Since the Independence of India in 1947, there have been several instances of religious violence against Muslims in the country. These incidents often take the form of violent attacks on Muslims by Hindutva mobs, forming a pattern of sporadic sectarian violence between Hindu and Muslim communities. From 1954 to 1982, nearly 7,000 incidents occurred, resulting in the deaths of over 10,000 people.
The causes of violence against Muslims in the country are varied. The roots are thought to lie in Indian history, stemming from resentment towards the Muslim conquests in India during the Middle Ages, the divisive policies implemented by the colonial government during British rule, and the partition of the Indian subcontinent into a Muslim-majority Pakistan and an Indian state with a sizeable Muslim minority. Many scholars argue that anti-Muslim violence could also be politically motivated and part of an electoral strategy of mainstream right wing political parties associated with the Hindutva ideology, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Other scholars contend that the violence is not widespread but is instead confined to certain urban regions due to local socio-political conditions.
History
The roots of anti-Muslim violence can be traced to several events in Indian history, such as the resentment towards the Muslim conquests in India during the Middle Ages, the divisive policies established by the British colonial government (particularly after the suppression of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which saw Hindus and Muslims cooperate in revolt against the ruling East India Company), and the partition of India into a Muslim-majority Pakistan and a Hindu-majority India with a Muslim minority.
A major factor in the rise of anti-Muslim violence is the proliferation of the Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist ideology. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is an Indian far-right paramilitary organisation, which is the principal Hindutva entity in the country. The RSS is the founding and leading force behind the Sangh Parivar, a group of Hindutva organisations, which includes political parties, religious organisations, and student unions, among others. This is evident in the writings of Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak (Chief) of the RSS, in regards to Nazi Germany, where he observed, "Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." In the 1990s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L. K. Advani led a national political-religious rally named the Ram Rath Yatra, which culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid by a Hindutva mob, based on claims that the mosque was supposedly situated on the site of the Ram Janmabhoomi, the birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama. Since then, Hindutva has become increasingly mainstream within Indian politics, coinciding with a rise in anti-Muslim violence. Scholars argue that anti-Muslim rhetoric, politics, and policies have proved electorally beneficial for Hindutva political parties and leaders, especially the BJP, and therefore can be said to be politically motivated.
Manifestation
Violence against Muslims in India usually manifests in the form of mob attacks by Hindus. These attacks are referred to as communal riots in the country, and are considered to be part of a pattern of sporadic sectarian violence between the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities. Furthermore, this has been seen as a part of the global rise in Islamophobia throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Most incidents have occurred in the northern and western states of India, whereas communal sentimentsin the south are less pronounced. Some of the largest killings of Muslims in India include the 1948 Hyderabad massacres, the 1969 Gujarat riots, the 1983 Nellie massacre, the 1984 Bhiwandi riot, the 1985 Gujarat riots, the 1989 Bhagalpur violence, the 1992–93 Bombay riots, the 2002 Gujarat violence, the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, among others.
These patterns of violence have been well-established since partition, with dozens of studies documenting instances of mass violence against minority groups. Overall, more than 10,000 people have been killed in Hindu-Muslim communal violence since 1950. According to official figures, there were 6,933 instances of communal violence between 1954 and 1982. Between 1968 and 1980, 1,598 Muslims and 530 Hindus were killed, in a total of 3,949 instances of mass violence. Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a consistent rise in incidents of mass violence, throughout north India, began.
Praveen Swami, an Indian journalist and author, believes that these acts of violence have "scarred India's post independence history." He also considers them to have hindered India's cause in Jammu and Kashmir, in regards to the Kashmir conflict.
In 2017, IndiaSpend reported that 84% of the victims of cow vigilante violence in India from 2010 to 2017 were Muslims, and almost 97% of these attacks were reported after May 2014, when Narendra Modi's BJP government first came to power.
Causes and effects
Scholars have described incidents of anti-Muslim violence as politically motivated and organised, with many describing them as pogroms, or a form of state terrorism with "organised political massacres" rather than mere "riots". Others have argued that anti-Muslim violence is not as widespread as it appears, and is rather restricted to certain urban areas because of local socio-political conditions. There are many Indian cities where Muslims and Hindus live peacefully together, with almost no instances of sectarian violence.
Role of political parties
Many social scientists have argued that acts of anti-Muslim violence are institutionally supported, particularly by political parties and organisations connected to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right Hindutva paramilitary organisation. In particular, scholars fault the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena for complicity in these incidents of violence and of using violence against Muslims as part of a larger electoral strategy. For example, research by Raheel Dhattiwala and Michael Biggs has stated that the killings of Muslims are far higher in areas where the BJP faces stiff electoral opposition, in comparison to areas where the party is more cemented. Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, northern India witnessed the beginning of a rise in anti-Muslim violence, with the BJP witnessing increased successes in local and state elections. Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, an American social anthropologist, concludes that the violence in Bhagalpur in 1989, Hashimpura in 1987, and Moradabad in 1980 were organised killings. According to Ram Puniyani, an Indian academic, the Shiv Sena was victorious in elections in Maharashtra due to the violence of the 1990s, and similarly the BJP was victorious in elections in Gujarat after the violence of 2002. Gyan Prakash, however, cautions that the BJP's actions in Gujarat do not equate to the entirety of India, and it remains to be seen if the Hindutva movement has been successful in the deployment of this strategy nationwide. In recent years, anti-Muslim violence in India has increased significantly due to the Hindutva ideology which envisages citizens with other religious beliefs to have second‐class status.
