Zeba Warsi writes:

An unsettling, eerie silence engulfed the streets of Khajuri Khas two days after the riots. The neighborhood is a Muslim ghetto and was one of the worst hit in the anti-Muslim violence that erupted in Delhi in late February 2020. Fifty-three people were killed, a majority of them Muslims.

I walked through lanes covered in ashes. The air was thick with the toxic smell of burned refrigerators and charred vehicles. Broken pieces of furniture lined the streets. I stepped over a lone, bloodstained slipper and a half-burned notebook. I remember noting that about 30 houses in Khajuri Khas were burned down. Shops belonging to Muslims had been specifically targeted. It was day three of the violence, and parts of the city were still burning.

As a journalist, my presence set off ripples of resentment. “The media instigated the riots. Are your prime-time news anchors happy now?” asked a 50-year-old man who sat outside a three-story house that was gutted. Two teenage girls — his daughters — were wailing inconsolably. They had escaped the previous night when the rioters attacked this lane. Now they returned to see their home destroyed. “My daughter was going to get married next month. Now we’re left with nothing. Are your bosses happy now?” he asked.

I could feel a tight knot in my stomach. He was not the first riot victim I met that day who believed the media had played an active role in instigating the hate and bigotry that culminated in these riots.

While the exact timeline remains unclear, the roots of the riots lie in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). The 2019 act, which amends the original Citizenship Act dating to 1955, excludes Muslims from the subcontinent from seeking fast-track citizenship. For months Muslim women, student activists and liberal groups protested against the law for being anti-Muslim. In the run-up to the riots, mainstream media networks ran a blitzkrieg of evening TV debates labeling protesters as “anti-nationals,” “paid foreign agents” and even terrorists. [Continue reading…]