Communal Violence Patterns

What is obvious from this list is that the months of December and March are unusually susceptible to spells of communal violence. Is it something in the air during these winter months that leads to madness? Good thing the summer monsoons will be here soon . . .

There is no doubt that the destruction of the Babri Mosque is the mother of all reasons. Right-wing hindu idealogy claim that it started even earlier when the Emperor Babar built the Babri Mosque. Getting a clear view on this controversial issue is not easy but this Wikipedia article comes in handy. We may never know with certainty if there was a temple that pre-dated the mosque and if that was actually the birthplace of Ram. It seems to be a matter of faith.

However, what is clear is that Babri Mosque demolition had a negative impact on communal relations -- even beyond India's borders. There were widespread protests all over the subcontinent after this incident, which unfortunately culminated in the Bombay riots. Feeling slighted after the riots, the gangster Dawood Ibrahim on behalf of the muslim community, set of a series of deadly bomb blasts in Bombay.


I have yet to fit the attack on the Indian parliament into this pattern. So, let's skip that one for now. . .

The Gujrat riots started on the train carrying passengers who were Hindu activists called Kar Sevaks returning from the Hindu religious site of Ayodhya, including the Babri Mosque site. Lastly, the second set of Bombay blasts coincided with publication of a report from the Archeological survey of the Babri Mosque site (though this might have been purely coincidental).

If you have read this far, you are probably wondering where I am headed with this rant. It is true that incidents of communal violence (percieved or real) creates a cycle of violence. The curious thing in this case, is that the slanted reading of history of the Babri Mosque have been used to incite people on both sides. In this atmostphere, people consult 'communal discourse' for their perspective and historical accounts tend to segregate along communal lines.

This distorted view of history is very prevalant. The right-wing hindu perspective of father India wallowing in glory rudely interrupted with the coming of the muslim invaders followed by the British is as ludicrous as the muslim perspective that doesn't even recognize a history pre-dating the greatness of the Moghul empire. Unfortunately, the limited and extremely sanitized politically correct reading of history taught in Indian schools somehow does not go down well on most people either. I don't know about everyone else but I would like to read a more realistic recounting of history -- including the brutality, the power struggles and the dynamics involved in the creation of civilizations from chaos that flourished and then perished.