Economic and cultural factors
Hindu nationalists use the historical subjugation of India by Muslims as an excuse for violence. They feel that, since the Partition, Indian Muslims are allied to Pakistan and are possibly radicalised and, therefore, the Hindus must take defensive steps to avoid repeat of the past wrongs and reassert their pride. The higher fertility rate among Muslims has been a recurring theme in the Hindu Right's rhetoric. They claim that the higher birth rate among Muslims is part of a plan to turn the Hindus into a minority within their own country.
Another reason given for these outbreaks of violence is the upward mobility of lower castes communities. Anti-Muslim violence has become a substitute for class and caste tensions. Hindu nationalists, rather than deal with claims from the lower class, instead shift to viewing Muslims and Christians as not "fully Indian" due to their religion, and portray those who carry out attacks against them as "heroes" that "defend the majority" from who are considered to be "anti-nationals". Muslims are viewed as suspects and their loyalty to the state is regularly questioned. According to the scholar Omar Khalidi:
Anti-Muslim violence is planned and executed to render Muslims economically and socially crippled and, as a outcome of that economic and social backwardness, assimilating them into lower rungs of Hindu society.
Cultural nationalism has also been identified as a reason for instances of violence carried out by political parties such as the Shiv Sena, which initially claimed to speak for the people of Maharashtra but quickly turned their rhetoric to inciting violence against Muslims. The Shiv Sena was complicit in the violence in 1984 in the town of Bhiwandi, and again in the violence in Bombay in 1992 and 1993. Further violence has been incited by the party in 1971 and 1986. According to academic Sudipta Kaviraj, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) is still engaged in religious conflicts which began in medieval times.
Anti-Muslim violence creates a security risk for Hindus residing outside of India. Since the 1950s, there have been retaliatory attacks on Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh in response to anti-Muslim violence in India. After the 1992 violence in Bombay, Hindu temples were attacked in Britain and Thailand, as well as cities such as Dubai. This recurring violence has created a significant divide between the Muslim and Hindu communities.
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has spoken out against these communal clashes, as it believes that the violence not only impacts Muslims, but India as a whole. They further believe the violence damages India's development prospects. In Gujarat, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) was utilised in incidents pertaining to communal violence in 1992 and 1993. The majority of those arrested under the act were Muslim. Conversely, TADA was not used after the violence carried out against Muslims during the Bombay riots.
Demographics
BJP politicians, as well as those of other parties, argue that demographics play an essential role in Indian elections. The BJP believes that the higher the number of Muslims within a constituency, the higher the chances of centrist parties to acquiesce to minority groups' requests, which lowers the chances of Muslims "building bridges" with their Hindu neighbours. As such, according to this argument "Muslim appeasement" is the root cause of communal violence. Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph argue that economic disparity is a reason for the aggression shown towards Muslims by Hindus. As India's economy developed due to globalisation and investment from overseas companies, the expectations of the Hindu population were not met in reality. Hindutva advocates then encouraged the perception of Muslims as the source of the troubles of the Hindus.
The actions of anti-Hindu and anti-India militant groups in Kashmir and Pakistan have reinforced anti-Muslim sentiments in the country, which has strengthened the Hindutva movement. Hindutva discourse portrays Muslims as traitors and state enemies, whose patriotism is questioned. Sumit Ganguly, a political scientist, argues that the rise in terrorism cannot solely be attributed to socioeconomic factors, but also to the violence perpetrated by Hindutva forces.
Major incidents
1964 Calcutta riots
In 1964, riots occurred in Calcutta, West Bengal, between Hindus and Muslims. The violence left over 100 people dead, with 438 people injured. Over 7,000 people were arrested. 70,000 Muslims fled their homes and 55,000 were provided protection by the Indian army. Muslims in Kolkata became more ghettoised than ever before in the aftermath. Furthermore, violence was also seen in rural West Bengal.
1983 Nellie massacre
On 18 February 1983, around 1,600 to 2,000 Muslims of East Bengal origin, known as the Miya people, from various villages under the Nellie police station in Assam's Nagaon district, were killed by their tribal and lower caste Hindu village neighbours. The incident began in early morning, when groups of villagers burned down the homes of the victims. With no place to hide, the outnumbered victims rushed towards the direction of a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp, with the perpetrators pursuing and hacking to death those who fell back. From those that died, around 70% were women, 20% were elderly people, and 10% were men.