Election Results Day in a West UP Town

Census 2011 tells me Hasanpur, my hometown has 34.55% Hindu population & 64.97% Muslim population. Christianity & Sikhism are the other two religions people believe in. Since I was born, I have seen a number of Mohalla fights (arguments) breaking out between the two majority communities in the few years I stayed here. Early days, when I was a child, this was rather common. Some kid from one community would beat up someone from the other faith and all concerned (read, unemployed) adults would huddle up together to solve the crime. Out of these crime scene situations, an understanding or say, a commentary had emerged among the Hindu clan, and it said, when the time comes, the Muslims help each other; they come together and they face the other side as one, but the Hindus, the Hindu are never united on anything.

Hasanpur, Uttar Pradesh (Total population of the town basis Census 2015 is 211,533)

11th March 2017, afternoon

I am in my hometown, since, the next two days, it's Holi. The UP Election results have started pouring in. The BJP is leading on the majority of the seats. Out of somewhere, we hear that there has been a fight, yet again, between the two communities. The charge is the incumbent Inspector of police is a puppet of the outgoing SP MLA and that he gave a free hand to the Muslim boys and arrested a number of Hindus over the fights that followed. Hindus are now agitated, well, because the lads have been arrested and they are very emotionally turmoiled with the unfairness bestowed upon them.

The parents of the kids and their mohallawalas, a group of 20-30 people enter the gully and there is a sudden commotion. These guys are going to the Kotwali to 'deal with' the Inspector. A couple of boys join in from my own neighborhood in this march to undo the unjust beatings Hindu boys have suffered. The conversations in the households nearby, also involve whispers with whereabouts of who and who of the mohalla gang. His son, their son; the lady nearby is distressed. People pretend things are okay, in front of her. She is an old widowed lady and they feel she deserves all the compassion or consoling, just in case. The conversations also circle around one of my nephews, aged around 18. We are distantly related, at least I think so, but the families have always been quite close. He is a part of the Mohalla lafangas and people are now also worried about him. After a while, he is located. He is tucked in the 'safety' of neighbors' eyeballs. People won't let him leave the gully now. No. He can create problems.

I am a spectator to all the happenings, for, I have now been called, an adult. The concept of an adult in west UP belt towns (this can perhaps be extended to all Indian towns) is very interesting. Once branded a grown-up, it allows you to stand among all the mohallawalas, from an uptight conversation to conversations with lafangas, and this also has the unsaid privilege of your parents not saying anything if you get in a few little dangerous zones. He is an adult, he can deal with it, is the commonly accepted truth. Courtesy the 'privilege', I am not stopped as I walk to the main street, with the lafangas and the 'tolis' huddled together conversing and making sense of the floating rumors. How rumors are interpreted in a women group and all-male group is very different, for the latter group can see the perspective of the attacker or the group who was attacked. The women group, in these scenarios, believes and relies on the conversations brought in by any male in the mohalla, in a lot of cases, even a 7-8-year-old kid, but a male, of course.

A police jeep passes by, with the windshield broken. Some guy comes along and delivers a new element to the story of how the windshield was broken in the attack/defense. People are talking of how they are gonna fuck with the mullahs and hoping Yogi wins the nomination for Chief Minister. Looking with all the anger yet brightness in the future, they believe, with whatever numbers, they are going to rule the town. The current situation is just going to stay the case for the next 2-3 days, after this, of course, it's their time. I come back to the mohalla to a separate set of huddled conversations and promptly deliver the sack of information I have with me, as interpreted, toned down and with the high ground in my mind being fair to every side. I see people are now worried about the whole Hindu community and the anger from the all male groups has today trickled down here as well. They wholeheartedly are with the BJP now and hope for a stable or a dominated future.