Voices From Jahangirpuri: Residents Angry And Disappointed By Police Restriction On Hanuman Jayanti Processions

Every year before Hanuman Jayanti, a festival to mark the birth anniversary of widely revered deity Lord Hanuman, 18-year-old Jayanti Solanki gets a T-shirt printed with Hanuman’s face. It’s an activity that most young men in his residential colony indulge in.

When the procession to celebrate the festival is taken out, Jayanti and his friends wear the saffron-coloured T-shirts and dance through the route, while chanting ‘Siyavar Ram Ramchandra Ki Jai, Pavanputra Hanuman Ki jai’, ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’.

The T-shirt costs each person Rs 250; the design is changed every year. An organisation named Hindu Vahini, based in Jahangirpuri area of Northwest Delhi, makes arrangement for the procession, which culminates in a bhandara at a temple.

Residents say the procession has been carried out for 14 years. It begins at the H-Block of Jahangirpuri, passes through Blocks A, I, J and K to reach a Hanuman temple in Block E. The route covers around four kilometres.

But this year, the police did not allow the procession to move beyond H Block. CRPF personnel numbering about 200, armed with tear shells and other anti-riot gear, barricaded the Block, along with 500 policemen.   

Last year, one of the three such processions came under attack when it passed near a mosque, leaving a dozen people, including policemen, injured. This time, the police restricted the processions citing security.

The restrictions have not gone down well with residents. On 6 April – the day of Hanuman jayanti – leaders of Hindu Vahini and other participants wore black bands on their arms in a mark of protest. To the news channels present, they gave statements criticising the police for limiting their movement.

When Swarajya visited the colony two days later, residents said they were disappointed and were “feeling humiliated”. A distraught Solanki, who lives in “Gujarati mohalla” of Block H, lamented that he did not get to dance in the streets.

His mother Raaji said she liked to watch the procession from the terrace, but this time, “there was too much police”. “Initially I thought some VIP had come. Then I was told the police is present to prevent any communal clashes,” she said, and asked, “Is this India or Pakistan?”

Awadh Narayan, a lawyer by profession and resident of H Block who was one of the organisers, told Swarajya that his group Hindu Vahini had sought police permission more than a month ago through a letter bearing letterhead of the organisation. The police did not deny the permission but when the day arrived, they informed the group that the procession could only move till the end of H Block – a distance of 300 metres.

By then, more than 200 residents had gathered outside a sweets shop, which was the assembly point. The group leaders decided that they would not move at all. “Either we go the full length or not at all, that’s what we decided,” said Narayan, whose picture featured on the hoardings announcing the procession.

Narayan and his group conducted a havan near the sweets shop and concluded the event. “All our arrangements proved to be futile,” said Narayan.

He clarified that his organisation is different from Hindu Yuva Vahini, which was founded by current Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath in 2002 but is currently defunct. He added that group leaders of his organisation are not associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

What happened last year

On 16 April last year, violence broke out in Block C of Jahangirpuri when a Hanuman procession was passing through a mosque. Stones were pelted at the participants, leaving at least one civilian and eight policemen injured. Vehicles were set on fire. That rally was taken out by Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its youth wing Bajrang Dal.

The police cracked down on the rioters and made more than 30 arrests in a month.

In a chargesheet filed in July, the police identified Mohammed Tabrez, Mohammed Ansar, Mohammed Ishrafil and Mohammed Salim Chikna as key conspirators and 41 others as co-accused. The police said the conspirators used Whatsapp chats to instigate violence, and some of the accused distributed swords to the rioters.

The 3,000-page chargesheet called the violence an “extension” of the anti-CAA-NRC protests in 2019-20 at Shaheen Bagh and Northeast Delhi.

The trial in the case has not begun yet. All the accused barring one Mohammed Salman have been granted bail. Only one accused, Mohammed Jahangir, has managed to stay out of police net and continues to be absconding.

Besides charges of rioting, the accused have been booked for attempt to murder.

