Vibhuti Narain Rai
Encyclopedia
Vibhuti Narain Rai did M.A.
in English Literature
from Allahabad University
in the year 1971. He joined Indian Police Service
in 1975 and was allotted Uttar Pradesh
cadre. He served many sensitive districts as Superintendent of Police.
He was on deputation to Govt. Of India for ten years from 1992 to 2001. His deputation included posting in anti insurgency operations in Kashmir
Valley during 1993-94. Presently he is posted as Additional Director General of Police
in Uttar Pradesh
. He has been awarded President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Services and Police Medal for Meritorious Services.
Apart from being a distinguished police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai is an acclaimed writer of Hindi Literature
. He has written five novels – Ghar, Shahar Mein Curfew, Kissa Loktantra, Tabadla and Prem Ki Bhoot Katha and all of them were received warmly by the critics and readers of Hindi. His novel Shahar Mein Curfew was translated in English
, Urdu
, Punjabi
, Bangla, Marathi
and Kannada. Other novels were also translated in many languages. He also writes satires and his collection of satires Ek Chhatra Neta Ka Rojnamcha was widely appreciated.
novel entitled Shahar Mein Curfew (Curfew in the City). Its theme was a 1980 Hindu-Muslim riot in the city of Allahabad
, and Rai wrote freely about how religious prejudice in the Hindu dominated police force and provincial administration led to Muslim citizens' being viewed as enemies and thus becoming easy targets of brutality and murder. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad readily took offense and denounced the novel for being anti-Hindu. It now wants a ban imposed on the novel, and when Ashok Singhal
, secretary general of the V.H.P., was told of a producer wanting to turn the story into a film, he threatened to burn down theatres that dared to screen the planned film. All this ire surrounds a project that has still not begun and a work of fiction that at no point directly criticizes any Hindu
organization. It is worthwhile to quote here from a recent interview given by the author: "The intolerance of dissent is increasing in our society and the Ayodhya mobilization has largely contributed to this disturbing trend. The attacks on inconvenient writers and dissenting journalists are in fact motivated by a desire to silence all criticism and all reason, thereby making the very existence of rationally-thinking people redundant to the social and political process. This is extremely distressing."
. Another novel Kissa Loktantra was honoured by Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan. Vibhuti Narain Rai is the founder editor of Vartman Sahitya, a leading Hindi Literary Magazine which is being published for last twenty years. He has been writing regular columns in various Hindi Magazines like Vagarth and Anyatha. Vibhuti Narain Rai has been an activist also who has been fighting against the fundamentalist and obscurantist forces of the country. Specially his novel Shahar Mein Curfew invited the wrath of these forced who even demanded ban on it. His book Combating Communal Conflict has been widely quoted by scholars working on communalism
. He is invited by National and International bodies working on Communalism on issues related to state response to communal violence. As an activist he has established a library in his native village in a backward area of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. This library Sri Ramanand Saraswati Pustakalaya, Azamgarh
was established to promote the culture of book reading and during it’s existence of 15 years it has become a prestigious cultural centre of the country which has developed a meaningful relationship with institutions like Sahitya Akademi
, National Book Trust
and National School of Drama
.
National Police Academy
, Hyderabad awarded him a fellowship on Police Neutrality during Communal strife. He produced a wonderful book out of this fellowship. This book Combating Communal Conflict was translated in Hindi
and Urdu
and is considered an authority on relationship of minorities with the state.
He is the President of NGO Saajhi Duniya which is involved in various activities including research work to create a better world.
Now, he has been appointed as the Vice Chancellor of Wardha
-based Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya
by the President of India
.
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you at a very difficult time as an Indian Police Service officer and with a sense of anguish. The recent events related to the communal holocaust in Gujarat are a matter of great concern for the country and should inspire serious introspection among all of us IPS officers. The terrible carnage that occurred at Godhra was an early warning of the fact that big events of communal destruction could occur the next day all over the State and the expectation from a professional police force was that it would oppose all actions of revenge and counter-violence with all the force that it could muster. But this did not happen. Not only was the police unsuccessful in containing the violence of the next few days but, it seemed, that in many places policemen were actively encouraging the rioters. The failure of the police should not be attributed to the lower ranks but must be seen as a failure of leadership, that is, a failure of the IPS.
