INDEX:

1.Introduction.

2.Communal Violence in India.

3.Incidents of Communal Violence in India:

-Gujrat Riots.

-Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits.

-Anti-Christian violence.

-Anti-Sikh Riots.

4.Measures to reduce Communal Violence.

5.Conclusion.

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Aim of the project:

Communal violence threatens the secular fabric, unity, integrity and internal
security of a nation. Thus, the aim of the project is to conduct an in depth
research on the topic of Communal Violence.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM:

The term includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence. This research
aims to study communal violence between communities of different religious
faith or ethnic origins.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK:

A community is defined as a social unit of any size that shares some common
values.

Whereas, violence as defined by the World Health Organisation is The

intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself ,
another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a
high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm,
maldevelopement or deprivation".

Using these two concepts of Community and Violence, the research has been
taken forward.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. What is communal violence?

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2. What is the overall effect of Communal Violence?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The research methodology adopted for this research essay has been Doctrinal .
Various books, newspaper articles, magazines, etc. have been used for this
purpose. Web sources have also been consulted for the research work.

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INTRODUCTION:

Communal violence is a form of violence that is perpetrated across ethnic or

communal lines, The term includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence
between communities of different religious faith or ethnic origins. United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime includes any conflict and form of violence
between communities of different religious group, different sects or tribes of
same religious group, clans, ethnic origins or national origin as communal
violence. However, this excludes conflict between two individuals or two
families. Initially, Communal violence is found in Africa, America, Europe and
Australia.

The term was constructed by the British colonial authorities as it wrestled to

manage violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in its colonies,
particularly Africa and South Asia, in early 20th century.
Communal violence, in different parts of the world, is alternatively referred to
as ethnic violence, non-State conflict, violent civil unrest, minorities unrest,
mass racial violence, inter-communal violence and ethno-religious violence.

East, South and Southeast Asia have recorded numerous instances of communal
violence. For example, Singapore suffered a wave of communal violence in
20th century between Malays and Chinese. In Indian subcontinent, numerous
18th through 20th century records of the British colonial era mention communal
violence between Hindus and Muslims, as well as Sunni and Shia sects of
Islam, particularly during processions related to respective religious
celebrations.

The frequency of communal violence in South Asia increased after the first
partition of Bengal in 1905, where segregation, unequal political and economic
rights were imposed on Hindus and Muslims by Lord Curzon, based on religion.
The colonial rule was viewed by each side as favoring the other side, resulting
in a wave of communal riots and 1911 reversal of Bengal partition and its re-
unification. In 1919, after British General Dyer ordered his soldiers to fire on
unarmed protestors inside a compound in Amritsar, killing 380 civilians,
communal violence followed in India against British settlements. There were
hundreds of incidents of communal violence between 1905 to 1947, many
related to religious, political sovereignty questions including partition of India
along religious lines into East Pakistan, West Pakistan and India. The 1946 to

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1947 period saw one of worst communal violence of 20th century, where waves
of riots and violence killed between 100,000 to a million people, from Hindu,
Muslim, Sikh and Jain religions, particularly in cities and towns near the
modern borders of India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh. Examples of these
communal violence include the so-called Direct Action Day, Noakhali riots and
the Partition riots in Rawalpindi.

The 20th century witnessed inter-religious, intra-religious and ethnic communal

violence in the Middle East, South Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South
Asia and Southeast Asia.

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COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN INDIA:

In India, Communal violence includes acts of violence by followers of one

religious group against followers and institutions of another religious group,
often in the form of rioting. Religious violence in India, especially in recent
times, has generally involved Hindus and Muslims, although incidents of
violence have also involved Christians, Jews, and Sikhs. There is also history of
Muslim Parsee riots. India is characterized by more ethnic and religious
groups than most other countries of the world. Aside from the much noted 2000-
odd castes, there are eight "major" religions, 15-odd languages spoken in
various dialects in 22 states and nine union territories, and a substantial number
of tribes and sects.
Despite the secular and religiously tolerant constitution of India, broad religious
representation in various aspects of society including the government, the active
role played by autonomous bodies such as National Human Rights Commission
of India and National Commission for Minorities, and the ground-level work
being out by Non-governmental organisations, sporadic and sometimes serious
acts of religious violence tend to occur as the root causes of religious violence
often run deep in history, religious activities, and politics of India.
Along with domestic organisations, international human rights organisations
such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch publish reports on acts
of religious violence in India. Over 2005 to 2009 period, an average of 130
people died every year from communal violence, or about 0.01 deaths per
100,000 population. The state of Maharashtra reported the highest total number
of religious violence related fatalities over that 5-year period, while Madhya
Pradesh experienced the highest fatality rate per year per 100,000 population
between 2005 and 2009. Over 2012, a total of 97 people died across India from
various riots related to religious violence. The world's average annual death rate
from intentional violence, in recent years, has been 7.9 per 100,000 people.