Jahangirpuri – a resettlement colony known for ragpicking and “Bangladeshi” immigrants

Sunil Kumar, a resident of H Block in Jahangirpuri who introduces himself as a Right to Information (RTI) activist, says Jahangirpuri is divided into 12 Blocks, each Block home to around 2,000 families. Kumar, who is also a member of the Jahangirpuri Residents Welfare Association, estimates the population to be between six and seven lakh people.

Jahangirpuri became a resettlement colony for slum dwellers in the 1970s. Most of those slum dwellers were migrants from Bengal.

“Till early 1970s, the colony had single-storey houses. Then when migrants settled, the houses turned into multiple-storey buildings,” the 42-year-old, who has roots in Rajasthan, says.

Though the colony today has significant migrant population from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat and Rajasthan, it remains a “Bengali area”.

Today, there are far more Muslims than Hindus among Bengalis, and residents believe many of them are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. For this reason, several lanes in Jahangirpuri are called ‘Bangladeshi mohalla’, where residents speak Bengali but are identified as Bangladeshis from their distinct dialect.

A vast number of slum dwellers are into rag-picking, and majority of them are believed to be Muslims.

A study by a scholar from University of Delhi, titled ‘Behavioural mapping of crime hotspots in Delhi’, named Jahangirpuri as one of major 10 hotspots of crime in the national capital city, where thefts, pickpocketing and chain-snatching are commonplace.

Discord between two majority communities

Unlike three processions last year, this year saw two. While the first was organised by Hindu Vahini as detailed above, the second was by the VHP-Bajrang Dal combine. Hoardings announcing both the events are still up in the streets.

In the latter, all the three hosts have been introduced as office bearers of the BJP (see in the pictures below).

This rally was scheduled to begin from a Durga temple in Block E and pass through several Blocks, including Block C where violence took place last year. The police, however, did not allow the participants from entering other Blocks. This rally saw a turnout of 1,000 people.

Suresh Chand Sahu, who runs a small grocery store in Block E, told Swarajya that he was angry at the police. “We are very angry. All Hindu residents are very angry at the police. They turned our festival into a glum affair,” he said. “We went to Ayodhya on Ram Navami. My grandson bought a gada (mace) so he could carry it during the procession. I saw him crying at home because the procession wasn’t moving,” he said.

Sahu’s son Kaushal, who introduced himself as a BJP worker, said the police had left “Hindu residents of Jahangirpuri feeling humiliated”.

“Hindus take out such processions on only three or four festivals in a year. What has our reputation reduced to? That we cannot take out a religious procession in our own country and that too under the BJP rule?” he said.

Kaushal said that the police informed them on the evening of 5 April that the route they had proposed was not accepted and that movement would be restricted. On the day of the festival, the police  put up barricades at several spots.

Initially, VHP leader Surendra Gupta made a speech saying the rally would walk around the entire Jahangirpuri, but he relented after talks with the police. BJP leader Kapil Mishra too attended this rally, and told the media that he would follow the agreed route.

Sujjo Sahu, who lives in the same E Block, said the violence last year has created enmity between the Hindu and Muslim residents. In the lane she lives, one side is lined up with Hindu families while the opposite side with Muslim families. The neighbours don’t talk anymore, she said.

This correspondent went to a man, clad in a white kurta and skull cap, standing a few metres away from the woman, to ask about the mood in the area. He said, “I will not make any comment.”

In Block C, where no procession reached this time, 29-year-old Mohammed Salman said he was thankful to the police for not allowing the procession to pass through the C-Block mosque. He said, “Earlier, such processions were not large. Now we see 1,000-2,000 people participating in these. They play DJ outside the mosque and chant anti-Muslim slogans such as Jai Shri Ram.”

Salman runs a shop outside the mosque where violence erupted last year.

It may be remembered that last year, several journalists and social media influencers quoted anonymous residents of the C-Block saying that participants of Hanuman Jayanti procession forcibly entered the mosque and installed saffron flags inside.

A week later, Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana rubbished the claims in a press conference, saying, “An altercation [between the two groups] erupted over a minor argument. Reports that flags were installed at a mosque are baseless.”

When asked about it, Salman said, “When the naarebaazi [sloganeering] was going on, some of our people came out of the mosque too. They chanted Allahu Akbar against Jai Shri Ram. Stone-pelting started after that. It was from both sides.”