Communal riots and states

Abstract

It was a specific combination of particular historical contingencies that enabled the emergence of Hindu nationalism led by the so-called ‘Sangh Parivar’. The contingencies included the political vacuum after the collapse of the one party dominant system under the Indian National Congress, which resulted in the emergence of Hindu majoritarian discourse, the evolution of the Ayodhya problem as an issue utilised by the Sangh Parivar to mobilise the Hindu masses, and the repercussions from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) movement, especially the reservation issue. Besides these factors, there is another important factor—that is, the large-scale ‘communal riot’. A communal riot is very likely to widen the cleavage between the Hindu majority and the minorities, which strengthens majoritarian sentiments for ascendancy over minorities. If the communal riot is an indispensable element for the creation of Hindu majoritarian ‘nationalism’, the latter might instead be called Hindu ‘communalism’, as it was usually described before the 1990s. Undoubtedly, communal riots, along with the demonising discourse against minorities, have been playing an important part in expanding Hindu majoritarianism. In this chapter, I will look into the conditions leading up to the communal riots by comparing Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (hereafter, UP). In the next section, the general situation of communal riots in India is explained briefly, with a special reference to the two states, followed by a brief review of the studies on Hindu communalism or nationalism and communal riots. The cases of the two states are detailed in the following sections. In the conclusion, the two states are compared and the condition leading to a large-scale communal riot is hypothetically mentioned.