BHAGALPUR, BIHAR: It was 10 am on October 24, 1989, a Tuesday. Even after 26 years, Jamila Bibi vividly remembers the events of the day. “Us manhoos din ko kaisey bhool sakti hoon jisne hamaein barbaad kar diya (How can I forget that unfortunate day that ruined us),” asks the 55-year-old.Jamila, then 29, was struggling to finish her early morning chores. With a threeyear-old daughter seeking her attention and a two-year-old son equally pressing for her time, Jamila somehow managed to finish her work by 10. Then misfortune struck.Her husband, Mohammad Murtaza, came running home from his handloom unit. “Dange ho gayein hain, jaldi bhaago yahan se (Riots have broken out. Let’s move out quickly),” he screamed. Jamila lifted her two kids and ran out with her husband, leaving behind everything.The entire village was gutted by the rioters, says Jamila who took refuge in Champanagar, some 500 metres from Madaninagar in Bihar’s Bhagalpur district. Whilst Madaninagar today houses around 3,500 Muslim weaver families, Bhagalpur town has a weaving tradition that’s over 100 years old. Today, the town is home to some 30,000 handloom weavers.

While Jamila and her family are lucky to be alive, around 1,000 people lost their lives — most of them Muslims — and over 50,000 displaced by the infamous Bhagalpur riots which lasted for over two months. “I lost everything.



Two of my relatives were killed, and I got just Rs 1,200 from the government,” she says, tears welling up in her eyes. “Hamein na to paisa mila aur na hi insaaf (Neither did we get money nor justice.)”

The Justice NN Singh Inquiry Commission — set up by Nitish Kumar in 2006 to inquire into the Bhagalpur riots, which were allegedly triggered by stone-pelting at a religious procession — tabled its report in August this year.It puts the blame squarely on the then Congress government led by chief minister Satyendra Narayan Sinha and on the state administrative officials for their inability to contain the riots.The report, however, fails to assuage Jamila’s anger. “Sabne tamasha banaya hai hamara,” she says, failing to hold back her tears. Madaninagar was one of the villages that was ransacked, burnt and looted during the riots. In spite of the fact that most of the villagers came back after a few months, life has never been the same since then. New houses were constructed but a few old ones are still lying abandoned and dilapidated, serving as a reminder of the riots.The narrow lanes and bylanes that crisscross the village are overflowing with the filth of a choked drainage. Some houses have installed powerlooms, but erratic electric supply has left them bleeding. “We didn’t have anything. No money, no support to start a new life,” rues Jamila.Mohammad Habib, another resident of Madaninagar, too was left in the lurch. The 65-year-old somehow managed to save his family but lost his source of livelihood — two handloom machines. “The ones who were supposed to protect us (police) were the ones involved in butchering us,” says Habib.His two handlooms were burnt, his belongings were looted and his house was brought down. The government compensated him with Rs 1,500. In 1989, Habib says he would earn Rs 5,000 a month from his looms. Since the riots, he has been pulling a hand-rickshaw, two of his sons have migrated to Gujarat where they work as farm labourers and the other two stay with him.“Politicians have just played with our emotions,” says Habib, whose six-member family lives in two box-sized rooms. There’s a makeshift kitchen in one corner, and flies buzz around the house courtesy of an open drain just outside it. The other houses in Madaninangar aren’t much different.Mohammad Esa, 65, too is bitter about the way government has handled rehabilitation of the victims. Esa lost his mother during the riots, all his savings were looted, his handlooms were burnt and since then he has been working as a daily wage labourer, earning Rs 150 every day by working on the powerloom in a nearby village.“In these 26 years all we have got is sympathy. Now it’s time to heal the wounds,” he says, adding that the Muslims have been badly let down by the Congress since the riots — which explains why Congress, which once considered Bhagalpur its bastion, has failed to come back to power after 1989. Last year, for the first time in 25 years, the party won a legislative assembly seat in a by-election.

Dr Faruque Ali, a social activist and zoology professor with TNB College in Bhagalpur, says Congress itself is to be blamed for paving the way for BJP after the riots by doing nothing for the Muslim community for over half a century. “Congress has paid the price for the 1989 riots,” he says. He, however, adds that the grand old party stands a good chance of winning from Bhagalpur this time around because of the infighting in the BJP.

If Bhagalpur is one of the most communally sensitive regions of Bihar, Ali maintains that it’s not because the people are communal but because of politicians who divide. Ali’s belief in the secular nature of Bhagalpur is borne out by a Hindu-Muslim friendship, the bonds of which were cemented during the riots. Alim Ansari and Dayanand Jha, childhood friends who studied in the same school in Darbhanga and went to the same college, never thought their friendship would be subject to a litmus test.When the riots broke out in 1989, Ansari was forced to remain in his village for a few weeks. His ailing mother was badly in need of medicine, the kids were deprived of regular supply of milk and the family had run out of food. It was then that Jha got the ration and medicine for the family every day for a month, recalls Ansari. He was even targeted by rioters and some fanatics but Jha refused to toe their line, he says.“Since then we have been living like brothers rather than friends,” says Ansari, who is a member of Bihar Bunkar Kalyan Samiti, an organisation that works for the welfare of the weavers. Jha too was accepted as a member of the Ansari family.“Religion never divides. It’s the politicians and a few fanatics who play the dirty game,” says Jha. While Ansari-Jha duo were not affected by the riots, thousands of Muslim weavers in Bhagalpur were badly hit as they were forced to move out of the profession, says Amitabh Kumar, senior journalist and political analyst in Bihar. He reckons that the silk city of Bhagalpur is fast losing its sheen. “Any narrative about the Bhagalpur riot victims must also talk about the Muslim silk weavers who were forced to live a life of subordination,” he contends.A few kilometres from Madaninagar is Belkhuriya, another village largely inhabited by Muslim weavers. Muhammad Jehangir Ansari, 70, says the riots pushed them to the brink as the industry was thrown out of gear for the next several years.The situation has been getting worse over the last few years because of the apathetic attitude of the government, he reckons. High price of raw material, stiff competition from the neighbouring state of Jharkhand and massive imports from China have taken the sheen off Bhagalpur silk, he says.Ansari of Bihar Bunkar Kalyan Samiti agrees. From over a lakh weaver families a decade back, Bhagalpur now has under half of that number. While in 1989, the annual silk export from Bhagalpur was worth Rs 250 crore, it has now dipped to Rs 130 crore, estimates Ansari. Mazhar Ansari, another weaver in Belkhuriya, was forced to sell his powerloom due to poor electricity supply. The situation was so bad that supply was available for just 7-8 hours, he claims. “In the absence of proper infrastructure, how could we survive,” he asks.Those who persisted with powerlooms are now having second thoughts. Generators have taken a toll on business, says Moeen Ansari, who spends around Rs 5,000 every month on the diesel guzzlers. The s tate government doesn’t want weavers to survive, he says. “While the riots broke our backbone, insensitive governments have made us physically challenged,” says Ansari.With Bhagalpur going to the polls on October 12 in the first phase of the five-phase Bihar assembly elections, the moot question is: will Bhagalpur be willing to put the riots behind it and forgive the Congress by bringing it back to power?