Then And Now
                                               qq The changing nature of communal riots
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The Ahmedabad riots of 1969 marked a watershed in the history of Hindu-Muslim
rioting.  Since the early seventies, says Asghar Ali Engineer in conversation with
"Factsheet", larger and more complex economic and political forces have shaped
communal riots.
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The view that the pattern of communal riots has been changing lately is, in my opinion,
a valid one. Since the late sixties new and important factors that have some bearing on
this pattern have emerged. Communal riots, or for that matter even caste riots, have been
integrally related to the process of uneven development within the country. They are basically
caused by a rightist reaction to certain trends, or even what are called "threats" posed by
the Muslim community, that have emerged in the course of India's political and economic
development.

In the Sixties
The 1969 Ahmedabad riots represent a watershed so far as changes in the trend go.
This was the first major riot that took place on a purely political issue. At that time,
Mrs. Gandhi had just forced the split in the Congress and, in order to legitimise her new
government and give it some popular support, she took some apparently socialist steps
like nationalis~ ing banks and abolishing privy purses. The rightist parties were naturally
alarmed and they tried to create a detri- mental and embarassing situation which, they
hoped, would stem the new direction the country was taking. They thus combined to
engineer the Ahmedabad riots.

Even the Reddy Commission report established that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (ASS), the then Jana Sangh and the Congress (0) were responsible for the riots.
Mr. Hitendra Desai, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, had cast his lot with Mr. Morarji Desai
and the Congress (0) during the split in the party. He, therefore, remained a silent
spectator to the riots as they spread to other towns in Gujarat. The violence and killing that
followed embarrassed Mrs. Gandhi's government a great deal.

Around that time, elsewhere in the country too, a reaction to economic and political
developments was seen as emerging.

After the impact of the green revolution began to be felt in various regions of the
country, there was a major reaction from conservative elements who feared
changes in the status quo. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, forty-five Harijans were
burnt to death in 1967, not in normal caste violence, but as a direct reaction
to their being organised by the Communist Party of India.

Major communal riots had also broken out in 1970 in Bhiwandi, Jalgaon and Bombay
with the emergence of the Shiv Sena. The Shiv Sena itself bred on the economic
crisis that emerged after 1965, when a large number of people were unemployed
and labour became militant. The industrial bourgeoisie and the ruling classes in
Bombay prevented the formation of any proletarian solidarity by encouraging the
growth of regional chauvinistic sentiments. Maharashtrians living in the working class
areas of Bombay were fed with the belief that they were being deprived of jobs because
South Indians were monopolising them. They therefore joined the Shiv Sena in large
numbers and became increasingly militant and restive.

In Bhiwandi, the Shiv Sena campaign took a more expressedly communal turn as was
evident when it tried to capture the Bhiwandi municipality, which is one of the
richest in the region. Revenue comes mainly from the large number of trucks on
the Bombay-Agra Road that pass through the town, as well as from the powerloom
industry there. Chauvinistic speeches made by the Shiv Sena leaders like
Bal Thackeray were directed against the Muslims, who constituted close to 50% of
the total population there. They appealed to the communal sentiments of the Hindus
in order to get them to vote en bloc. This eventually led to the communal holocaust.

The Pattern Today

The communal riots of the late sixties set a trend in which economic and political
issues predominated as causative factors, even though these were disguised under the
garb of communalism. If we look at the more recent riots in Aligarh, Jamshedpur,
Moradabad, Meerut, Bhiwandi, Biharsharif and Malegaon we find that they occur in places
which share certain characteristics. These towns are usually middle-sized wIth a population
of between two-to-five lakhs; they have a relatively high proportion of Muslims, anywhere
between 20 to 50 per cent; and there is also a section of the Muslim community which is
becoming economically active either in peripheral business or in the underworld.

It is in fact this last factor-- the rise of a Muslim segment in a small town --that has
created a lot of problems.

Firstly, this is seen as a political threat, plainly in numerical terms, which can influence
electoral politics, as in Meerut.

Secondly, the rise of some sections of Muslim traders and artisans is viewed as
an economic threat posed by the Muslim community to Hindu trading classes.

Thirdly, the presence of a large number of Muslims in urban peripheral business creates
fertile ground for the development of a lumpen proletariat which is swollen by the mass
of those Muslims who find themselves unemployed in small towns. This trend is most
visiblein Jamshedpur and Baroda.

Let us see how these factors work.

Politics and Voting Patterns

Till the early sixties, minority communities were seen as vote banks and there was a
set pattern of voting. Political parties, particularly the ruling Congress, wooed minority
community candidates who exercised influence, to ensure favourable poll results. Meerut
is a classic example of this pattern. It has a large Muslim population which is influenced
by a small section of well-to-do-Muslims. Therefore, Meerut provides a better chance to
return Muslim Congress-I candidates.