According to the Indian Law, Communal Violence is defined as " any act or
series of acts, whether spontaneous or planned, resulting in injury or harm to the
person and or property, knowingly directed against any person by virtue of his
or her membership of any religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the
Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes within the meaning
of clauses (24) and (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution of India".

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INCIDENTS OF COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN INDIA:

Large-scale religious violence and riots have periodically occurred in India

since its independence from British colonial rule. The aftermath of the Partition
of India in 1947 saw large scale sectarian strife and bloodshed throughout the
nation. Since then, India has witnessed sporadic large-scale violence sparked by
underlying tensions between sections of the Hindu and Muslim communities.
Since independence, India has always maintained a constitutional commitment
to secularism. The major incidences include the 1969 Gujarat riots and the 1989
Bhagalpur riots.

1. Gujarat communal riots (1969):

Religious violence broke out between Hindus and Muslims during September
October 1969, in Gujarat. It was the most deadly Hindu-Muslim violence since
the 1947 partition of India.

The rioting started after an attack on a Hindu temple in Ahmedabad, but rapidly
expanded to major cities and towns of Gujarat. The violence included attacks on
Muslim chawls by their Dalit Hindu neighbours. The violence continued over a
week, then the rioting restarted a month later. Some 660 people were killed (430
Muslims, rest Hindus), 1074 people were injured and over 48,000 lost their
property.

2. Ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus:

In the Kashmir region, approximately 300 Kashmiri Pandits were

killed between September 1989 to 1990 in various incidents. In
early 1990, local Urdu newspapers Aftab and Al Safa called
upon Kashmiris to wage jihad against India and ordered the
expulsion of all Hindus choosing to remain in Kashmir. In the
following days masked men ran in the streets with AK-47
shooting to kill Hindus who would not leave. Notices were
placed on the houses of all Hindus, telling them to leave within
24 hours or die.

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Since March 1990, estimates of between 300,000 to 500,000 pandits have
migrated outside Kashmir due to persecution by Islamic fundamentalists in the
largest case of ethnic cleansing since the partition of India. The proportion of
Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley has declined from about 15% in 1947
to, by some estimates, less than 0.1% since the insurgency in Kashmir took on a
religious and sectarian flavour.

Many Kashmiri Pandits have been killed by Islamist militants in incidents such
as the Wandhama massacre and the 2000 Amarnath pilgrimage massacre. The
incidents of massacring and forced eviction have been termed ethnic cleansing
by some observers

3. Anti-Christian violence:

A 1999 Human Rights Watch report states increasing levels of religious

violence on Christians in India, perpetrated by Hindu organizations. In 2000,
acts of religious violence against Christians included forcible reconversion of
converted Christians to Hinduism, distribution of threatening literature and
destruction of Christian cemeteries.

In Orissa, starting December 2007, Christians have been attacked in Kandhamal

and other districts, resulting in the deaths of two Hindus and one Christian, and
the destruction of houses and churches. Hindus claim that Christians killed a
Hindu saint Laxmananand, and the attacks on Christians were in retaliation.
However, there was no conclusive proof to support this claim. Twenty people
were arrested following the attacks on churches. Similarly, starting 14
September 2008, there were numerous incidents of violence against the
Christian community in Karnataka.

In 2007, foreign Christian missionaries became targets of attacks. An Australian

missionary, was burnt to death while he was sleeping in his station wagon at
Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district in Orissa in January 1999. In 2003,
Dara Singh was convicted of leading the gang responsible.

In its annual human rights reports for 1999, the United States Department of
State criticised India for "increasing societal violence against Christians." The
report listed over 90 incidents of anti-Christian violence, ranging from damage
of religious property to violence against Christian pilgrims.

