Waqar Khan of the Mohalla Committee died of a cardiac arrest last week, days after ensuring a Ram Navmi scuffle did not escalate into a riot

A couple of years after Mumbai’s worst communal riots in 1992-1993, Dharavi’s Waqar Khan was faced with a quandary: He had planned a poster with four children — dressed as Hindu, a Muslim, a Sigh and a Christian — to promote communal harmony, his pet project ever since he saw neighbours killed in the nationwide frenzy after the Babri masjid demolition. Khan had gathered children to pose for his poster, all Muslim children. But none was willing to shave his head to play a Hindu priest. Finally, he got hold of his son Vicky and led him to the barber, unmindful of the fact that Muslim clerics would berate him for the act later.

“Such was Waqar’s dedication to his ideals,” says Bhau Korde (70), a close friend and colleague in Dharavi’s Mohalla Committee.

Khan, aged just 43, died after a cardiac arrest last week, just days after plunging into a crowd of saffron flag-waving members of a radical Hindu organization on Ram Navami. A tinderbox of communal emotions was stopped from exploding, in the nick of time. “We have lost a man who was instrumental in keeping the peace in Dharavi ever since 1992-93,” says Korde.

He recounts how Khan’s poster was not only produced successfully, but has been a recurring image at national integration efforts across Dharavi and elsewhere in the city. Its latest appearance, with its simple message “Hum Sab Ek Hain” below the banner of the Mohalla Committee Movement, was at a rally at the Gateway of India attended by thousands of Mumbaiites soon after the 26 / 11 terror attack.

... contd.