Communal Riots in Secular India
R. Upadhyay
09 Oct 2013
Since no honest effort was ever made in secular India to bridge the gap of communal mistrust between the two major religious communities that was primarily due to historical wrongs, one should not be surprised that communal riots continue to occur frequently.
The repeated blame games of all the political parties over this social menace as seen recently in Kistwar of Jammu and Kashmir state and in Muzaffarnagar and its adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh without tackling the issue in all its aspects gives the impression that the parties are only practising political gimmickry!
Medieval Legacy:
Is it not an irony that in post-British India, the country’s political leadership in pursuit of votes and vote banks is carrying forward the violent medieval legacy only for their political interests and dividends that come from such riots?
The pre-medieval invaders of India generally settled in Indian soil and merged in the cultural cauldron of this land. But the Islamic conquests were different. The conquerors indulged in mass killings, forced conversions with the superimposition of an alien Arab-Turk-Perso culture all in the name of religion. This created a permanent conflict between the two major religious groups. The creation of Pakistan in the name of religion and the failure of post independence Indian rulers to bridge the gap between the two communities have only exacerbated the distrust between the two communities.
Praising their faith as God’s final and perfect religion, these conquerors declared that it was their divine right to conquer the non-Muslim world and to superimpose their culture on the people of the conquered territories. This mindset of the invaders clashed with the spiritual beliefs of the conquered people and thus created a permanent chasm. One cannot but agree that this was not just a conflict of religion but a conflict of civilization between the ruling class and the ruled.
The invaders had earlier succeeded in their mission in Persia and other gulf countries and rejected Judaism and Christianity as defective variants of Islam but the response of the natives in India was different and the ruled continued their resistance all through. Since then, the socio-cultural division between the two communities had remained a permanent feature of Indian society.
Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul in his book Half a Life observed that“Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say “my ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter”.
The British Rule and its narrow objectives.
After the end of the imperialistic Islamic rule in 1857 and shift of power from the Muslim rulers to the British, there was a marked change in the attitude of the Hindus also towards the former as well as the new ruler. While “the Hindus looked upon the British rule as deliverance from Muslim yoke, and considered English education as a blessing, the Muslims in their eagerness to preserve their religion and religious views rejected English education”.(Muslim Politics and Leadership in South Asian Sub-continent by Yusuf Abbasi, page 13).
The British ruler did not like to resolve the conflict between the two communities. They looked at the whole issue as a law and order one and emphasis was on communal harmony to prevent a break down in law and order and nothing more.
The post-Mogul historians repeatedly wrote about the Indo-Arab composite culture of this land but ignored the wounded psyche of the natives. Though the Hindus and Muslims were living together for more than a millennium both the groups always remained in social isolation from each other. At the instance of Mahatma Gandhi, the Hindus joined the Khilafat Movement launched by the Muslims against the British for restoration of Ottoman Empire but this unity was also a temporary one.
Partition & thereafter:
The Indian National Congress had opposed the two-nation theory tooth and nail but its leaders succumbed to the pressure of Muslim League leaders who gave a call for Direct Action in 1946 that led to widespread communal riots in the sub-continent. These riots were said to be one of the immediate causes of Partition.
When India emerged as an independent democratic and secular republic, the then ruling Congress only tried to philosophise the Hindu-Muslim issue by repeating the same Marxian theory of composite culture by ignoring the fact that the “pang of toothache cannot be borne by philosophical speculation”. Of course the term secular was not incorporated in the constitution at the time of its framing, its spirit was secular. But instead of formulating a practicable policy to resolve the historical communal conflict, the ruling political party carried forward the same policy of the earlier rulers. Ironically, the Marxists and Left-liberal intelligentsia also supported them.
Revival of the Muslim League politics by the Muslim leaders and their parties:
This resulted in the Muslim League reviving the movement for the separate identity of the Muslims on the basis of religion which was nothing but a fight for a shared political power on the basis of a separate religious identity. For them, democracy and secularism were alien to their faith. “Democracy is a concept completely alien to the Muslim psyche to the extent that there is no equivalent terminology for it in Arabic or other languages spoken by Muslims(Understanding Mohammad – A psychobiography of Allah’ Prophet by Ali Sina, a Canadian Muslim of Iranian descent). They ignored the concept of common national identity as accepted by other minorities like Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians (Parsis) who hardly had any communal conflict in this secular country.
