Press Release

Remembering 2020 Delhi Riots

Karwan-e-Mohabbat

Introductory Remarks

The event, held in the India Islamic Cultural Centre in Delhi, began with an introductory address by John Dayal, from the Karwan-e-Mohabbat. John Dayal emphasized that the struggle for justice transcends the question of Northeast Delhi – referencing Sajjan Kumar’s prison sentence this past week and the delays faced in recourse for past violence in Meerut and Moradabad. He spoke on the irony of a “reversed justice system” that leads our nation’s police officers to target the victims of riots, while the government’s continuing removal of FCRA permissions from the only organizations working for victims, further sets back their justice.

The short film Mazhab Nahi Sikhata produced by Karwan-e-Mohabbat was screened. The poem depicted in the film described how “No religion teaches us to hate each other. Our garden of singing birds has no place for thorns.”

Harsh Mander spoke on the reason for our gathering. He described how the relationships between our nation’s communities have been broken. How this government’s denial of justice and compensation has been even worse than in the wake of Gujarat 2002. “We want to say to those who have gathered here, that we stand with you in your pain.” The event continued with a ‘Tribute to Those Who Lost Their Lives in the Riots’. The auditorium stood in sombre silence, as the names of all those who died in Delhi’s 2020 violence were read aloud.

A roundtable of survivors then spoke about their lives during and after the 2020 Delhi Pogrom. Survivors shared harrowing stories about the true extent of cruelty displayed during the violence. One survivor described watching rioters beat, shoot, and burn his brother’s body. He then detailed the year-long journey of trying to claim his brother’s foot – the last surviving piece of his corpse – from an apathetic government. Another described approaching the government for compensation, only to have the wrong name written on his check with no clear route for appeal. A young man recounted police officers, who were tasked with escorting his injured family member, laughing at his desperate condition. Upon arriving at the hospital, the doctor attempted to intimidate his family into leaving the victim’s side. The room was moved by the victims’ bravery in sharing their experiences.

“Uncertain Justice: Citizens’ Committee Report”

The findings of the Constitutional Conduct Group’s report “Uncertain Justice: Citizens’ Committee Report” are discussed. The session began with a tribute to the late Sunder Burra, coordinator of the report, conducted by Deb Mukharji. Mukharji also offered a defence of ‘Uncertain Justice’ against High Court Writs and Home Minister Affidavits that have claimed such reports can “lead to a loss of democracy and a state of anarchy,” arguing that a report like this will be the prime evidence history has for what terrible things came to pass during those violent times in Delhi.

Gopal Pillai and Ashok Sharma then presented a summary of the findings of the report, describing the failure of the Central Government, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and Delhi’s Police in preventing the violence in Delhi. Pillai further lambasted the Delhi Police, saying they should “hang their heads in shame” because of the overwhelming evidence of shoddy investigation, fake witnesses, biased action, and wrongful imprisonment of at least 18 innocent Muslim men and women under bogus UAPA claims. Sharma additionally emphasized how agitators like Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur, who spurred the violence, have been rewarded with positions in higher public office and face no legal consequences.

Nadeem Khan offered further commentary about the report, describing how Police Departments, DCPs, the Joint Commissioner of Police, Manish Sisodia, Arvind Kejriwal, and officials at all levels of power refused to intervene in what was happening, despite receiving hundreds of complaints. He further shared stories about how members of the police beat hospital workers, citizens, and civil society volunteers who tried to intervene and provide community aid. Khan explained how this is the first instance of communal violence in India’s history where not a single case of persecution was successful, blaming incompetent lawyers and a hostile justice system.

Qurban Ali further emphasized how skewed the government and courts have been, discussing how – in his own case – filing a PIL against hate speech led the Delhi Police to file an FIR against him.

“The Absent State”

Karwan-e-Mohabbat’s report on the Delhi government’s failure to properly compensate victims of the 2020 Delhi Pogrom is released, titled “The Absent State: Comprehensive State Denial of Reparation & Recompense to the Survivors of the 2020 Delhi Pogroms”.

What emerges from this report is the profound and wanton failure of both the central and state governments in all tasks of reparation during and after the 2020 Delhi communal pogrom – of rescue, relief, rehabilitation, compensation and bridging social divides.

The net outcome is that nearly five years after the violence, after the initial distribution mainly of ex gratia relief and death compensation by the state government, virtually no compensation has been paid to the victim survivors, and there seems no prospect of this happening in the foreseeable future.

This is arguably the worst performance of compensation payments after communal violence in the history of the Indian republic.

Suroor Mander began the session by discussing how, in the first six months, the Delhi Government was marginally successful in distributing compensation to riot victims who had been murdered. After which, the Delhi Government, SDM, and NEDRCC failed fundamentally and systemically to award compensation for any other kind of harm. Akanksha Rao commented how the lack of appellate mechanism, “shifting goalposts”, and bureaucratic collapse that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic, led many compensation claims to be wrongfully denied or withdrawn.

