Economic cost of 'Kairana exodus' list

KAIRANA: Footfalls in the restaurant of Meharban Ali tell the cost a discredited "exodus" list is exacting from Kairana, the western Uttar Pradesh town that was at the centre of a controversy whipped up by a BJP parliamentarian. Ali, 22, runs the eatery in Quila Gate area of Chowk Bazar, the biggest market in Kairana town. Till early June, about 400 people - mostly Hindus - would drop by his shop daily for snacks and sweets. "But the numbers started dropping from June 8, when Hukum Singh (the BJP MP) released his first list of 346 Hindu families who fled for fear of criminals from a certain community," he told this reporter.

Little evidence has emerged so far to substantiate Hukum's claim but the number of diners in Ali's restaurant has dropped steadily, almost as if the business is marching out in lockstep with the parade of VIPs descending on the town on "fact-finding" missions.

The customer count took a fresh hit after June 15, when a fact-finding team of five BJP MPs and two MLAs met some Hindu shopkeepers in the market and backed Hukum's claim that people were fleeing Kairana. Then, when a group of MPs led by the Janata Dal United's K.C. Tyagi held a meeting there with some Muslim leaders on June 16, Ali lost some more customers. The trend continued with serial visits from the state government-sponsored delegation of saints, led by Acharya Pramod Krishnan, on June 19 and a National Human Rights Commission team on June 20. Ali said the mistrust between the Hindus and the Muslims had grown with the visit of each team. Yesterday, only 10 customers came to his shop. Not just the number of customers but Ali's creditworthiness - the lifeblood of small businesses - is affected, too. "What is more disturbing is that traders who used to supply me potatoes, wheat flour and oil on credit have refused to do so. They say there is tension in Kairana and I may run away from here soon without paying them for the items," said Ali. Ali's is not an isolated case. The owner of a readymade garments' shop in Chowk Bazar is facing the same problem. Not only have most customers stopped visiting his store, his suppliers have been demanding money in advance from him. "My business was going well till recently. But the BJP MP's list and visits by several delegations have made Delhi's garment suppliers suspicious of us. They say I may close down my shop and flee Kairana any day," he said on condition of anonymity. Evidence that disharmony can ruin the economy of a town lies some 800km away from Kairana in Mubarakpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Clashes between two groups in the year 2000 had forced the weavers of Benarasi saris in Mubarakpur to either shut or scale down the business. "Before the year 2000, there was a popular saying in Mubarakpur that silver rains here in the day time and gold at night. A riot between two sects of a community took place that year and silk suppliers and Benarasi sari buyers from Calcutta stopped coming here fearing they would be harmed," Riyaz Ahmad, a weaver, had told this reporter who was in Mubarakpur in early June on another assignment and before the Kairana controversy had snowballed. "Mubarakpur used to produce 10,000 Benarasi saris every day before the year 2000. Now we don't produce more than 500 saris in a day because the buyers don't come to us directly. They either buy it from middlemen or from other places," Ahmad added. Shahid Hasan, another weaver, said: "Some traders of Benaras played a major role in spreading rumours to frighten the big buyers from Calcutta. After the riots, the big merchants who used to pay us good money lost trust in us. Earlier, people from across the state did business with us."