The caterwauling in the name of Allah, holding up posters, coordinated crying and victim playing, women and children out in the cold protesting against ‘state brutality’ and the online shills spreading fake news – the Haldwani issue has all the makings of snowballing into a Shaheen Bagh like situation. Since the 28th of December 2022, the residents of Haldwani, Uttarakhand, mostly Muslims, have been protesting against the authorities, who in accordance with a High Court order, launched a drive to clear encroachments from Railway land in the area.
The protesters have been making insinuations about how the State is persecuting them because they are Muslim. According to the reports, around 4000 families, the majority of whom are Muslims have been staying in the area for decades on the 29 acres of railway land that has been encroached upon by the residents. For years, railway authorities have contended that encroachment is impeding growth and expansion efforts.
However, on December 27, a strategy was developed to eliminate encroachments on railway land in the Banbhoolpura district. The master plan was developed during a high-level meeting involving administrative authorities and ADRM railways in response to a recent Uttarakhand High Court ruling for the elimination of encroachments.
The Uttarakhand High Court had recently ordered the authorities to evict forthwith the unauthorized occupants to vacate the premises from the railway land adjoining Haldwani Railway Station, commonly called Gaffur Basti. Accordingly, the action was initiated on December 29 after providing residents with a one-week prior notice.
Further, in accordance with the court ruling, residents of the Banbhoolpura area in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani who live on encroached railway land were also asked to surrender their licensed weapons and guns with the administration before the process of removing encroachments began.
The issue over railway land encroachment in the Haldwani area dates back to 2007 when railway officials conducted eviction operations for land segmentation and clearance of encroachment. It did, however, result in fights and arson, as well as demonstrations and stone-pelting.
On July 27, 2021, the North Eastern Railways delivered over 1,000 eviction notices to Banbhoolpura residents, instructing them to vacate their homes within 15 days. In April, over 500 people received similar notices, while 1,581 people received identical notices in January. The tenants then contended that the continuous distribution of eviction notices was done only to annoy them while the case was still in court.
The Uttarakhand High Court had previously asked the North Eastern Railway administration to remove encroachments on railway land in an order dated November 9, 2016. In the aftermath of the ruling, about 4,365 notifications were issued that year. After dismissing the state’s review plea, the court ordered the expulsion of informal settlers within four weeks in January 2017. The Supreme Court, however, postponed the ruling for three months, citing the fact that the High Court had not heard the petitioners before issuing the eviction order.
From the brief history of the issue, some facts become evident:
- This is not an eviction drive that is being carried out at the whim of the administration. The authorities have been trying to evict land encroachers since 2007 – that is 15 years.
- The eviction drive is a result of a High Court order, therefore, it is safe to say that the legal process has been followed by the authorities in order to carry out this demolition drive.
- When an eviction operation was conducted in 2007, the residents of Haldwani, who are today wailing and crying, indulged in arson and rioting against the eviction drive.
- There were several eviction notices furnished to the residents of Haldwani, who today seem to be insinuating that they are in a state of shock that their illegal houses, constructed on Railway land, are being demolished.
- The Supreme Court, when approached by the residents, had asked them to go back to the High Court. SC had asked HC to decide their pleas in 3 months – this was in 2017. It was a couple of weeks ago that the High Court passed the judgement to remove encroachments from Haldwani.
- After the High Court order, Rajendra Singh, Railway PRO, Izzat Nagar had said that there were 4365 encroachments and the eviction notices were served through the local newspaper. He said that the residents were given 7 days to shift, after which, the demolition would take place.
- It is pertinent to note that after the High Court judgement and the eviction notice being served for the residents to shift in 7 days, the residents have spent their time protesting, blocking roads, talking to the media, crying ‘persecution’ and playing victim, with sympathetic voices in the media trying to build a narrative about a grave injustice being meted out to the Muslim residents.