In Madhya Pradesh, unidentified persons set two Statues inside St Peter and
Paul Church in Jabalpur on fire. In Karnataka, religious violence was targeted
against Christians in 2008

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4. Anti-Sikh Riots (1984):

In the 1970s, Sikhs in Punjab had sought autonomy and complained about
domination by the Hindu. Indira Gandhi government arrested thousands of
Sikhs for their opposition and demands particularly during Indian Emergency.
In Indira Gandhi's attempt to "save democracy" through the Emergency, India's
constitution was suspended, 140,000 people were arrested without due process,
of which 40,000 were Sikhs.

After the Emergency was lifted, during elections, she supported Jarnail
Bhindranwale, a Sikh leader, in an effort to undermine the Akali Dal, the largest
Sikh political party. However, Bhindranwale began to oppose the central
government and moved his political base to the Darbar Sahib (Golden temple)
in Amritsar, demanding creation on Punjab as a new country. In June 1984,
under orders from Indira Gandhi, the Indian army attacked the Golden temple
with tanks and armoured vehicles. Thousands of Sikhs died during the attack. In
retaliation for the storming of the Golden temple, Indira Gandhi was
assassinated on 31 October 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards.

The assassination provoked mass rioting against Sikh. During the 1984 anti-
Sikh pogroms in Delhi, government and police officials aided Indian National
Congress party worker gangs in "methodically and systematically" targeting
Sikhs and Sikh homes. As a result of the pogroms 10,00017,000 were burned
alive or otherwise killed, Sikh people suffered massive property damage, and at
least 50,000 Sikhs were displaced.

The 1984 riots fueled the Sikh insurgency movement. In the peak years of the
insurgency, religious violence by separatists, government-sponsored groups, and
the paramilitary arms of the government was endemic on all sides. Human
Rights Watch reports that separatists were responsible for "massacre of
civilians, attacks upon Hindu minorities in the state, indiscriminate bomb
attacks in crowded places, and the assassination of a number of political
leaders". Human Rights Watch also stated that the Indian Government's
response "led to the arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial execution, and
enforced disappearance of thousands of Sikhs". The insurgency paralyzed
Punjab's economy until peace initiatives and elections were held in the 1990s.
Allegations of coverup and shielding of political leaders of Indian National
Congress over their role in 1984 riot crimes, have been widespread

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MEASURES TO REDUCE COMMUNAL VIOLENCE:

Communal violence is a dangerous and a frightful phenomena and a curse

for our society. Not only does a communal violence ends up in loss of lives
and property, it divides and polarizes the society and gives rise to vicious
political debates. Following are some solutions by which this problem of
communal violence can be curbed down:

1 .True information should be provided by the newspapers:

The cause of a communal violence should be seen and understood direct

from the new items in the newspaper. Understanding and reconstructing
the chain of event from political
commentators and inquiry commissions will reduce the truth element. The
newspaper report can also be politically motive and biased but the
likelihood of ideology contaminating the truth in a credible way
is much less in case of news items as compared to reports of
inquiry commissions and political commentators. One can always refer to
multiple newspaper and reasonably filter out the truth. Second, the news of
communal violence should be studied and analyzed at the time of
its occurrence itself. Analyzing such an event after lapse of time makes it
more difficult to sift facts from ideologically-motive fiction. Since we,
unfortunately, have so many communal riots, the sample size is not a
problem in such a study and we have enough number of
instances of communal riots where such a study can be done.
There is poison administered to the public by some newspapers.
Newspapers today have almost replaced the Bible, the Koran, the Gita and
the other religious scriptures. It is wrong but the fact has to be faced. Such
being the case,it is the duty of news paper men to give nothing but fa
cts to their readers

2 .Change in pattern of education:

