Indore Diary

Indore Diary

(Sunday 6th july 08)

When i got up from my sleep this morning,the very first thought i had was today wont be curfew . For 10 mins i didnt getup from my bed and i was very sure that there is no possibility of curfew today. In those 10 mins when i was on bed but fully awake,i was actually wishing to hear some noise from outside like that of petrol engine which would mean people are actually moving to their workplaces or roaring diesel engines of autos which would mean kids are going to school or "sabji lelo" which would indicate that curfew is over. I waited to hear any of this voice but it didnt came. Then i took remote and switched tv on. On NDTV India I saw "curfew in Indore continues for the third day ". I was angered by it ,bit frustrated and also shocked. Still i had hope that maybe in our area curfew is lifted. So i went to balcony to only know that my area was no exception.

Its first time in 16 years that Indore is witnessing curfew in entire city. 16 years back i was too small to be able to register anything in my memory so for me and for entire chunk of population about my age its the first time in Indore. I feel very very sad and feeling very heavy and therefore sat to write down what i feel. Every inhabitant of this city is very proud of it and its a city we believe is very different from any other city.Its city of our dreams, We wish to live here all our life and die here.We never had this kind of violence,its a very peaceful city partly because of the fact that this is trading place and a place for enterprises. And if one wishes to know the origins of people inhabiting here, they would be surprised by the diversity of this not so big city. Even the metros do not have the kind of diversity we have and forget about the cities that our ranked in line with Indore on population and economy basis.DM's who leave Indore for their future place of work always say that its very distinct city and better to call it mini-India because of people living in Indore who hail from so different cultures and backgrounds. Large no.of Marwaris, Marathis, Sindhis, Punjabis, Biharis(+UP), Kashmiri Pundits, Gujjus, South Indians, Muslims, Nimadi, Bundelkhandi,nepali etc etc. And people from all kind of backgrounds have lost their original identities and mixed so nicely with existing population to form a new identity of "Indori".Its like several elements reacting to form compound which actually loses properties of native elements and has distinct appearance,shape and chemical properties. People of this city are concerned about sectarian issues that create havoc in entire India but people here never allow such issues to infringe on Indore's territory. Be it MNS's mumbaikar campaign against north Indians or Gurjar agitation or muslims protesting against Nuke deal or Hindu-muslim riots in neighbouring Gujrat, OBC uproar across India, caste based reservation demands in UP etc. People of Indore do not raise such demands, neither protest on caste basis and only interest that we are interested in is National Interest and not caste or religion's. And to whoever who is demanding anything on basis of caste or protesting on basis of religion or caste,,people of Indore remain indifferent to it and their views are not coherent with views of those protesting.

I love this city because of its liveliness and a warmth that it offers to every one irrespective of native or nonnative. Markets,residential areas, roads, parks are so full with boisterous crowd, exuberant spirits, cricket loving children,joyous youth that makes this city so lively and so lovable and not to forget late night food markets spread across Indore,innumerable small groups of men enjoying their talk at the pan corners of their colony, late night cricket matches in summers and huge participation by people in festivals irrespective of religion. And now something that concerns me and all Indoris is When did we start fighting on such issues ??. Indore featured prominently on news and besides jammu ,Indore was only city that concerned peace loving citizens of this country.Bandh is entire nation can be summed up as peaceful but what went wrong with Indore ?? Why did Bandh caused violence at such a scale and why did only Indore had social unrest ?? And what provoked otherwise so peace loving people?? We need to probe for answers.

The only affected area are markets and residential areas which are of pre-independence time. Very congested markets and homes where movement by foot is quite a exercise,where hindus and muslims share very scarce space since decades.Its quite unbelivable that hindus and muslims burnt each other's shops and injured family members of their own friends over such a non-communal issue.If Indoris are fighting over such issues what would they do to each other over issues that are brought up by politicians to incite public sentiments and taking in account that we have elections late this year or early next year , this further raises anxiety of every peace loving citizen of this city.Whatever happened is extremely shameful and every citizen is so disheartened and so disturbed at the violence. There's so much of disconsolateness that is inexplicable and everyone is so regretful that all we need is normalcy and not the curfew. Curfew is aggravating our wounds, we are not kind of people who would fight again if freed but if curfew is lifted iam very sure that people here would console and apologise to each other. This is spirit of Indore, we may be down for some time but the spirit wont die.And every city like every person has its share of ups and downs and may be this is our lowest. May god keep the spirits of this city always high and always happy.