From the facts of the case, it is evident that this eviction drive was 15 years in the making, with the residents being given ample hearing in a court of law and sufficient time by the authorities to move out of the illegal residences.
But the narrative that is now being built has all the marking of a protest being crafted to mirror the 2019-2020 Shaheen Bagh protest that ultimately led to the Delhi anti-Hindu Riots in February 2020. The ongoing protests in Haldwani, the imagery being used and the narrative being weaved by Islamist allies have uncanny parallels to what we saw unfolding in 2019-2020.
The unmissable Congress hand
Congress has taken a special interest in the Haldwani eviction drive. On the 2nd of January, Congress leader Imran Pratapgarhi tweeted that represented by Salman Khurshid, he had approached the Supreme Court against the eviction drive. He said he had approached the court against the demolition of the homes of the “oppressed”. So far, we have been given no context by Pratapgarhi as to how the residents of Haldwani were being “oppressed”.
Interestingly, Aarfa Khanam, a Congress politician and prominent attorney from Delhi, had gone live on Facebook to discuss the issue. She said that the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party administration is targeting the region because the majority of the population in the area is Muslim. “We respect the judiciary. But what kind of justice is this that you make fifty thousand people homeless but you didn’t make any arrangements for their rehabilitation” Khanam said.
It is also reported that the demonstrators are being supported by Congress MLA Sumit Hridayesh and Samajwadi Party in-charge Abdul Matin Siddiqui and general secretary Shoeb Ahmad. Notably, the matter in which Zubair and several other Muslim leaders have raised their voices is the matter of illegal encroachment of the railway land in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani area.
Interestingly, during the anti-CAA protests in 2019, which morphed into the Shaheen Bagh protest and later the anti-Hindu riots in Delhi, the Congress hand was also unmissable. First and foremost, the misinformation about Citizenship Amendment Act was fanned by Congress itself. It is pertinent to note that Sonia Gandhi held a rally where she had said made “do or die” calls from the stage on the 14th of December 2019. She had also said that sacrifices will have to be made to ensure that CAA is not implemented – the narrative which was being peddled, was that CAA was somehow anti-Muslim when it actually had nothing to do with Muslims, let alone Indian Muslims.
On the 16th of December 2019, OpIndia exclusively reported how Whatsapp groups were being made by Congress leaders and workers to spread misinformation about CAA and fan violence. From the Whatsapp conversations, it was evident that the group was run by Congress workers and leaders, that the anti-CAA protests were spearheaded by Congress but they wanted to appear politically neutral and organic and the aim of the protest was an Arab Spring-like protest. There were then other Whatsapp groups that pointed towards a specific Congress and foreign NGO nexus in the anti-CAA protest.
In the anti-Hindu violence itself, which broke out in February 2020, there were several Congress leaders who were involved in the violence and the conspiracy to commit violence. Ishrat Jahan, a Congress leader, for example, is directly accused of inciting and conspiring to commit violence in Delhi during the riots. There are several other Congress leaders who have regularly extended support to Umar Khalid, who is a prime conspirator of the Delhi anti-Hindu violence.
With the Congress tentacles being evident in the 2020 violence, the involvement of Congress yet again, this time in Haldwani, should raise several red flags for the authorities given that protests like these with political patronage can soon turn exceptionally ugly – as evidenced by the anti-CAA protests and Shaheen Bagh protests in 2020.
The maa-behen, biting cold trope in the protests
One of the defining characteristics of the Shaheen Bagh protest was the use of old women and children to drive home the point about how Muslims were supposedly being persecuted in India. We now see the same pattern being repeated in the Haldwani protests.
Muslim journalist from NewsClick tweeted a video about how the residents of Haldwani were out, protesting in the biting cold. He also said that he would stand in solidarity with them against the state.
In the video, the man delivering a speech to the protesting residents could hear invoking the name of Allah and crying, in a synchronised manner with the crowd. Apart from the obvious religious overtones, what stood out was the man talking incessantly about how women and children were being rendered homeless by the state’s action.