Had the ruling establishment been bold enough and abandoned the concept of minority and majority in framing the constitution, the Indian Muslims like their counterparts in other non-Muslim majority democratic countries of the world would have resigned themselves to being equal citizens. They would have either opted for Pakistan or accepted the concept of common law for all. But our constitution makers ignored the hard historical fact of religion which was the main reason behind Partition and again divided the people into majority (read Hindu) and minority (read Muslims) on the basis of religion by incorporating some articles which provided special privileges to the latter. This generated a communal consciousness in both the communities and also revived the secreting historical wounds in the psyche of the majority community particularly when the ruling establishment remained more concerned with the communal demands of the minorities. Emergence of other communal organisations could not be prevented.
Vote Bank Politics to the Fore:
In between Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, a number of commissions and councils like National Integration Council, Minority Commission, Rangnath Mishra Committee, Sachchar Committee were set up by the Central Government but such efforts could hardly resolve the communal conflict in the country. These exercises rather prompted almost all the political parties to go for competitive bidding to go for “vote banks” in the elections. Distribution of communal sops to the minorities particularly in pre-election year by the so called secular parties only accelerated the identity politics played by the minority religious leaders.
By and large only the vote-seeking political parties are blamed whenever there is any communal riot. But the so called secular media should be held equally responsible for not agitating against the vote bank politics being played by the political parties. If only the government had not interfered with the Shahbano case, things could have been different today. But it was not to be as vote bank politics appeared to be more important and crucial for survival of some of the political parties.
Keeping alive the communal issues like over a decade old Gujarat riots, arrest of Muslim suspects in terror cases, arrest and conviction of Batala House encounter in 2008 and 2013 respectively suggest that the Muslim leaders have made it a strategy to flex their muscle on any issue which goes against the Muslims.
The Batla Encounter
Within a month of the Batala House encounter in September 2008, various Muslim organisations organised a meeting in Jama Masjid Delhi on 14th October and condemned the arrest of Muslim youths who were suspected as accused in this encounter. It may be mentioned that Shahi Imam of this mosque in his invitation letters had highlighted the “bomb blasts, blame game, illegal arrests, and torture of Muslim youths” and also alleged: - “ the highly discriminatory actions of State police forces and central intelligence agencies have let loose a reign of terror to which Central government has turned a blind eye”. He felt that “if we don't unite by closing our ranks to meet this challenge, history will never forgive us”. The meeting made this encounter a political issue which is still persisting.
Surprisingly, even the then Jamia Milia Islamia Vice Chancellor Mashirul Hasan a widely acclaimed campaigner of ‘moderate and tolerant Islam’ joined the communal polarisation move and offered to provide legal assistance to the two arrested students of the university. He even led a street march in support of the Islamists.
Thus, with a sustained campaign the Muslim leaders succeeded in convincing the community members across the country that their community members killed in the police encounter and arrested were innocent and not terrorists. They went to the extent of preaching that the death of Mohan Sharma was caused by the bullet fired by his own colleague either deliberately or by accident.
Revisiting Pre Partition Scenario:
The increase in communal riots since the beginning of the new millennium on the eve of election years namely 2004, 2009 and 2013 shows that India is revisiting the pre-partition challenge of the communal flame engulfing the country. But the most unfortunate part of the scenario is the role of political parties, ‘secular’ intelligentsia, journalists, writers and academics in running down the image of the country in the world.
If the people of the country in general and ruling class in particular do not take lessons from the historical wrongs committed by Indians who brought defeat and dishonour to the nation either to save their throne or skin, we are bound to fail in bridging the gap of communal mistrust in the society. The prevailing dissatisfaction of the Muslim community and consequent unrest is a dangerous sign for both the internal and external security of the country.
The answer lies in a strong political will of both the state and central leadership to shed their politics of vote bank and one sided approach in handling the communal riots as otherwise the country will continue facing the challenge of the medieval legacy. Muzaffarnagar riot will not be the last and we will only see more riots in future.
2. Not just Modi: Guide to communal riots before 2002 and after
sanjeev nayyar
6/4/2013
http://www.firstpost.com/india/not-just-modi-guide-to-communal-riots-before-2002-and-after-688714.html
The repeated blame games of all the political parties over this social menace as seen recently in Kistwar of Jammu and Kashmir state and in Muzaffarnagar and its adjoining districts of Uttar Pradesh without tackling the issue in all its aspects gives the impression that the parties are only practising political gimmickry!