Mahenaz Khan continued the discussion by describing how NE Delhi is the most populated district of Delhi NCR, and Tarannum recounted how the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team continues to provide scaled and holistic family support to victims of the pogroms. Fundamental questions like children’s education, women’s support, and illness are exacerbated because of the insecurity created by violence. Suroor Mander emphasized how Karwan-e-Mohabbat only needs to do this work because the government is completely absent in meeting its basic responsibilities.

Gufran discussed how a lack of basic medical facilities in government hospitals – no ambulance, medicine, or doctors – led to injuries, disabilities, and deaths that private hospitals have confirmed were preventable. No government program has provided full compensation for the unique category of medical fees that arise from these lingering injuries.

Dilshad discussed the lived experience of assisting in filing 130 claims with the NEDRCC and the SDM. He described a system where officials would force victims to wait hours each day, for weeks on end, for arbitrary claim rejections. Across Dilshad’s cases, the government used tactics of fear and confusion to make clear that claimants would be harassed if they continued to seek compensation.

Chirayu lamented how the government compensation commission, headed by retired judges of India’s various high courts, never once allowed a single victim to speak or explain their circumstances. These commissions had arbitrarily appointed unqualified independent ‘loss assessors’ who would consistently underreport the compensation required by riot victims. When the commission deviated from these loss assessors’ reports, they would give no reason as to why. Chirayu described the case of Mumtiaz Ali, for whose claim the commission refused to accept any photographic evidence of a burnt down store and ruined stock of merchandise.

Harsh Mander thanked Salman Khurshid for allowing this session to be held in Indian Islamic Cultural Centre. Salman Khurshid thanked Harsh Mander and the Karwan-e-Mohabbat for their continued work. Khurshid specifically describes the subsequent impunity faced by NED Communal Violence victims as a failure of our nation’s commitment to participatory democracy. He compliments the day’s events thus far, not reducing the day to an “us” vs “them, instead focusing on the victims’ suffering with no political end.

Failures of Political Process

Navsharan Singh, in a talk titled ‘Unhealed Social divides’ discusses the state’s counternarrative to today’s proceedings – that we’ve somehow tried to defame this country’s majority. She described stories like these as a creating a country where only oppressed people fight their own oppression. For her, the Farmers’ Protest can show us a path to what true solidarity looks like.

Zoya Hasan and Rahul Mukherji discussed the failures of the political process in the run-up to the NED Delhi Communal Violence of 2020. She emphasized that the CAA was passed without political consultation and led to the single largest instance of Muslim in India mass mobilization since the anticolonial movement of the 1930s. In fear of this movement, the state’s response was marked by repression rather than reconciliation. Mukharji added a passionate appeal for secularism by deconstructing the history of India’s religious pluralism.

A BBC Documentary is screened, titled “Delhi Dangon Ke Mamlon Mein Bari Kyong Ho Rahe Hain Log” describing the failures of legal justice during the NED Communal Violence. Their journalists state that more than 80% of cases filed by the Delhi Police were face and individuals were discharged. More so, Judge Vinod Yadav explicitly states that there is evidence that investigative agencies deliberately refused to their job properly.

Prashant Bhushan and Chander Uday Singh discuss the ‘Failures of Criminal Justice’ in the wake of the 2020 Delhi violence. Bhushan described the ways the current BJP government manipulate the judicial system. Judges who rule favourably for the party, become party officials. Strong and competent judges with track records of independent judicial action, aren’t given appointments. The government asks its investigative agencies – CBI, CID, Income Tax Dept. – to investigate judges and their families to find leverage against them for blackmail. Bhushan asks us to keep our eye fixed on these judges and publicly criticize their corruption. Chander Uday Singh elaborated that there has been clear judicial recognition of the deliberate manipulation of evidence conducted during police officers’ investigations. Documented evidence of such occurrences should be the beginning of a national outcry and legal proceedings against compromised public officials.

(Karwan e Mohabbat (Caravan of Love) is a people’s campaign devoted to the universal values of the constitution, of solidarity, equality, freedom, justice and compassion. It supports survivors of hate crimes and injustice with legal, social and livelihood help. It also makes short films to reflect its values.)

❈ ❈ ❈

In Five Years, ‘Virtually No Compensation’ Has Been Given to Delhi Riots Victims: Karwan-e-Mohabbat Report

Soumashree Sarkar

Less than a week after the violence in 2020, at a shelter near Mustafabad in northeast Delhi, a colleague and I spotted snaking lines. We followed them and realised they culminated at a long table at which four young women sat. They were lawyers, taking down information from people who had no small amount of losses. Some spoke to us and said that they were missing family members. Others’ shops had been gutted. The process of reparations could not begin soon enough for them.

Five years later, a report by the campaign Karwan-e-Mohabbat has shown that in this half decade, no meaningful compensation (other than ex gratia relief and death compensation in the immediate aftermath) has actually been distributed to the victim survivors – in a story of remarkable relinquishing of duties by all manner of authorities.