The events that followed the beastly incident at Godhra did not surprise a person like myself who is not only a police officer but also a keen student of social behaviour. The same old story was repeated everywhere from Ahmedabad, the capital, to the rural areas. Since l960, in almost all riots that have occurred, the same picture has been painted in the same colours, a picture of a helpless and often actively inactive police force that allowed wailing members of the minority community to be looted and killed in its presence, that remained a mute witness to some of their members being burnt alive.
Whatever may be my concerns as an ordinary citizen, as a police officer, my greatest concern is the preservation of the professional character of the police force. An insensitive chief minister can pat his incompetent police force on the back and the senior police leadership can also blame the ‘misleading media’ and the ‘anti-national minorities’ for any criticism made of its handling of the situation. But the truth is that after every riot the same criticism is made of the police, that of its not only having failed to protect the lives and property of the minorities but of siding with Hindu rioters and encouraging them. And after this recent rioting also the same criticism is being levelled against the Gujarat police.
Whatever happened in Gujarat is not something new. It only once again underlines the fact that the senior leadership of the police will have to sit down and think as to why after every riot the same story is repeated: that of incompetence, inactivity and criminal negligence. Until we accept that all is not in order in our own house, nothing can be put right.
The first: institutionalised opposition to communal violence is initiated by the police. This occurs at several levels: collection of intelligence before the outbreak of violence, preventive measures while tension is escalating, use of force to stop violence and, after peace is restored, initiation of legal proceedings against the guilty. These are some of the steps taken by the police to combat communal riots. None of these steps can be taken effectively if we ourselves are infected with a communal bias.
For an average policeman, collection of intelligence is limited to gathering of information about the activities of communal Muslim organisations. It is not easy to make him realise that the activities of Hindu communal organisations also come under the purview of anti-national activities and, therefore, it is necessary to keep an eye on their activities also. It is a fact that very little input on the activities of communal Hindu organisations and their activists is to be found in the police station records.
Similarly, preventive arrests, even in riot situations in which Muslims are the worst sufferers, are restricted to members of the minority community. Further, even where Muslims are being attacked and the police resorts to firing, their main targets are Muslims. House-searches and arrests reveal the same bias.
What happened in Gujarat was a repetition of the above but on an unprecedented scale where the extent of violence and destruction was unparalleled and one-sided. The other difference was that for the first time the inaction, connivance and bias of the police were all on display on television screens in every Indian (and many foreign) homes. Now we have lost even the fig-leaf of alleged misrepresentation by the print-media.
It may be relevant to mention here that on many occassions when leadership was provided which was professionally sound and free from any communal bias, the same bunch of policemen have won confidence of various sections of society and made their organisations proud of them. The old truism is borne out that generals fail and not the troops. Very often the officers blame lower ranks of the force for their inability to control communal conflicts effectively. But we have seen even in the recent Gujarat happenings that in the midst of failures there were success stories in which upright IPS officers led their men from the front and ensured that there was no loss of life and property in their area of responsibility.
It is a sad fact that police-officers who have not just failed to control riot situations but who have actually given them their active support have not been punished in even one instance. The anti-Sikh riots of l984, especially in the capital of the country, one of the best-policed cities, saw the killings of thousands of Sikhs that could not have taken place without the active connivance of police. Despite indictments not only by the press but by several inquiry commissions, in some of which distinguished IPS officers like Sri Padma Rosha were also involved, not one police officer was punished and none of their careers was adversely affected. The Madon Commission and Srikrishna Commissions have suffered the same fate.
It is very clear that no outside agency can reform us. This is a job we will have to do ourselves. If we have any sense of pride left in the service to which we belong which has had an illustrious past and has enjoyed great prestige in the country, the time has come for us to set about this task in right earnest. We must call a general house of the Central IPS Association and demand that the government take action against Gujarat officers who have failed in their primary duty to maintain law and order and prevent violence; and against all officers who have failed in similar situations since l984. We should not treat the association as a trade union body to fight for better pay and service conditions but as a medium to improve the service itself. If the government does not take any action, the very least that we can do is remove such officers from the membership of the Association.
