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Two clear heads
Mohalla peace committees in Mumbai have played a significant role in fighting the menace of communalism and hatred between Hindus and Muslims, reports Humra Quraishi.
Last winter, I met two community leaders in Mumbai’s Dharavi slums. The two were strong, clear-headed men -- Bhau Korde, a Maharashtrian Hindu, and Waqar Khan, a Muslim from Uttar Pradesh who had settled in Dharavi in 1978. Korde and Khan’s mission was to maintain peace between the Hindu and Muslim communities in their locality. The minute they sensed the slightest strain, either among the residents or between the residents and the police, they set about resolving it.
Both men had seen the killings during the Mumbai riots of the early Nineties. They had been so affected that they had responded to the call by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Satish Kumar Sahni to form mohalla peace committees.
As Korde recounted, “When I thought about it, I realised that I had no Muslim friends despite living among thousands of Muslims in Dharavi. That’s when I befriended Waqar Khan, who lives close by, and decided to help maintain peace and order right at the grassroots level... Why did I decide to help Muslims? Because I feel it is important to help another human being, to interact and reach out. With interaction, there is communication and respect.”
He recounted how, in 2004, tension erupted between Hindus and Muslims in Dharavi during a cricket match. Waqar and Bhau, along with several others from both communities, sorted out the fracas before it could take the proportions of something horrible and senseless. The minute they heard that there was tension brewing, they went and spoke to people for hours. They also decided to follow another strategy -- a scheme whereby Hindus would have to stand as guarantors for jailed Muslims, and Muslims for jailed Hindus.
Waqar had been especially moved by the 1993 Mumbai riots, so much so that during the Gujarat riots he went out of his way to make Hum sab ekhain promos for Doordarshan.
He also drives home an interesting, though perhaps unpalatable, point, “NGOs break the continuity in a locality and only worsen matters. Since most of them have connections with political outfits, there are very few genuine NGOs around, ones that work without a political agenda.”
Perhaps Bhau Korde and Waqar Khan could reach out to many more Mumbaikars today and teach them a few things about living in harmony.
