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February 28, 1998

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ELECTIONS '96



Under the Shadow of the Gun

Prem Panicker in Coimbatore

The speaker is a man exuding authority, garbed in a white khadi shirt and white dhoti, the border of which boasts the DMK's party colours. In response to his rapped out command, a neatly clad elderly looking gent is pushed around by factotum. "Sari, inda, poi podu (here, take, go cast your vote)." With these words Mr Authority hands over a slip to the gent. " Saar, enkitte erkanave oru 62 irukku, naan adupoi ... (Sir, I already have a 62, let me go and...)." " Yov, mudalle sonnaida sei, anda 62 inge kudu, naan paathu naanave ... (First do as I said, give me that 62, let me go and myself...)."

I am sitting in a tea-shop a few yards away from Kottaimedu mosque.

To the uninitiated. Kottaimedu is the Muslim heartland within Coimbatore city, and the origin of most of the textile city's recent problems. And what I am watching is the open, carefree manipulation of the voting process.

Mr Authority has a voting slip of a 55-year-old man, he needs a volunteer to go exercise that particular franchise, and a suitable one is pushed forward from the surrounding throng.

Usually, on election day, the polling offices of the major parties boast around a dozen volunteers milling around, assisting voters to find their names on the rolls, then filling out voting slips.

Here, outside the DMK booth in Kottaimedu, there are over a hundred people milling around. And judging by what I see and hear, a lot of them are there to exercise voting rights, in absentia, for those who cannot or will not oblige.

Getting into Kottaimedu is not easy. Entrances to the area boast metal barricades manned by the Rapid Action Force. When the driver of my hired car tries to enter, he is stopped. I am asked to get down. I proffer my press card, but it cuts little ice -- I am meticulously searched, as is the car, one gent even putting a gunny sack on the road, kneeling on its presumably not to damage his camouflage-blue uniform, and peering at the underside.

They would have been searching it still, but the officer in charge has the unmistakable stamp of a Keralite, so I talk to him in that language. Turns out he is from Malappuram, a township comprising a 95 per cent Muslim population, that forms part of Calicut district. I am from Calicut too, so Vijayan, the officer in question, relaxes a bit.

He is, he says, part of two battalions of Company 105 of the RAF, home base Malappuram. "Yes, they thought that since we are from Malappuram and accustomed to Muslims, it was safer to post us in the Muslim-dominated regions. Company 103, from New Delhi, has been posted in other parts of the city," Vijayan tells me.

It is thus that I get in. The tea-shop gives me a good vantage point. Besides, it is also pretty much the only kind of business establishment open in Coimbatore today, the government having decreed a holiday and, I am told, hinted rather strongly that shopkeepers would be well advised to downs shutters for the duration, rather than risk any trouble.

From where I sit, I see a steady line of men and women (yeah, sure, the ladies seem as unfazed by the echoes of the bomb as the men, and there is a pretty fair number of them at every booth in the city) going towards the booth beside the mosque. There's something odd, though, about the line -- and it is only after a while you can place your finger on the oddity; there are no Muslims in the queue.

I sit there for 20 minutes. Which is about as long as I can draw out a cup of tea and a plate of stale Glucose biscuits without raising any eyebrows, and in that time I don't see a single Muslim going towards the booth.

On my way back out of the area, I hope off at the barricade and take Vijayan aside, out of earshot of the rest. Where are the Muslims. I ask him. Most of them have fled, I am told, he tells me. Do you know there is rigging happening at the booth, I ask. "We are not on election duty," Vijayan tells me. "We have been told to make sure there is no trouble here. To keep security tight, and that is all we are briefed to do."

Not that the DMK is the sole culprit -- it merely seems to be better organised. In the government girls high school booth, opposite Town Hall 1. I am privy to another such conversation. This time from where I am loitering near a booth boasting the AIADMK's twin-leaves symbol and flags, interspersed with those of the BJP. Again, this conversation is about whether a particular franchise has been exercised. " Kavalai padathe thalaiva, yeppovo pottachu (don't worry, chief, it was cast long ago)!" says a factotum.