With economic development and a growing political consciousness, minority votes
can no longer be taken for granted. One can, therefore, discern a chain of tensions arising
from the tug-of-war between different political parties who vie for minority votes. As in the
caste riots of Bihar, where Thakurs, who no longer can dictate voting, react by unleashing
violence on the Harijans, so also chau- vinist Hindu elements especially the Jana Sangh
and the RSS resent any voting pattern that works against them, particularly with respect
to Muslim candidatures.

Recent examples of this phenomenon can be seen in Andhra Pradesh, Assam and
Kerala. For example in Andhra Pradesh, the Muslims voted for the Telegu Desam
in a big way and were as responsible as any other section for electing the Telugu Desam
government. But in Hyderabad, particularly in the old city, the Muslims voted for the
Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimin. This was strongly resented by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP).
The tension that arose out of this situation was finally vented in a riot.

In Assam, too, one finds that over 3000 Muslims were killed in the violence that broke
out in protest against the declaration of elections to the state assembly. What was
essentially an anti-Bengali movement has now acquired anti-Muslim characteristics with
the increasing infiltration of the RSS into the ranks of the AASU, particularly at the
district levels.

In Kerala, despite the presence of the Muslim League, there was no communal
riot till the Tellichery incidents in the early seventies, when the RSS began to establish
itself there. Since then, the politics of coalition governments has aggravated the situation.
The League demanded the price of supporting a coalition government by asking for
reservations for Muslims in educational institutions etc. or for forming a Muslim majority
district in Mallapuram. This was resented by the Nair community, which now encouraged
the RSS branches to be opened in Kerala. The RSS began to attack the CPI (M) which was
the main political rival both of the RSS and the Nairs. The Nairs are also political competitors
of the Muslim League. Now the Kerala Congress, a Christian dominated party, is also
asserting itself to win some demands as a price for supporting the coalition. Thus a very
complex pattern of communal politics  emerged in Kerala, a state considered free of the
communal canker so far, thanks the electoral politics of coalition governments. And even
worse, the left parties have also to play the caste community game when they participate
in the ballot system. This results in sharpening communal tensions and results in riots,
like the recent one in Trivandrum.

Rising Economic Strength of Muslims

Asection of Muslims, especially those in semi-urban towns which have a large Muslim
population, have started demanding and taking a share of the economic cake.

These Muslims enter into peripheral business (not in industry and finance) or even illegal
trade as they have limited, alternatives. There have been a few traditional Muslim trading
communities who have benefitted from the growth of commerce, but these are small and
still do not belong to the traditional feudal culture that largely dominates. Once such
communities achieve a measure of affluence they tend to spend more on religious festivals,
mosques, madarasas, etc., as these are ways of acquiring legitimacy in the community.
This has caused a strong sense of resentment among the Hindus and the tensions such
factors create often explode over the issue of loudspeakers, route of religious procession
etc. which have been the cause of many riots.

A typical example of such economic rivalry is evident in the Moradabad brassware industry
in which Muslims had mainly been workers and artisans. When H.N. Bahuguna was chief
minister of U.P. he set up a brassware Corporation which gave facilities to brassware workers
and enabled them to form Cooperatives. Some workers even began their own establishments
and became prosperous. This was perceived as a threat by the Punjabi businessmen
who claimed that 50% of this brassware business had been taken over by the Muslims,
while the actual share did not really exceed over 10-12%. What was purely competition in
trade generated anti-Muslim feeling and this finally formed the background of the communal riot.

Lumpen Involment

With economic development and industrialisation in these middle-sized towns,the
number of lumpen elements increases. With no jobs, they fall easy prey to communal
chauvinism. Some even join criminal gangs which can be used for a variety of
purposes including provoking the outbreak of riots --communal or otherwise. In Bihar and
Uttar Pradesh particularly, feudal landlords rely on these gangs to supply weapons and
oppress Harijans. The triangle is completed by politicians Who shelter such criminals
in return for, votes which may be harnessed by force. The Jamshedpur riot showed how
this triangle can engineer a communal riot.

Another example of lumpen involvement is Baroda. The clash was originally between
two gangs of bootleggers. On the one side you had a couple of Muslim gangs who
monopolised the trade. On the other, was the Kahar community which took up this
business after 1977. Finally, the Kahars came to predominate this illicit trade through
political patronage and support from the police. So much so that when the riots broke out,
the administrative machinery, which is equally entangled in bootlegging, identified itself
with the Hindus, and the Muslims suffered consequently.

Then and Now

An analysis of communalism in the late sixties and an outline of its current characteristics
supports the thesis that it is a highly complex outgrowth of the process of socio-political
change. This is again an integral part of, and has been based on, a process of economic
development which has resulted in an iniquitious distribution of material resources. Such
a process sharpens a sense of identity in different ethnic, caste and religious groups since
they have to compete with each other for scarce resources in a slowly developing economy.
The higher caste and upper class groups, on the one hand, and dominant ethnic or religious
groups on the other hand, invariably succeed in monopolislng income and employment
opportunities. This aggravates social tension and inter-communal conflicts, which prevent
the emergence of consciousness based on class affiliation. In fact, there are instances of
castes and communities identifying with what may even be counter-productive in the
long run. Class solidarity is thus substituted by a retrograde caste and communal solidarity.

