedge differences on caste and communal lines”. “The message is loud and clear. The people will not allow political tourism at their place, which means that a section of leaders who have blown a minor incident out of proportion will not get a chance to use the locals as political or religious puppets. The people have shown the mirror to these leaders,” said Balyan. On August 26, BKU chief Naresh Tikait, former MP and SP leader Harendra Malik and the chief of the Tyagi-Bhumihar-Brahmin Samaj, Mange Ram Tyagi, were present at a panchayat held at the boy's village where a “patch-up” was arrived at. Tikait says he has assured the teacher that the FIR against her may be withdrawn. “The locals of the village where the slapping incident took place have taken the initiative to sort out the issue on their own. The aged teacher has tendered an apology and the father of the minor said he was in no mood to escalate the issue, but political leaders are leaving no stone unturned to draw political mileage ahead of the next general elections,” said Rajpal Singh, former SP Meerut unit chief. Shahid Manzoor, SP MLA from Meerut’s Kithore and a Muslim Tyagi leader, cautions people to be aware of “the political designs of a section of leaders whose only interest is to wedge a rift among communities”. According to Manzoor, who is a former SP minister, “The ruling BJP would have used the slapping incident as yet another potent political weapon, like the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, but they realised they may end up losing the game, and hence they backtracked.” With MP Balyan already speaking up in defence of the teacher, the state chief of the BJP trade cell, Vineet Sharda, calls the incident “a social issue” and says no one should give it a political colour. “We have been taught since childhood that the guru (teacher) is to be as respected as one's mother. The teacher concerned is a Divyang (disabled). What was wrong if she got her student punished for not reciting a mathematical table? Are students not beaten at madrasas? Why do these leaders not rake up issues of madrasas?” asked Sharda. The BKU's Naresh Tikait, who is also the head of the powerful Baliyan khap, said the issue has been “settled”, adding: “The teacher did nothing wrong, and in my personal opinion, she should neither face an FIR, nor should her school be de-recognised following the incident.” Mange Ram Tyagi, who was part of the efforts for a “truce”, also said the principal was only trying to discipline the child. “The only part which is true in the video is that the student is being slapped by classmates. The rest, including comments aimed at a particular community, are untrue. Two students out of the four who slapped the student belong to the Muslim community,” Mange Ram claimed, adding that Tripta had told the children to punish the boy “mildly”, so that he would come “fully prepared to school the next time”. Gyaneshwar Tyagi, a prominent leader of the Tyagi community in west UP, backs this. “What the teacher did cannot be justified, but at the same time, what a section of the leaders are trying to do by giving the incident a communal colour to serve their political agenda is also highly condemnable.” Kuldeep Tyagi, another leader of the Tyagi Samaj, said non-BJP political parties are just using the incident to target the BJP. “The Tyagis have a sizeable presence of 2-2.5 lakh in almost each town of west UP, from Noida, Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar to Saharanpur. They wield political, monetary and muscle power, and this perhaps was the reason non-BJP parties tried to paint the slapping incident as a sequel of the politics of communal hatred, which these leaders claim is played by the BJP.” Earlier, the influence of the Tyagi community in west UP played out after Shrikant Tyagi was involved in a brawl with a woman at Noida’s Omaxe Society. As the video of the brawl went public and the administration took action, Balyan came to Shrikant's family's support against a portion of their house being bulldozed. On Monday, Jayant Chaudhary, the chief of the RLD, the preeminent party in western UP, asked if BJP leaders trying to project that there was no communal angle to the episode would send their children to such a school. Speaking to PTI, Chaudhary attacked BJP governments at the Centre and UP, and said when there is an all-pervasive environment that enables such voices, things get out of control. "When I saw that clip (of the child being beaten), I saw a bad teacher. It is unfortunate that BJP leaders are talking about justice for the teacher. They are seeing a Tyagi. I am not seeing a Tyagi, I am not seeing a 'samaj' there. I am not targeting a community there, I am just asking questions - is this how we want to deal with our future generations? Do we want to strip them of their innocence at six, seven or eight years of age?" the Rajya Sabha MP said. Following the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, the differences between the Jats and Muslims, who together formed the RLD's core support base, had helped the BJP grow. In last year's Assembly polls, the RLD clawed some of the Muslim support base back, helped by its alliance with the SP. Following the incident at her school, Tripta Tyagi was booked under Sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the IPC. She has not been arrested as police say she is accused of bailable offences. The school she ran, Neha Public School, has been told to stay shut till the investigation is over. In the video, Tripta is heard telling the children to hit their classmate “hard” and saying at one point: “Maine toh declare kar diya, jitne bhi Mohammedan bachche hain, inke wahan chale jao (I have declared – all these Muslim children, go to anyone’s area)…” The principal has claimed that the clip had been “tampered with” to give a communal colour to the matter. While she has admitted that getting the student slapped by his classmates was wrong, she said she did it as she was physically challenged. The boy's father earlier told The Indian Express that he didn't want action against the teacher but admitted being “scared” because of all the attention. “My family and I are worried about our future here. I am a farm labourer. I don’t want Tripta ma’am to be arrested or punished. My son and his cousin have been studying there for years. We only wanted an apology and an explanation from her. We have never faced such an issue in the village, but now everyone is talking about it.” In the presence of The Indian Express, village head Narender Tyagi told the boy's father: “Stop this drama now. We don’t want the media in this village. I want you to go to the police station and tell them you don’t need an FIR… Or you will be the one facing the consequences.”