The polling officer here tells me that polling is brisk. Eightyfive people voted between 7 to 8, in the morning, I am told.

Pretty much the same kind of figures are thrown at me no matter which area I go to, Hindu, or Muslim, or even the Christian-dominated areas like Syrian Church Road, Vincent Road et al.

Given the 33 degree heat, however, there is a conspicuous slackening of the pace by mid-afternoon. "Things have been peaceful, the polling is brisk," says District Collector G Santhanam, who I intercept at the gate of his office, as he is on the verge of leaving for a late-afternoon inspection of the city.

"Quite impressive, people are voting, they don't seem too scared, I saw lots of women at several polling booths," says John Burns, twice Pulitzer Prize-winning (Bosnia, Afghanistan) correspondent of The New York Times.

Sure, they are all here. Voice of America, the BBC, New York Times, you name it....

I suppose that in their despatches and news bulletins of later today, they will talk of how Coimbatore is calm, and peaceful, and how the people are exercising their franchise despite the threat of the bomb.

Trouble is Burns doesn't know the language.

What is happening here is not voting. It is a 'Mirror mirror on the wall/Who is the better rigger of us all' situation.

The black Vespa scooter, registration number TNX4693, is parked innocuously outside the assistant director of ex-servicemen's welfare office, on Avinash Road. About a stone's throw from Idaya Deiva Maaligai, the private bungalow that has, since the days of M G Ramachandran, become a home away from home for visiting AIADMK ministers and party functionaries.

But in Coimbatore, anything stationary in suspect. And it is easy to get suspicious of this particular vehicle -- given that it is a government holiday, no office is open, the gates of this particular one are tight shut, there is pretty much no one on the road outside, so what is it doing there?

The owner of the adjoining petrol bunk calls the cops. Who duly land up. One look, and there is frantic activity on wireless sets. Next thing you know, a van-load of bomb disposal experts land up, dismantle the side carrier of the scooter and cart it off to the Coimbatore rifle range, for controlled detonation. Intelligence sleuths, meanwhile, haul off the scooter for forensic examination.

This incident takes place at around 9.30 am. In the petrol bunk, the boys who ply the hoses are pretty cool about the whole thing -- great delight in explaining all the details to me, but no trepidation, no fear. "They keep finding bombs every day," Selvan, one of the attendants, tells me with a grin.

Rodericks, assistant commissioner of police (intelligence services) whose office is based in a little room in a building within the office of the commissioner of police, confirms the seizures later. It is the only one today, he tells me. "Yes, four pipe bombs were found yesterday, we keep finding bombs all over the place," he says. With what to me is surprising phlegm.

How powerful was the bomb in the Vespa? "On its own, it would have blasted a few square metres, it was a small one, compared to some of the bombs that have been discovered from here, but with the petrol pump so close, it could have caused considerable damage," Rodericks says.

What, I ask, is the progress of investigations? "They are going on," he says, "It is too premature to say anything."

How many have been arrested thus far? "Within Coimbatore, around 1,300," he says.

All suspected in the serial blasts that rocked Coimbatore on, rather inappropriately, Valentine's Day? "No, not all, some are suspects, some have been taken into preventive custody, some are being held because we believe they have information that could be of use to us."

Rodericks confirms that the investigative net has been flung wide. "Last week, we picked up four extremists at Udhagamandalam. In the Nilgiris," Rodericks says. "All young boys, in their late teens and early twenties. All four are known Al-Umma activists, and are suspects in the blasts case. Essentially, our dragnet is spread in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the suspicion is that most of the people hands-on involved had fled the city almost immediately after the blasts, or just prior to it, after placing the bombs."

Is there any truth to the speculation that the intelligence agencies were aware of the possibility of serial blasts in the city, ahead of the actual occurrence?

Rodericks denies it. "Intelligence agencies knew in a general way that there could be problems in sensitive areas across the country, if you notice there were blasts in Bombay yesterday, but we had nothing specific as regards Coimbatore," the ACP says.