Hoping to hear from many of you shortly,
— Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS (UP, RR,3 l975).
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in English Literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
from Allahabad University
Allahabad University
Allahabad University , is a premier Central University located in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Its origins lie in the Muir Central College, named after Lt...
in the year 1971. He joined Indian Police Service
Indian Police Service
The Indian Police Service , simply known as Indian Police or IPS, is one of the three All India Services of the Government of India...
in 1975 and was allotted Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
cadre. He served many sensitive districts as Superintendent of Police.
He was on deputation to Govt. Of India for ten years from 1992 to 2001. His deputation included posting in anti insurgency operations in Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...
Valley during 1993-94. Presently he is posted as Additional Director General of Police
Director General of Police
In India the director general of police or inspector general of police is a three-star rank and the highest ranking police officer in Indian States & Union Territories. All DGPs/IGPs are Indian Police Service officers. The DGP/IGP is usually the head of the state police force in every Indian state...
in Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
. He has been awarded President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Services and Police Medal for Meritorious Services.
Apart from being a distinguished police officer Vibhuti Narain Rai is an acclaimed writer of Hindi Literature
Hindi literature
Hindi literature , is broadly divided into four prominent forms or styles, being Bhakti ; Shringar ; Veer-Gatha ; and Adhunik...
. He has written five novels – Ghar, Shahar Mein Curfew, Kissa Loktantra, Tabadla and Prem Ki Bhoot Katha and all of them were received warmly by the critics and readers of Hindi. His novel Shahar Mein Curfew was translated in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
, Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
, Bangla, Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
and Kannada. Other novels were also translated in many languages. He also writes satires and his collection of satires Ek Chhatra Neta Ka Rojnamcha was widely appreciated.
Shahar Mein curfew
In 1988, Vibhuti Narain Rai published a HindiHindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
novel entitled Shahar Mein Curfew (Curfew in the City). Its theme was a 1980 Hindu-Muslim riot in the city of Allahabad
Allahabad
Allahabad , or Settled by God in Persian, is a major city of India and is one of the main holy cities of Hinduism. It was renamed by the Mughals from the ancient name of Prayaga , and is by some accounts the second-oldest city in India. It is located in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,...
, and Rai wrote freely about how religious prejudice in the Hindu dominated police force and provincial administration led to Muslim citizens' being viewed as enemies and thus becoming easy targets of brutality and murder. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad readily took offense and denounced the novel for being anti-Hindu. It now wants a ban imposed on the novel, and when Ashok Singhal
Ashok Singhal
Ashok Singhal is the International President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Singhal, born in a Agrawal Vaishya family of Block-Bijauli,Tehsil- Atrauli District- Aligarh UP, has been one of the major faces of Ram Janmabhoomi movement.He was attached to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and inspired by its...
, secretary general of the V.H.P., was told of a producer wanting to turn the story into a film, he threatened to burn down theatres that dared to screen the planned film. All this ire surrounds a project that has still not begun and a work of fiction that at no point directly criticizes any Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
organization. It is worthwhile to quote here from a recent interview given by the author: "The intolerance of dissent is increasing in our society and the Ayodhya mobilization has largely contributed to this disturbing trend. The attacks on inconvenient writers and dissenting journalists are in fact motivated by a desire to silence all criticism and all reason, thereby making the very existence of rationally-thinking people redundant to the social and political process. This is extremely distressing."
