What AAP’s response to the Jahangirpuri Violence speaks of its politics?

On April 16, Muslim-majority Jahangirpuri in Northwest Delhi witnessed communal clashes when a Shobha Yatra procession was taken out by Hindu groups on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti. On Wednesday, the BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation came with bulldozers and razed the homes of minorities in Jahangirpuri in the name of eviction from 'illegal occupation' (of public property), bypassing a Supreme Court order. 

Several opposition parties took to social media to express their discontent at the state of affairs in Jahagirpuri. While CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat made headlines by standing in front of the bulldozer with the supreme court order staying the demolition drive, which the North Delhi Corporation had willfully decided to ignore,it is the Delhi's ruling party AAP's response that has left people thinking. While none of the AAP leaders or MLAs were on the ground during the demolition day, many took to social media and TV interviews to respond to the anti-encroachment drive carried out by North Delhi Municipal Corporation.

While commenting on the demolition drive, AAP's Spokesperson and MP Raghav Chadha stoked the bogey of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis. He called ordinary Muslim citizens as "Bangladeshi and Rohingyas" who have been settled in India through a BJP Conspiracy to cause riots. In an official video posted by AAP on its social media handles, AAP leader Atishi Marlena also took on Raghav Chadha's same line, and the same day Manish Sisodia, the Deputy CM of Delhi, peddled the same narrative of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis.

What is interesting about this xenophobic response is that since time immemorial, the BJP has also used this same narrative to other Bengali Muslims. Delhi BJP President Adarsh Gupta commenting on the Jahangirpuri violence, alleged that the so-called illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants should be blamed for the violence and must be evicted from Delhi. Gupta also took to TV to state that the BJP would continue with its mission to send Bangladeshis home.

Vijay Jolly, a BJP leader, while on a TV discussion regarding the communal clashes, also said that the Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrant issue needs to be probed. AAP leaders have located the violence in a conspiracy between the BJP and 'Rohingyas and Bangladeshis'.While the AAP has placed the political blame for communal violence at BJP's door, the party has refused to condemn the majoritarian extremism at sheer display here. The visuals of Hindus brandishing swords and putting saffron flags atop mosques in Jahangipuri have gone viral. 

In the aftermath of the Violence, Delhi CM was quick to condemn the "stone-pelters" (alleged to be mainly from Muslim Community) and not the Hindutva mob carrying out the procession. Without being too Anti-Hindu, AAP could have still opposed the Jsahangirpuri demolitions by presenting it as an onslaught on the livelihoods of the poor while also talking about the impact it had on Hindu shop owners. While the AAP has blamed the BJP for the riots, the Rohingya and Bangladeshi Bogey peddled by them puts the societal responsibility of the violence on Muslims.

This is the same rhetoric followed by BJP whenever communal clashes erupt.BJP frequently portrayed Bengali Muslims as undocumented Bangladeshis during the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019. A look at History also reveals that even in 1992, Hindutva organisations had bracketed Bengali Muslims as foreigners by attacking the Congress-led Delhi government for its alleged "lenient attitude" towards migrant Bangladeshis living in Delhi. AAP, by indulging in this xenophobic dog whistle, is not only echoing BJP's politics but also conflating Bengali and specifically the Bengali Muslim residents of Jahangirpuri with Bangladeshi citizens. This communal dog whistling was at least partly used to justify collective punishment in Jahangirpuri by both the parties, with demolitions carried out on Wednesday using bulldozers.

AAP's stand on communalism is now muddled, but its response to Jahangirpuri violence and the subsequent demolitions indicate that it's cozying to the BJP's Hindutva agenda by legitimising the saffron party's politics of blaming Muslims while turning a blind eye to Majoritarian extremism.AAP, in its own quest to not be seen as anti-Hindu or pro-Muslim, has accepted the pretext of BJP's bulldozer justice politics, by uphelding a false premise of a horde of aggressive "Bangladeshi and Rohingyas" to justify illegal demolition drives.