And this human bomb, that was supposed to have targeted Advani?

"No, that is just another rumour, we have found no clues to suggest there was a human bomb in the city on that day."

Was the serial blasts aimed at Advani in particular? "Our reading is that it was meant to cause panic and confusion, and not at anyone specific," he says.

General mayhem? Yeah, right. And in consequence, Coimbatore resembles a ghost town.

A paranoid ghost town, what's more.

I land up here on Friday, late afternoon, after an enormous delay in the departure of my flight and I guess I am looking pretty scruffy. Plus, the duffel bag I am carrying has a huge hole burnt in it at the top, thanks to a carelessly flung cigarette.

From the airport, my cab takes me to Hotel Thai. The receptionist takes one look and goes, "Sorry sir, no rooms."

What, not one? "No sir. We are booked solid, there's a wedding."

Right. The entrance to the hotel is a huge mass of rubble, there is sign posted outside saying no car, other vehicles can be driven in, because of ongoing repairs... But there are no decorations, no decorative lights, no music, no people milling around in the lobby -- but, says the receptionist, there is a wedding happening, not a free room in the house.

Tell you what -- after 24 hours in Coimbatore, this much is for real: if there is one single, solitary hotel in the place with a 100 per cent occupancy, I will eat it brick by brick, without salt and pepper or even Maggi tomato ketchup.

From the Thai, I go to something called Chanma International, which is where I first take a room. Not without more hassles. First, I am asked all about myself. My press card is meticulously examined. I am asked to open my bags. My duffel bag still has the security seal put on it at Bombay airport, when I was checking in for the flight, but hey, I have to open it anyway. A suspicious bellboy fiddles with my can of Brut deodorant, pokes into the innards of my bag.

All this, in a hotel where the room is small and ill-lit. Where the bathroom boasts a battered metal bucket and a tattered aluminium mug, where the restaurant is shut for 'repairs' - that international tax is as deceptive as the government press release that says 'Coimbatore is calm and peaceful'.

On Friday evening, there is some sign of life, in areas like Pookadai (the central flower market). Karumbukkadai and such. "Only the Muslim shops are shut, they say they will open only after the election, maybe on Monday," lottery seller John Antony Joseph, whose stall is in the centre of the Pookadai stretch, tells me.

But even on Friday, by 7 pm, Coimbatore is a ghost town. There is precious little traffic even in the city centre, and virtually no pedestrians.

As for Saturday, forget it -- every single establishment is tight shut. Except, of course, the Malayali-owned tea-shops and the restaurants within the better hotels.

If Coimbatore wanted a symbol, the rolling shutter would do pretty well -- it is the most visible thing here.

Being a Keralite is the heck of a help, I find, in situations like this. I sit at a rickety table in the back of the grandly titled New Empire Tea Stall, on the Karumbukkadai market stretch.

Its proprietor, chief tea maker, cashier and pretty much all else is Abdul Ghafoor, of Manjeri in Kerala. He is rather suspicious of my initial overtures in Tamil, but when I switch to fluent Malayalam, he unbends.

How come you didn't join the general exodus, I ask him. "I have been running this shop now for 20 years, I know all the people here, nothing will happen to me, I don't get involved in all these things," he tells me. "But I sent my wife and three children back home, my eldest son is here with me," he adds after a pause.

But what does he make of it all? "Why just Coimbatore? Wherever the Muslim community is in large numbers and their businesses are doing well, there will be trouble because the Hindus don't like us doing well," he says, sounding rather fatalistic. "It is okay for all these politicians, they get their votes and they go away. We are the ones who suffer and die."

Does he see an end to all this?

"No," he says firmly. "Both sides are angry, there is a lot of ...... they take him off to jail, I have told my son not to go wandering around after 6 in the evening. But the young boys don't like this. They are angry, they think they are being victimised."

"A lot of them talk about revenge," he sighs. "My owns son, he tells me it is better to fight and die, since we have to die anyway."

"No," says Abdul Ghafoor, as he takes away my glass, "I don't think this violence will end."

Elections '98

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