Seen in this perspective, communal and  caste violence appears to be a modern, social
phenomenon prevalent in a bourgeois under-developed society.  It is not a feudal hangover
as is often maintained.  At best one can say that some of the existing feudal structures are
strategically utilised by the bourgeoisie in an underdeveloped economy.

The March of Time

Fundamentally, the issues that divide Hindus and Muslims have kept pace with our history.
For instance, earlier, an atmosphere of hostility was mainly caused by the demands and
counter-demands for reservations, which were forwarded by the Muslim League and disputed
by other parties.  Today, these have been pushed to the economic problems.  But what has
not changed is that these issues have always been given a religious grab.  Which is why till
today, the spark that lights the tinder-box of Hindu- Muslim tension is mote that the overtones
given to a larger conflict were greater in an earlier period than they are today.

At that time, there was the feeling of one community dominating the other because of
religious supremacy. This was an outcome of the Muslim invasion and the subsequent
proselytization that followed. Obviously the fear lingers on because even today, we find
that the Meenakshipuram conversion of a few Harijans who had embraced Islam because
they wanted to avenge their oppression by the higher castes, has been systematically
propagated by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (a front organisation of the ASS) as evidence
that foreign money (originating from the pan-Islamic Gulf) is being brought into the country
to increase the number of Muslims in India, possibly to turn India Islamic.

Another major change has been witnessed in the role of the administration which largely
seems to be taking sides with the dominant group today. This is because since
Independence, the administration and the law and order machinery has mainly been filled
with people from the majority community. We all know about the excesses perpetrated in
Meerut by the PAC jawans who killed and looted mostly the innocent Muslims.

Earlier, I do not think that the police force was so openly partisan. In pre-Independence
India, the police was under foreign control and was, therefore, not so easily influenced by
local sentiment. A cold, calculated "divide and rule" policy existed but this was within
bounds so far as law and order enforcement was concerned. Even in the immediate period
after Independence some of the early nationalist spirit and feudal morality had checked the
growth of the degrading corruption and partisanship that has come out into the open today.

Conservative and Rightist Forces:

The conservative and rightist forces have turned dangerous mainly in North India, where
at one stage there was a Muslim ruling elite. With the coming in of the British, the Hindus
started acquiring some political clout. In the beginning this was convenient for the British
who encouraged the growth of this group. But when this Hindu middle calss and intelligentsia
became the forum for the expression of nationalism, the help of the other community was
sought. The creation of elected bodies based on limited franchise and the question of
reservation or proportional representation became the major base for the thriving of communal
ideologies and forces. At that time and in those circumstances, groups and parties that based
themselves on such limited programmes found large support and this led to the emergence of
the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami. Today, however,
these groups are margtnalised and do not have popular support.

The RSS, for instance, does not strike a sympathetic cord among the majority of Hindus.
Its base is mainly limited to petty bourgeois elements from middle and small towns and its
ideology chiefly appeals to conservative Hindu petty trading sections. Which is why the
BJP is not able to get clear majority anywhere. It is onlya secular party, be it the Congress
or Janata that can win at the hustings .

Muslim leadership too is bankrupt. The most popular "leader" who has emerged in recent
times is the Imam of Jama Masjid who is totally ignorant of even the reasons why the
Emergency was declared or for the rise and fall of the Janata Party., Even more avowedly
secular Muslim leaders in the Congress-I do not command a large Muslim fo,llowing since
they are seen as opportunists. Even the Jamiat-ul-Ulema has been throughly exposed through
its factional fights. Bei~g so distant from the masses, the demands of the Muslim leaders have
not changed over the last thirty years.

Despite the fact that both the RSS as well as Muslim communal groups represent retrograde
political and social tendencies, one finds that the RSS is more aggressive and dangerous.

This is because the RSS has been trying to fight for maintaining the political and economic
status quo under a garb of tackling religio-social problems. This is a 'reaction' to recent
politico-economic developments in which some lower-strata Muslims are making more
money and gaining political clout. This is why I would call the RSS and other Hindu
chauvinist forums 'rightist' as against the Muslim forums whom I would term as conservative
since their interest is to preserve the religio-social status quo. This is because orthodox
Muslim forums will loose their hold on the Muslim masses if they are progressive and
demand changes in Muslim personal law and endorse assimilation into the national
mainstream, if there is one at all.

Therefore, even the role of the Jamaat-i-Islami, which is the most rabid political force among
the Muslims is, in a communal riot, not offensive. At the most, it might rave and rant about
upholding the Muslim personal law or the Islamic character of the Aligarh Muslim University.
These expressions are often interpreted by rightist Hindus into certain myths:
Muslims do not want to practice family planning and change their laws, they want
to keep four wives and breed like rabbits to increase their numbers and so forth.'