हल्द्वानी का मज़बूर और बेबस मुसलमान सर्द मौसम के बीच ठिठुरती सड़को पर बैठा है,हम रज़ाई और कंबलों में भी खुद की सर्दी नही उतार पा रहे है लेकिन @RailMinIndia का क्या उसने तो क़सम खाई है इन बस्तियों को उजाड़ लोगों को बेघर करने की!#Haldwani के लोगों के साथ हम एकजुटता से खड़े रहेंगे pic.twitter.com/EfXK7ko07s
— Zakir Ali Tyagi (@ZakirAliTyagi) January 1, 2023
Out-on-bail fact-checker of AltNews, Mohammad Zubair posted several pictures of the protest where it was evident that children were being used in the Haldwani protest, just like they were being used in the Shaheen Bagh protest, to invoke sympathy.
More… #Haldwani pic.twitter.com/pGMBwnjCYq
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 31, 2022
The other trope that we see getting repeated is that of “poor, destitute, helpless Muslims” protesting in the biting cold of December. This is the same trope we saw during the Shaheen Bagh protests.
In Uttrakhand, thousands of Muslims are out on the roads asking the government to stop the demolition of their houses. They are crying, praying helplessly. In the peak of the winter season, they will all soon become homeless. #Haldwani
— Ismat Ara (@IsmatAraa) January 2, 2023
It is pertinent to note that the Shaheen Bagh protests also started in December – on the 15th – and the Haldwani protest has also erupted in December itself.
Misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the issue to peddle a trope about state persecution of Muslims
As elucidated above, this issue is not about the state going out of its way to persecute Muslims, however, that is what the narrative that is being created suggests.
Mohammad Zubair, who habitually dog whistles, took to Twitter to claim that it is the media’s responsibility to speak for the helpless, however, the media has become the mouthpiece of the ruling government and therefore is not becoming the voice of Haldwani Muslims.
It’s time to Speak up for people of Haldwani. Amplifiy their voices. Media is supposed to be the voice of the people, but unfortunately Indian media has become Govt Mouthpiece. Not one Nation Media has reported this protest. #StandWithPeopleOfHaldwani #SpeakUpForPeopleOfHaldwani pic.twitter.com/UW68EHPqVt
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) December 30, 2022
While Zubair acknowledges that the eviction drive is pursuant to a High Court order, he somehow, slyly, peddles the narrative that the media is silent because they are enslaved to the ruling government, essentially signalling that the ruling government is maliciously trying to demolish the house of the Muslim residents and therefore, they were a victim of state persecution. In fact, he even says that the demolition is happening “at the pretext of encroachments”, somehow insinuating that the Muslim residents were actually not illegally occupying the land but were being evicted maliciously by the government.
In fact, even the corporate media jumped on to the bandwagon in trying to paint the Haldwani residents as victims.
Get real India: 4,000 families living on Railway land in #Haldwani now face the risk of losing their homes.
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) January 2, 2023
Watch this ground report. #NewsToday @sardesairajdeep pic.twitter.com/ZCO07brBuQ
Rajdeep Sardesai in his segment on India Today said that several residents of Haldwani were protesting because they risked losing their homes to the demolition drive to clear encroached land. However, he also says that the India Today report was meant to explore the “truth” – “Where does the truth lie”, he asks, essentially seeding doubt that the fact that these were illegal buildings and the authorities were clearing encroachments legally could be a lie and the truth could lie elsewhere.
In the video itself, one resident of Haldwani clearly says that they were served repeated eviction notices. Her version is that they were served these notices because the authorities wanted to harass them, however, as we have seen, the facts of the case point towards a truth that India Today failed to elucidate. The fact is that several notices have been serviced to the residents in accordance with the law and it was the court that evaluated the facts before passing the judgement. Further, in this 15-year-old issue, it is also true that the Haldwani residents indulged in arson and rioting in 2007. With the clear knowledge that their homes were illegally built and encroached on Railway land and with several notices being served, the residents had ample time to find alternate accommodation.