“This is arguably the worst performance of compensation payments after communal violence in the history of the Indian republic,” the writers of the report say. The report is titled ‘The Absent State: Comprehensive State Denial of Reparation and Recompense to the Survivors of the 2020 Delhi Pogrom.’

Karwan-e-Mohabbat, led by activist Harsh Mander, along with the legal aid group Aman Biradari Trust are among organisations that continue to represent, aid and engage with survivors of the violence.

The 117-page report published on the anniversary of the violence has as its main authors lawyers Suroor Mander and Swati Draik, and researchers Akanksha Rao, Ayushi Arora and Syed Rubeel Haider Zaid, along with Harsh Mander.

The report highlights the failure of the Union government and the Aam Aadmi Party led state government in “all tasks of reparation” during and after the violence, in rescue, relief, rehabilitation, compensation and bridging social divides.

At the time of the violence, the Delhi police ignored crisis calls for intervention. The situation needed the midnight intervention of now retired judge, Justice S. Muralidhar, and involved the efforts of one of the authors of the report, Suroor Mander. Dozens were saved as a result of the order.

Meanwhile, the state government – whose topmost functionaries were seen praying at temples when the worst of the violence unfolded – initially did not even set up relief camps, the report said. It then converted pre-existing and occupied homeless shelters into relief camps in what the report calls a “cruel joke.”

Not only were the levels of compensation fixed for the Delhi 2020 violence are far below the levels extended by orders of the superior courts to the survivors of the Delhi 1984 pogrom, the Kejriwal government also handed over its own duty to fix compensation to the North East Delhi Riots Claims Commission by moving the high court within weeks of the violence. This commission had been formed with a very different purpose – to evaluate property losses during the violence so that its value could be recovered from the rioters. Nonetheless, courts and the NEDRCC approved several evaluations of loss but no actual disbursement was made, the report notes.

The NEDRCC appointed private evaluators whose standards are unknown to survivors, who have neither been notified nor called to public hearings once. Karwan had filed an RTI application seeking the assessors’ qualifications, powers and functions, and the guidelines laid down for assessing losses, but got no reply.

““I have often waited all day in office to get documents verified by the Secretary here. Many a times they don’t even meet us or are unavailable,” stated a survivor quoted in the report. The survivor had received a call from the office of NEDRCC to submit a claim application and required documents. At the time of submission, they did not receive a receipt or anything proving that their file had been submitted by the NEDRCC, leading to a wall of uncertainty.

The report mentions 146 compensation cases, out of which 81% pertain to matters concerning property damage/loss for residential units, commercial units or both. The cases associated with physical injury constitute 18% of the total. No amount has been disbursed under any of the cases.

The Delhi government’s total budget is over Rs 75,000 crore (as per recent budgets), yet only Rs 153 crore was requested for relief, out of which Rs 21 crore sanctioned.

Crucially, while contingency funds were allocated in 2021, as they are every year, no money from these funds was provided to the victims after the violence, the report also says. “The state’s justification was to argue that at least ex gratia payments were provided, unlike in Jharkhand or Uttar Pradesh, where even these were denied,” the report says, shifting the focus to forced gratitude from a people who had lost physical possessions, loved ones and dignity as equal citizens.

No state government agency has been asked to or empowered to disburse the funds.

The report notes how this exacerbates the financial crisis of a migrant-majority region of Delhi that was never prosperous to begin with. Based on the Household Survey Report (2018-2019) for Delhi, northeast Delhi faces significant socio-economic challenges. Almost half – 47.88% – the households have ration cards, with 90.74% of those availing themselves of food subsidies through the public distribution system, highlighting reliance on state welfare. 79.47% of households do not own a computer/laptop, limiting digital access and opportunities.

It is no surprise that Muslims are recorded as the religious group that suffered the most damages – a fact that reflects reports that have noted targeted harm to the community in the course of the violence and in its aftermath.

According to the report, 114 cases of property damage, 25 cases of injury, and an overall total of 139 cases were reported among Muslims, whereas only 3 cases of property damage, 2 cases of injury, and a total of 5 cases were recorded for individuals from other communities.

It is noteworthy that the Delhi Police’s investigations into the violence – disparaged by multiple lower courts – has led to the jailing of Muslim activists and intellectuals while Hindu politicians caught on record making hateful speeches have as yet not been booked.

The report lists case studies of how the delay and denial of compensation has affected people across a wide range of ages – 17 to 80 years. Survivors have been in hospitals, they have been denied entry into schools and have faced financial hardships that have affected their everyday lives and business in the absence of compensation.

A major issue that the report highlighted was also the lack of effective communication on compensation camps, procedures, and eligibility. Many claimants were unaware of a relief scheme at all or learned about it only after deadlines had passed.

The report delves into details of roadblocks and bureaucratic delays in a process of ensuring compensation that has not been successful yet. That the rounds of waiting and deprivation exacerbate the wounds of the violence is anyone’s guess.

(Courtesy: The Wire, an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M. K. Venu.)