Medieval Legacy:
Is it not an irony that in post-British India, the country’s political leadership in pursuit of votes and vote banks is carrying forward the violent medieval legacy only for their political interests and dividends that come from such riots?
The pre-medieval invaders of India generally settled in Indian soil and merged in the cultural cauldron of this land. But the Islamic conquests were different. The conquerors indulged in mass killings, forced conversions with the superimposition of an alien Arab-Turk-Perso culture all in the name of religion. This created a permanent conflict between the two major religious groups. The creation of Pakistan in the name of religion and the failure of post independence Indian rulers to bridge the gap between the two communities have only exacerbated the distrust between the two communities.
Praising their faith as God’s final and perfect religion, these conquerors declared that it was their divine right to conquer the non-Muslim world and to superimpose their culture on the people of the conquered territories. This mindset of the invaders clashed with the spiritual beliefs of the conquered people and thus created a permanent chasm. One cannot but agree that this was not just a conflict of religion but a conflict of civilization between the ruling class and the ruled.
The invaders had earlier succeeded in their mission in Persia and other gulf countries and rejected Judaism and Christianity as defective variants of Islam but the response of the natives in India was different and the ruled continued their resistance all through. Since then, the socio-cultural division between the two communities had remained a permanent feature of Indian society.
Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul in his book Half a Life observed that“Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say “my ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter”.
The British Rule and its narrow objectives.
After the end of the imperialistic Islamic rule in 1857 and shift of power from the Muslim rulers to the British, there was a marked change in the attitude of the Hindus also towards the former as well as the new ruler. While “the Hindus looked upon the British rule as deliverance from Muslim yoke, and considered English education as a blessing, the Muslims in their eagerness to preserve their religion and religious views rejected English education”.(Muslim Politics and Leadership in South Asian Sub-continent by Yusuf Abbasi, page 13).
The British ruler did not like to resolve the conflict between the two communities. They looked at the whole issue as a law and order one and emphasis was on communal harmony to prevent a break down in law and order and nothing more.
The post-Mogul historians repeatedly wrote about the Indo-Arab composite culture of this land but ignored the wounded psyche of the natives. Though the Hindus and Muslims were living together for more than a millennium both the groups always remained in social isolation from each other. At the instance of Mahatma Gandhi, the Hindus joined the Khilafat Movement launched by the Muslims against the British for restoration of Ottoman Empire but this unity was also a temporary one.
Partition & thereafter:
The Indian National Congress had opposed the two-nation theory tooth and nail but its leaders succumbed to the pressure of Muslim League leaders who gave a call for Direct Action in 1946 that led to widespread communal riots in the sub-continent. These riots were said to be one of the immediate causes of Partition.
When India emerged as an independent democratic and secular republic, the then ruling Congress only tried to philosophise the Hindu-Muslim issue by repeating the same Marxian theory of composite culture by ignoring the fact that the “pang of toothache cannot be borne by philosophical speculation”. Of course the term secular was not incorporated in the constitution at the time of its framing, its spirit was secular. But instead of formulating a practicable policy to resolve the historical communal conflict, the ruling political party carried forward the same policy of the earlier rulers. Ironically, the Marxists and Left-liberal intelligentsia also supported them.
Revival of the Muslim League politics by the Muslim leaders and their parties:
This resulted in the Muslim League reviving the movement for the separate identity of the Muslims on the basis of religion which was nothing but a fight for a shared political power on the basis of a separate religious identity. For them, democracy and secularism were alien to their faith. “Democracy is a concept completely alien to the Muslim psyche to the extent that there is no equivalent terminology for it in Arabic or other languages spoken by Muslims(Understanding Mohammad – A psychobiography of Allah’ Prophet by Ali Sina, a Canadian Muslim of Iranian descent). They ignored the concept of common national identity as accepted by other minorities like Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians (Parsis) who hardly had any communal conflict in this secular country.