Let me tell u why we take so much pride in being Indori. Yesterday a relaxation of 2hrs was granted from 4 to 6 pm .And those 2 hrs were something called absolute beauty,those 2hrs showcased the lively spirit of Indoris. Chappan dukan(56 Shops) area and lots of other market areas were so full with 4 and 2 wheelers that u couldnt move across the road and u would have problem finding place to stand. So many people ,youngsters and elders,hindus and muslims, together they enjoyed and talked and shared their concern for this lovely city. Just 2 hrs of relaxation and all people got together so fast and so anxious to meet their friends of different faith. Also understanding problems of travelers who arrived to Indore by rail,bus or air and were unable to locate any medium of transportation, a social organisation worked round the clock and is still working and taking people to their destinations in their own vehicles and charging nothing only for the honour of this city and only for the sake of humanity.Also few organisations are distributing food to thousands of homeless people and labourers and to thousands of people who are poor and are unable to access supplies of essential commodities. There are thousands of infants and young kids who need milk more than anyone else and there are again few voluntary organisations who are dealing with the supplies of such commodities. And puting 2 hrs of relaxation to best use, several socities and people and spiritual heads came together to preach the values of peace and spread the message of love and appealed to people to stay calm and act sensibly. Also the people of most afffected area (Ginsi Haat area) today came together and requested earnestly to all their fellow citizens to refrain from any kind of violence.

LIVE LONG INDORE ! LIVE LONG THE SPIRIT

Another shameful thing on part of politicians is that we were going to get relaxation today but because of Diggi raja we wont be getting any today and the uncertainity hangs for tomorrow also. He is insisting along with Suresh Pachouri to visit affected areas,,what the hell can his visit bring to affected people ??? and where should a state machinery place its limited forces,,on board of convoys of this political jokers or in residential blocks to safeguard people from any possible attack ??? He is exhibiting his concern for indoris by stating that he was on visit to somewhere in africa and he has returned in middle of his journey and wants to see affected area. Since when did Diggi raja started caring for Indoris ??? He exploited this city for 10 long years..No one can forgive him for what he did to Indore.We used to live in darkness for hours and hours with no possible hope of electricity any soon. Businesses in Indore were so fractured and the fact that Indore dwells on these businesses, life in Indore was so ruptured that we gave him a humilating defeat in state elections in 2003. This person does not has any right to speak of any good or wrong..this person did all wrongs to this city. And Indoris will keep this in memory that few politicians have tried to exploit our plight and tried to further incite violence and very important that curfew would have been lifted by now but because of few people trying to benefit from this situation it may continue for more days to come.We will give u a another humilating defeat in coming election no matter which party u belong. We can never forgive people such mean and so cheap.

Also i would like to add that police forces and city administration have not responded the way they should.Iam very sad as is every other Indori and every one is disheartened at whatever happened but now on 3rd of the violence , a general anger against police and city administration is evident and is justified. Police officers have treated this matter a little too cautiously causing eveyone to sit in their homes, causing severe artificial shortage of essential commodities, causing hardships to those who are arriving in city and those who are travelling to other places, creating problems for general patients who dont find their medicines anywhere, creating food problems for thousands of labours who are daily wage workers and coz Indore is a trading place, we have huge no. of labourers in city. Curfew on next day of the violence can be justified as something as cautious or preventive measure but curfew on third day is absolutely unjustified and actually it demonstrates how feared our police is and they have deployed excessive forces which exhibits their ill knowledge about the city. Collector or DM Indore, IG Indore, SP Indore are all 3 newly appointed officers and they dont really know this city which is evident from the kind of statements they have given to press and the no. of forces they have deployed. I hope that after all this ends, people of Indore would force goverment to scrutinize the actions of police and city administration.