Shah of Delhi's misery

Media outlets have been drawing up a list of those responsible for knifing Delhi which thrashed around and bled profusely for over 48 hours last weekMissing from the list of most is the person who should have been at the top of it Home Minister Amit Shah the master of heartless political tactics otherwise known as Chanakyaniti who is also an aficionado of classical music The inaction of the Delhi Police even as Delhiites burnt and killed must be blamed on Shah as it is to him they reportYet Shahs culpability runs deeper than the collapse of the citys policing system He created the ambience in which the police could not but fail This he did by identifying the citizenship issue as the most combustible portion of the Hindutva ideological firewood lit it through his fiery rhetoric and diligently fanned the flames on his countrywide toursThe Citizenship Amendment Act CAA Shah said will be enacted to grant citizenship to nonMuslims who came from Bangladesh Afghanistan and Pakistan before preparing a National Register of Citizens NRC Infiltrators also identified as termites will then be thrown out of India he swore Muslims knew the infiltratortermite comparison referred to themShahs view on the NRC was articulated by other Bharatiya Janata Party leaders too But his power his choice of words and his past gave a chilling sinister edge to the citizenship debate which conveyed to the Muslims the existential crisis awaiting them After Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government had no plans to implement the NRC Shah changed his tune to say that the CAA is designed to grant citizenship to nonMuslims not to take it away from MuslimsWhy did he link the CAA to the NRC earlier Was he merely deriving a sadistic pleasure in scaring the Muslims The enactment of the CAA in December made Muslims believe the apocalypse as Shah had been threatening had come This goaded Jamia Millia Islamia students to protest only to be brutally set upon by Shahs police All the mellifluous songs of Bhimsen Joshi whom Shah reportedly listens to regularly could not inspire in him the spirit of reconciliation to reach out to Shaheen Baghs women who had out of their fear of the apocalypse occupied a roadShah in fact saw them as ammunition he could use to conquer Delhi Press the EVM button with such anger that current is felt at Shaheen Bagh he thundered late January in Babarpur which was licked by last weeks conflagration Current was a codeword for electrocution A verdict in the BJPs favour Shahs remark subliminally suggested would lead to the violent expulsion of the protestors from Shaheen BaghI listened to Shahs speeches delivered on January 24 in Musatafabad Karawal Nagar and Gokalpuri all three the sites where the Delhiites displayed ineffable barbarity In each of those speeches Shah described the showdown between the police and citizens over the CAA as danga or riot If you give them Opposition the reins of Delhi your safety will only be left to Ishwar he saidSince Delhiites rebuffed the BJP its sidekick Kapil Mishra decided not to leave the citys safety to Ishwar He threatened to hit the streets in case the antiCAA protesters were not evicted from the road they had occupied in northeast Delhi This plunged that district into mayhem Trounced in the elections Mishra was seeking relevance in a party in which Shah commands enormous powers Ask the question Would not the purveyor of hate be pleased to find an imitatorVariations of this question could have also paralysed Delhi Police officers Their careers depend on Shah whose wont is to demonise Muslims Will the boss penalise cops who refuse to protect those he himself depicts as demons Will they not have recalled the fate of some officers who conscionably prevented the outbreak of riots in Gujarat in 2002 on their watch The contagion of hate would have anyway afflicted a segment of the Delhi police into inaction Belatedly goaded into action it has not booked Mishra but it has Aam Aadmi Party corporator Tahir Hussain for his alleged role in the murder of an Intelligence Bureau official Hussain will now become in the media narrative an archetype of the Muslim communitys hatred for the Hindus for its propensity to shed blood mdash the home ministers depiction of demons must not be proved hollowOther home ministers in the past have paid dearly for the breakdown of law and order When cowprotection groups attacked Parliament on Nov 7 1966 and eight people died in the ensuing violence Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sacked Home Minister Gulzarilal Nanda In 2008 Home Minister Shivraj Patil had to resign for his gross mishandling of the Mumbai terror attack Let us call a spade a spade Delhi bled because of Shah against whom only the dead can dare testify Wonder what notes he hears in Bhimsen Joshis songsThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and donrsquot represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Mumbai 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