Had the ruling establishment been bold enough and abandoned the concept of minority and majority in framing the constitution, the Indian Muslims like their counterparts in other non-Muslim majority democratic countries of the world would have resigned themselves to being equal citizens. They would have either opted for Pakistan or accepted the concept of common law for all. But our constitution makers ignored the hard historical fact of religion which was the main reason behind Partition and again divided the people into majority (read Hindu) and minority (read Muslims) on the basis of religion by incorporating some articles which provided special privileges to the latter. This generated a communal consciousness in both the communities and also revived the secreting historical wounds in the psyche of the majority community particularly when the ruling establishment remained more concerned with the communal demands of the minorities. Emergence of other communal organisations could not be prevented.
Vote Bank Politics to the Fore:
In between Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, a number of commissions and councils like National Integration Council, Minority Commission, Rangnath Mishra Committee, Sachchar Committee were set up by the Central Government but such efforts could hardly resolve the communal conflict in the country. These exercises rather prompted almost all the political parties to go for competitive bidding to go for “vote banks” in the elections. Distribution of communal sops to the minorities particularly in pre-election year by the so called secular parties only accelerated the identity politics played by the minority religious leaders.
By and large only the vote-seeking political parties are blamed whenever there is any communal riot. But the so called secular media should be held equally responsible for not agitating against the vote bank politics being played by the political parties. If only the government had not interfered with the Shahbano case, things could have been different today. But it was not to be as vote bank politics appeared to be more important and crucial for survival of some of the political parties.
Keeping alive the communal issues like over a decade old Gujarat riots, arrest of Muslim suspects in terror cases, arrest and conviction of Batala House encounter in 2008 and 2013 respectively suggest that the Muslim leaders have made it a strategy to flex their muscle on any issue which goes against the Muslims.
The Batla Encounter
Within a month of the Batala House encounter in September 2008, various Muslim organisations organised a meeting in Jama Masjid Delhi on 14th October and condemned the arrest of Muslim youths who were suspected as accused in this encounter. It may be mentioned that Shahi Imam of this mosque in his invitation letters had highlighted the “bomb blasts, blame game, illegal arrests, and torture of Muslim youths” and also alleged: - “ the highly discriminatory actions of State police forces and central intelligence agencies have let loose a reign of terror to which Central government has turned a blind eye”. He felt that “if we don't unite by closing our ranks to meet this challenge, history will never forgive us”. The meeting made this encounter a political issue which is still persisting.
Surprisingly, even the then Jamia Milia Islamia Vice Chancellor Mashirul Hasan a widely acclaimed campaigner of ‘moderate and tolerant Islam’ joined the communal polarisation move and offered to provide legal assistance to the two arrested students of the university. He even led a street march in support of the Islamists.
Thus, with a sustained campaign the Muslim leaders succeeded in convincing the community members across the country that their community members killed in the police encounter and arrested were innocent and not terrorists. They went to the extent of preaching that the death of Mohan Sharma was caused by the bullet fired by his own colleague either deliberately or by accident.
Revisiting Pre Partition Scenario:
The increase in communal riots since the beginning of the new millennium on the eve of election years namely 2004, 2009 and 2013 shows that India is revisiting the pre-partition challenge of the communal flame engulfing the country. But the most unfortunate part of the scenario is the role of political parties, ‘secular’ intelligentsia, journalists, writers and academics in running down the image of the country in the world.
If the people of the country in general and ruling class in particular do not take lessons from the historical wrongs committed by Indians who brought defeat and dishonour to the nation either to save their throne or skin, we are bound to fail in bridging the gap of communal mistrust in the society. The prevailing dissatisfaction of the Muslim community and consequent unrest is a dangerous sign for both the internal and external security of the country.
The answer lies in a strong political will of both the state and central leadership to shed their politics of vote bank and one sided approach in handling the communal riots as otherwise the country will continue facing the challenge of the medieval legacy. Muzaffarnagar riot will not be the last and we will only see more riots in future.
Also Please Read :
1. Why Secularism is not an Indian concept
sanjeev nayyar
August 2, 2013.
sanjeev nayyar
August 2, 2013.
2. Not just Modi: Guide to communal riots before 2002 and after
sanjeev nayyar
6/4/2013
http://www.firstpost.com/india/not-just-modi-guide-to-communal-riots-before-2002-and-after-688714.html
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BOOK REVIEW
"RIOTS & WRONGS"
URL : http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/Islam-and-Religious-Riots,-A-Case-Study~-1.aspx
BOOK REVIEW
"RIOTS & WRONGS"
URL : http://www.esamskriti.com/essay-chapters/Islam-and-Religious-Riots,-A-Case-Study~-1.aspx
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