THERE has been no incident of communal riots in the main areas of struggle. Muslims, particularly the poor and lower-middle sections among them, also participate in the movement and they feel quite protected. However, from time to time some communal forces or certain persons with vested interests do try to foment communal clashes. To foil such attempts the following measures are generally adopted:

    (i) presenting the actual facts before the people, exposing the vested interests behind such evil designs, and propagating all these things in a convincing way among both the communities;

    (ii) separately approaching some enlightened and in­fluential persons in both the communities and making them realise the necessity of taking active initiative to nip all such troubles in the bud ;

    (iii) organising joint meetings involving prominent persons of both the communities;

    (iv) holding joint mass meetings and peace rallies;

    (v) quickly passing on informations about the design of the communalists to the people of neighbouring villages, emphasising the necessity and benefits of strong unity among the people of different commu­nities and pointing out the disastrous consequences of such clashes ; and

    (vi) issuing warnings to a few miscreants on both sides.

To be more specific, let us take two examples. In Barki Moap village in Bhojpur there are 90 harijan families, 80 Rajput families, 70 Muslim families and the rest belong to several other castes. Struggle was going on against a Rajput landlord. Muslims were initially rather hesitant in their support to this struggle, but gradually they began to actively involve themselves in the movement. At this stage, a few Rajput lumpens kidnapped a Muslim woman. This naturally evoked a sharp reaction from the Muslims against those criminals, but the Rajput landed gentry spared no time to give the whole thing a communal colour, and tensions began to rise.

The local peasant organisation and the people, however, took prompt initiative. They investigated the matter and found out the truth. They assured the Muslim family of their full cooperation in locating and recovering the woman and in punishing the culprits. They also contacted some enlightened Rajputs. Harijans and Hindus of other castes, numbering at least 150, took out an armed procession, and shouting slogans of Hindu-Muslim unity and against the landlord behind this kidnapping episode, they marched on from one village to another. In every village the pro­cession would culminate in a mass meeting and subsequently more people would join in it. The Hindu poor declared that if anybody in their villages were to try to attack the Muslims, he would have to confront them first of all. But certain Rajput trouble-mongers would not give up so easily, they threatened that they would not allow the Muslims to take out the Tajia procession. The harijans and other people of the village, however, asked the Muslims to go ahead with their preparations, and in fact, the residents of the harijan tola themselves prepared a Tajia as a symbol of Hindu-Muslim unity. The evil design of the trouble-mongers was finally frustrated.

By this time, activists of the peasant organisation had recovered the woman. And it goes without saying that the culprits were also punished.

In a more recent incident at Garhani in Bhojpur, a Rajput landlord gang had killed two poor Muslim cycle repairers in connection with a petty quarrel over a meagre 10 paise. The agitated masses chased the gang and killed two of its members in retaliation. Rajput landlords then tried to give the whole thing a communal colour with a view to mobilising the entire Hindu population of the locality. But their design was foiled by the prompt interven­tion of the Kisan Sabha, Hindu and Muslim toiling masses displaying a militant solidarity.