Awards and honours
The novel Tabadla was awarded prestigious Indu Sharma Antarrastriya Katha Samman of LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Another novel Kissa Loktantra was honoured by Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan. Vibhuti Narain Rai is the founder editor of Vartman Sahitya, a leading Hindi Literary Magazine which is being published for last twenty years. He has been writing regular columns in various Hindi Magazines like Vagarth and Anyatha. Vibhuti Narain Rai has been an activist also who has been fighting against the fundamentalist and obscurantist forces of the country. Specially his novel Shahar Mein Curfew invited the wrath of these forced who even demanded ban on it. His book Combating Communal Conflict has been widely quoted by scholars working on communalism
Communalism
Communalism is a term with three distinct meanings according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary'.'These include "a theory of government or a system of government in which independent communes participate in a federation". "the principles and practice of communal ownership"...
. He is invited by National and International bodies working on Communalism on issues related to state response to communal violence. As an activist he has established a library in his native village in a backward area of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. This library Sri Ramanand Saraswati Pustakalaya, Azamgarh
Azamgarh
Azamgarh is a town in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is headquarters of Azamgarh district and Azamgarh Division.-History:Azamgarh, one of the easternmost districts of the State, once formed a part of the ancient Kosala kingdom, except the north-eastern part of it which was included in the...
was established to promote the culture of book reading and during it’s existence of 15 years it has become a prestigious cultural centre of the country which has developed a meaningful relationship with institutions like Sahitya Akademi
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...
, National Book Trust
National Book Trust
National Book Trust, is an Indian publishing house, founded in 1957 as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education within the Government of India....
and National School of Drama
National School of Drama
National School of Drama is a theatre training institute situated at New Delhi, India, established . It is an autonomous organization under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. It was set up in 1959 by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, and became an independent school in 1975...
.
National Police Academy
National Police Academy
The National Police Academy, in Islamabad, is a federal training centre for the senior officers of the civilian law enforcement agencies of Pakistan. The senior officers jointly form the Police Service of Pakistan , which is a civil service pay group...
, Hyderabad awarded him a fellowship on Police Neutrality during Communal strife. He produced a wonderful book out of this fellowship. This book Combating Communal Conflict was translated in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
and Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
and is considered an authority on relationship of minorities with the state.
He is the President of NGO Saajhi Duniya which is involved in various activities including research work to create a better world.
Now, he has been appointed as the Vice Chancellor of Wardha
Wardha
Wardha is a city and a municipal council in Wardha district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Wardha district. Wardha gets its name from the Wardha River which flows at the North, West and South boundaries of district. Founded in 1866, the town is now an...
-based Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya
Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya
The Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya is an Indian central university established for the promotion and development of Hindi language and literature, through teaching and research. It is located in the city of Wardha in Maharashtra. The university came into existence on January 8,...
by the President of India
President of India
The President of India is the head of state and first citizen of India, as well as the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. President of India is also the formal head of all the three branches of Indian Democracy - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary...
.
Novels
- Ghar
- Shahar Mein Curfew
- Kissa Loktantra
- Tabadla
- Prem Ki Bhoot Katha
Works in English
- Combating Communal Conflict
- Communal Conflicts: Perception of Police Neutrality During Hindu-Muslim Riots in India, Renaissance Pub. House (1998)
- "Letter addressed to all IPS officers of the country during Gujrat riots of 2002"
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to you at a very difficult time as an Indian Police Service officer and with a sense of anguish. The recent events related to the communal holocaust in Gujarat are a matter of great concern for the country and should inspire serious introspection among all of us IPS officers. The terrible carnage that occurred at Godhra was an early warning of the fact that big events of communal destruction could occur the next day all over the State and the expectation from a professional police force was that it would oppose all actions of revenge and counter-violence with all the force that it could muster. But this did not happen. Not only was the police unsuccessful in containing the violence of the next few days but, it seemed, that in many places policemen were actively encouraging the rioters. The failure of the police should not be attributed to the lower ranks but must be seen as a failure of leadership, that is, a failure of the IPS.
The events that followed the beastly incident at Godhra did not surprise a person like myself who is not only a police officer but also a keen student of social behaviour. The same old story was repeated everywhere from Ahmedabad, the capital, to the rural areas. Since l960, in almost all riots that have occurred, the same picture has been painted in the same colours, a picture of a helpless and often actively inactive police force that allowed wailing members of the minority community to be looted and killed in its presence, that remained a mute witness to some of their members being burnt alive.
