Table Of ContentDelhi Riots
2020
Delhi Riots
2020
The Untold Story
MONIKA ARORA
SONALI CHITALKAR
PRERNA MALHOTRA
BLOOMSBURY INDIA
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First published in 2020
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Contents
Foreword vii
Preface ix
List of Abbreviations xv
1. Introduction 1
2. The Theory of Urban Naxalism and Jihadism 11
3. The Background to the Delhi Riots 2020:
The Citizenship Amendment Act 28
4. The Prelude: Violence in Universities 41
5. The Interlude: The Shaheen Bagh Model 58
6. The Finale: Riots in North-East Delhi 77
7. Conclusion 98
8. Ground Stories and Narratives of Pain 106
Annexures 135
Annexure I : Medical Report – Amit Sharma 135
Annexure II : Postmortem Report – Ankit Sharma 138
Annexure III : Riots in Eastern Range 147
Annexure IV : Postmortem Report – Ratan Lal 150
Annexure V : FIRs 153
Foreword
It is my privilege and a very pleasant duty to write the
foreword for Delhi Riots 2020: An Untold Story, which is
not a normal kind of book but a serious document of intense
research. It is the result of the painstaking efforts of visiting
ground zero of these communal riots and the hotspots by the
spirited citizens that go by the name Group of Intellectuals
and Academicians (GIA). They are committed to the cause
of steadfastly maintaining the integrity and sovereignty of
our country and see that it remains united and rock solid.
The findings of this report need to be seriously studied by the
Government of India and the awakened citizens of the country.
It is not one of those documents which are given a cursory look
and then kept on the bookshelf.
I have read the book thoroughly. It was very engaging and
extremely informative. One really gets unnerved about the
kinds of plans that are afoot to break up our beloved nation.
The fact is that certain segments of our nation could never have
imagined that the narrative they had built up after the Partition
of India under the leadership of Pandit Nehru would ever be
challenged and that too with such a fatal blow, first with the
2014 mandate and then in 2019—and most unfortunately for
them, when they are not very hopeful for what lies ahead in
2024. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is so devoted to making
our nation affluent and a powerful arbiter in the comity of
nations that he has become the pride of all Indians and their
most adorable leader.
viii Foreword
Over the last several centuries, we got uprooted from our
cultural heritage first in the Mughal period, when the Islamic
culture under the garb of so-called ‘Ganga Jamuna tehzib’ had
its sway and then under the British rule, when we gleefully
accepted the English lifestyle and deprecated our Indian
traditions. We forgot that we were a 5,000-year-old civilisation.
We ceased to be proud Hindus.
I would like to quote Pandit Nehru, who famously said, ‘By
education I am an English man, by views an internationalist,
by culture a Muslim and Hindu only by accident of birth.’ He
had no emotional attachment to Hinduism and the Hindus
but would get terribly disturbed if any alleged wrong was said
to have been committed to Muslims. V. Shanker, the private
secretary to Sardar Patel had once said, ‘Sardar Patel was
particularly critical of Pandit Nehru and Gandhiji devoting
themselves mostly to voicing their feelings for the oppressed
Muslims … and without saying comparable to, though not
necessarily proportionate to what Hindus and Sikhs were
suffering both in India and Pakistan. Secularism did not
mean the abandonment of Hinduism or utter disregard of
Hindus or Hindu interests but an objective and fair attitude
to other religions and interests of other communities. He was
opposed to an obsession with Muslims or Muslim interest
and insisted on a supreme test for all, namely loyalty to
the nation.’
This was the narrative post-1947. Hindus always
considered themselves second-class citizens. We remember
what former Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh had said
about giving minorities first right on the resources of the state.
Then came the resurgence of Hinduism in 2014. India will have
to reckon with a huge challenge from the Left-liberal lobby,
Urban Naxals and the Islamic Jihadi gang. It will be a long
haul and the nation has to be prepared for it.
These Urban Naxals/Marxists Leninists believe in breaking
India into small independent nations based on ethnicity. They
Foreword ix
will woo Islamic Jihadis and some vulnerable sections of Hindu
Dalits to form a formidable ‘break India’ gang. Professor
Nandini Sundar, a well-known protagonist of break India, had
told Karan Thapar in an interview on now-defunct Tiranga TV
channel that she stood for the breaking of India into smaller
independent states premised on ethnicity and religion.
So, as a nation, India will have to be well prepared at all
times to combat the toxin being spread by Islamic Jihadis
and the Urban Naxals, of course, backed by certain political
elements. I congratulate the GIA for making this stupendous
effort to awaken our nation.
Shri P.C. Dogra
Former IPS
