Morarji Desai was the finance minister in the Union Government. He had been my father's classmate and he used to remind me of this each time I received him at Dadar railway station. He was in the habit of travelling by train. As DCP, Zone III, I was to receive him each time he landed in Bombay, which was quite often. He was to come on February 9, 1969, but the Shiv Sena had declared that they would not allow him to enter the city unless he accepted a memorandum from them.

Morarjibhai was a stickler for rules and protocol. He was not going to stop his car to accept a memorandum from the Shiv Sena on the streets of Bombay. We also knew that if he refused to do so, there would be trouble. Hence, our only request to the finance minister was that he should not travel by train because Dadar was the stronghold of the Sena. It was the area where they were the most active. Morarjibhai agreed to travel by air. While journeying fromSanta Cruz airport to the city, his car was stopped at Mahim by the Sainiks who were waiting for him. He ordered the car to drive on. The police tried to disperse the Sainiks with lathis because they had begun to bang on the car with flagstaffs and their fists.

The police were successful in clearing the way for the minister's car. He drove away without meeting them, but the Sainiks were awaiting the signal to create trouble. They began burning and looting shops of South Indians. Udipi restaurants, in particular, were also attacked. At night, the fires could be seen for miles around. It looked as if the entire city was burning.

The riots spread. The Sainiks extended their field of operations to other parts of the city and the suburbs. Kurla, on the eastern suburbs, was greatly affected. Dadar and Mahim were in shambles. The police were outnumbered. In the neighbouring police stations of Bhoiwada and Delisle Road, which were also strongholds of the Sena. DCP Ramamurthi, in charge of Zone II, also had a hardtime. As he had been in Bombay longer than I and knew how the Sainiks operated, he had cornered most of the armed reserves from police headquarters earlier in the day in anticipation of trouble. I was left with the remainder, but what was left was totally inadequate.

The Shiv Sena used to send their ambulances to pick up injured people. These ambulances were also used for transporting missiles and kerosene for use in arson attacks. One such vehicle, when checked, had a large man seated in front next to the driver. My officers told me that he had often been seen moving in the area and they suspected his intentions. I had him sent to the police station. Later, I learnt that he was a well-known bootlegger from Kurla, who had been brought to Dadar to help the Sainiks to burn and loot. The officers and policemen might have questioned him, but he was soon released. About a fortnight later, he died a natural death. He was not in custody at that time, but the Shiv Sena paper Marmik alleged that he had been killedby the police and I was mentioned as the officer who had assaulted him. This prompted us to order a post-mortem examination on the body of Raja, which was his nickname. The examination showed that he died of `cirrhosis of the liver' caused by excessive drinking. He had led a very Bohemian life. The tensions of continuous conflict with the law may have accelerated the pace of the illness. But the allegation that he was beaten to death in police custody was absolutely false. When he died, he was a free man, having been released at least fifteen days prior to his death.Several other bad characters, owing allegiance to the Sena, were shot dead in the riots. In Dadar, some 59 Sainiks lost their lives when the police were forced to open fire on mobs looting and burning in the market place. Their antecedents were verified later, and with the exception of one or two, who were not known to the police earlier, all the others appeared to be persons of bad character. This only went to show that Shiv Sena's followers weredrawn from the ranks of the lumpen proletariat.

The riots ended as abruptly as they began. Thackeray, who had been arrested in the meantime, issued an appeal from the lock-up to the Sainiks to stop rioting and to clean up the streets instead. He must have realised that his support among the Maharashtrian middle class was likely to erode if life was disrupted for so long over so petty an issue as that of the finance minister not accepting his memorandum. Children could not get milk for days and normal life was disrupted in the affected areas. Watch, jewellery and grocery shops were all looted by the Sainiks and other lumpen elements who had taken advantage of the situation. People came out of houses when the curfew was lifted in the morning and began sweeping the streets to clear them of all signs of rioting. This was the signal for the end of the riots. The disturbances had served no purpose except to tell the citizens of Bombay that the Sena was capable of creating terror!

The reaction to the riots inthe Maharashtra legislative assembly was predictable. The Opposition, particularly the left parties, castigated the government and the chief minister for unleashing a `paper tiger' which they anticipated would be difficult to cage. Their reading was very prophetic because the Sena is today the main partner in the state government. A similar manoeuvre by the Congress chief minister of Punjab, Giani Zail Singh, to scuttle the Akalis by creating a bogey, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was similarly counter productive. Punjab was afflicted by terrorism for nearly a decade.

My experience of these riots, which were the worst I had ever faced till now, taught me that once such riots start, it is not possible or easy to control them despite one's best efforts. Big riots peter out on their own. The progress of a riot can be compared to that of a storm. There is nothing one can do about a storm. It dissipates on its own. The mobs looted and burned at will and stopped only when they are tired and there is nothing moreto burn or loot. It is not possible to adopt this method in India because we would face immense criticism from the public. The police have to be seen to be active, even if their efforts have only marginal impact.

(Publishers: Viking; No of pages: 397; price Rs 395.)