Even after the latest judgement by the High Court and the authorities giving the residents 7 days to move out, the residents seem to have decided to spend that time protesting, crying in a synchronised manner, invoking Allah and talking to the media.
During the CAA issue in 2019-2020 as well, there was a substantial twisting of the narrative with the media and Muslim “activists” claiming that the CAA was a law against the Muslims of India. The truth was far from it. CAA had nothing to do with Muslims at all and was merely extending citizenship to persecuted minorities of neighbouring Islamic nations. In fact, during the CAA fiasco, the politicians, Islamists and the media went a step ahead and claimed that the CAA coupled with NRC would ensure that Muslims lose their right to citizenship. While CAA had nothing to do with Indian Muslims, a nationwide NRC had not even been drafted for them to fearmonger on the basis of it.
Problematic Muslim elements who were active during the CAA violence have also come out of the woodworks during the Haldwani issue.
The #Haldwani issue is purely govt vendetta. Over 50,000 people, at least 1/3rd of the entire population in the city, is to be made homeless by HC order no less. They’ve govt schools, tanks and registration papers since generations. How were these made on railway land?
— Sharjeel Usmani (@SharjeelUsmani) January 2, 2023
It is evident that the aim of the misinformation campaign in this issue is the same as that during the Shaheen Bagh – to twist an issue to somehow give the impression that the state is persecuting Muslims in a coordinated, malicious manner with the world looking away. The victim narrative serves the larger purpose of not only showing the central government, which has been deemed as “pro-Hindu” and “anti-Muslim” by the global order, in a bad light but also handing over the perpetual victim card to the Muslim community. In this case, it is clear that the Muslim residents encroached on Railway land and the authorities were trying to evict them for 15 years. After due process of the law, the High Court gave the go-ahead to evict the illegal occupants. After the residents were served with a notice and given 7 days to relocate, they chose to protest and cry victim instead of accepting the ruling of the court. The ecosystem which flourishes on using the Muslim victim card to claim that “minorities are under attack”, immediately sprung into action to claim that the “truth could be different” and that the media is not speaking up for the illegal occupants because they are sold to the ruling government, insinuating that the state is persecuting its Muslim population.
Now, with the Haldwani protest having all the makings of Shaheen Bagh 2.0, and the Congress petition coming up for hearing in the Supreme Court on the 5th, there are a few ways that this could proceed.
If the Supreme Court, as it should, throws out the petition saying that the eviction is being carried out after the due process of the law, we would see spurious protests in Haldwani and shill cacophony by the ecosystem, but chances are, that the situation would be assuaged and the motivated protestors-for-hire would go home, looking for the next cause they can exploit.
However, if the Court decides to repeat the shenanigans that it pulled off during Shaheen Bagh, the situation could snowball before we realise it. During the Shaheen Bagh protest, the High Court had summarily refused to hear a petition that called for the protestors to be removed, citing inconvenience being caused to the general public. When the matter went to the Supreme Court, instead of acting in a decisive manner, the Supreme Court appointed interlocutors to beg the Islamists to move their protest to another location. What followed was elements like Teesta Setalvad coaching the protestors of Shaheen Bagh and the protestors furnishing a list of demands to the Supreme Court itself. With the lack of intervention of the court and the Government summarily pushing the ball in the Judiciary’s court, the protests raged on, culminating in the Delhi anti-Hindu riots.
In this case, if the Court decides to toe the liberal line and make statements “upholding the right to protest”, and the government refuses to act decisively, it is not too far from the realm of possibility that Haldwani would be Shaheen Bagh 2.0 – a breeding ground of Islamism, anti-India narrative, misplaced Muslim victimhood, fake news, instigation to violence and finally, violence.