Whatever may be my concerns as an ordinary citizen, as a police officer, my greatest concern is the preservation of the professional character of the police force. An insensitive chief minister can pat his incompetent police force on the back and the senior police leadership can also blame the ‘misleading media’ and the ‘anti-national minorities’ for any criticism made of its handling of the situation. But the truth is that after every riot the same criticism is made of the police, that of its not only having failed to protect the lives and property of the minorities but of siding with Hindu rioters and encouraging them. And after this recent rioting also the same criticism is being levelled against the Gujarat police.
Whatever happened in Gujarat is not something new. It only once again underlines the fact that the senior leadership of the police will have to sit down and think as to why after every riot the same story is repeated: that of incompetence, inactivity and criminal negligence. Until we accept that all is not in order in our own house, nothing can be put right.
The first: institutionalised opposition to communal violence is initiated by the police. This occurs at several levels: collection of intelligence before the outbreak of violence, preventive measures while tension is escalating, use of force to stop violence and, after peace is restored, initiation of legal proceedings against the guilty. These are some of the steps taken by the police to combat communal riots. None of these steps can be taken effectively if we ourselves are infected with a communal bias.
For an average policeman, collection of intelligence is limited to gathering of information about the activities of communal Muslim organisations. It is not easy to make him realise that the activities of Hindu communal organisations also come under the purview of anti-national activities and, therefore, it is necessary to keep an eye on their activities also. It is a fact that very little input on the activities of communal Hindu organisations and their activists is to be found in the police station records.
Similarly, preventive arrests, even in riot situations in which Muslims are the worst sufferers, are restricted to members of the minority community. Further, even where Muslims are being attacked and the police resorts to firing, their main targets are Muslims. House-searches and arrests reveal the same bias.
What happened in Gujarat was a repetition of the above but on an unprecedented scale where the extent of violence and destruction was unparalleled and one-sided. The other difference was that for the first time the inaction, connivance and bias of the police were all on display on television screens in every Indian (and many foreign) homes. Now we have lost even the fig-leaf of alleged misrepresentation by the print-media.
It may be relevant to mention here that on many occassions when leadership was provided which was professionally sound and free from any communal bias, the same bunch of policemen have won confidence of various sections of society and made their organisations proud of them. The old truism is borne out that generals fail and not the troops. Very often the officers blame lower ranks of the force for their inability to control communal conflicts effectively. But we have seen even in the recent Gujarat happenings that in the midst of failures there were success stories in which upright IPS officers led their men from the front and ensured that there was no loss of life and property in their area of responsibility.
It is a sad fact that police-officers who have not just failed to control riot situations but who have actually given them their active support have not been punished in even one instance. The anti-Sikh riots of l984, especially in the capital of the country, one of the best-policed cities, saw the killings of thousands of Sikhs that could not have taken place without the active connivance of police. Despite indictments not only by the press but by several inquiry commissions, in some of which distinguished IPS officers like Sri Padma Rosha were also involved, not one police officer was punished and none of their careers was adversely affected. The Madon Commission and Srikrishna Commissions have suffered the same fate.
It is very clear that no outside agency can reform us. This is a job we will have to do ourselves. If we have any sense of pride left in the service to which we belong which has had an illustrious past and has enjoyed great prestige in the country, the time has come for us to set about this task in right earnest. We must call a general house of the Central IPS Association and demand that the government take action against Gujarat officers who have failed in their primary duty to maintain law and order and prevent violence; and against all officers who have failed in similar situations since l984. We should not treat the association as a trade union body to fight for better pay and service conditions but as a medium to improve the service itself. If the government does not take any action, the very least that we can do is remove such officers from the membership of the Association.
Hoping to hear from many of you shortly,
— Vibhuti Narain Rai, IPS (UP, RR,3 l975).
Translations into English
- Curfew in the City, translated by C. M. NaimC. M. NaimC. M. Naim is an American scholar of Urdu language and literature. He is currently professor emeritus at the University of Chicago....
, New DelhiNew DelhiNew Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
: Roli Books, 1998.