There should be a total change in syllabus, especially of medieval history

and modern history pertaining to freedom struggled and division of the
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country in 1947. It is regrettable that even after 64 years of our freedom
our approach to medieval history has not changed. We still use utterly
simplistic versions of medieval history resulting in controversy of
demolition of temples. There is no mention, even cursorily cursory of our
composite culture and efforts made by Sufi saints, writers, poets and
musicians to build bridges between two communities. Sufis
like Baba Farid, Moinuddin Chishti, Miyan Meer, Nizamuddin
Awliya, Mirza Jane Janan, Dara Shikoh besides musicians, architects,
poets and others to fuse two cultures together and bring two communities
together. Students studying history have not even heard their names. It
would be of immense help to introduce a supplementary text, or at least a
chapter on richness of our composite culture to make students realize that
both the communities and its intellectual and religious leaders were close
to each other and were contributing immensely to enrich our culture
religiously, spiritually and intellectually.Similarly our textbooks on
modern history and freedom struggle are highly biased against
minorities, They hardly highlight the role played by these communities in
freedom struggle. The names like Maulana Mehmoodul Hasan, Maulana
Husain Ahmed Madani,Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi, Maulana
Hifzurrehman etc. are not even mentioned who, made great sacrifices for
freedom of the county and many of whom were exiled to Malta, Andaman
Nicobar etc.They also launchedReshmi RumalConspiracy to spread
message of freedom and paid heavily for that. Thetextbooks give an
impression as if most of the Muslims, with few exceptions were on the
side of Pakistan though the truth is otherwise. A vast majority of Muslims
was against partition and for unity of the country. Even today most of the
Muslims are held responsible for partition and this remains a prominent
issue in many communal riots. It will be in the interest of the country to
teach correct version of history of freedom struggle and the role played by
Muslims in freedom struggle.

3. The other point of vital importance is focus on value-education:

Today the entire focus of our education is promoting career rather than
character. In our education system, for lack of values, career has become
most important and character building has been completely marginalized.
Also, our education system produces conforming mind rather than
thinking mind. An education system which fails to produce thinking and
critical mind is worth nothing. Our education system produces only career

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-oriented mind.Not only that our education system creates prejudiced
mind, prejudiced against minorities, tribals and dalits. It is anything but
healthy mind. Thus by overhauling education system we will do great
service to the cause of our nation. It would respect rights of poor, weaker
sections and would be more inclusive. Today education system is part of
the problem, let us make it part of the solution.

4. Reforming the police system:

Our police are product of the same education system and it also gets
influenced by uncritical stories in media about minorities and other weaker
sections of society and hence has been horribly communalized.We cannot
eliminate riots from India or we cannot handle riots properly without
comprehensive police reforms. It is horribly prejudiced. In riot after riot
after riot we hear stories of how police promotes, rather prevents
communal riots. Thus there should be secular orientation from time to time
through refresher courses, apart from secular orientation along with
professional graining before joining the service is highly necessary,such
orientation influences police attitude a lot.

5.Enactment of Communal Violence and Targeted Bill:

This law, if passed, will go a long way in curbing communal violence as it

fixes responsibility on concerned officers. This Bill has been drafted very
carefully by responsible secular activists and gave to Sonia Gandhi to get
it enacted. Government convened National Integration Council meeting to
test the waters and BJP leaders like Arun Jaitly and Sushma Swaraj
mounted such a severe attack on it that government was unnerved and
since then the Bill is lying in cold storage. It should be immediately
revived, if necessary by some amendments and enacted. Also if it is
accompanied by implementation of fifth Police Commission Report it will
greatly help. This Bill also ensures adequate reparations and compensation
in the event of outbreak of violence.

6. Abolishment of communities:

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This is very tough given the system of reservation in India and how there
is special treatment awarded to certain communities. However, if the
politicians can stop exploiting general public for their votes and if general
public can get behind the idea of collective development this ideal can be
achieved with the help of judiciary. There are several difficulties in getting
this accomplished. The main one being preferential treatment of people
belonging to communities. I do not think these people are ready to give up
the special treatment given to them even though such treatment is harmful
to the society in the long run. The other difficulty will be the loss of
identity. For several people their community is their identity. This might be
based on the work they do (original concept of caste), place they live
(tribes, naxals, city dwellers etc) and other arbitrary factors which are
better if not used to define people.

7. No Privileged Class:
No privileges should be given to anyone in the new India. It is the poor
and neglected and down trodden and weak that should be our special care
and attention. A Brahmanshould not grudge if more money is spent on the
uplift of the Harijans. At the same time, a Brahmanmay not be done down
simply because he is a Brahman. In fact, the Brahmans are a very small
minority. There must be pure and undefiled justice for everyone in both
Pakistan and Hindustan. It is the duty of every citizen to treat the lowliest
on a par with the others.

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CONCLUSION:

Even though the Constitution of India has declared India to be a state, yet
strangely large scale violence has been periodically witnessed in our
country since independence. It has acquired dangerous proportion in recent
decades, with the sharp increase in communal tensions and religion based
politics and growth of communal forces in our body politics. Communal
violence has occurred due to the negligence and non performance of state
machineries which resulted not only in the loss of precious human lives
and destruction of both public and private property and also impeded the
economic development process of the country. What is specifically
worrisome is often the frequent allegation that these communal incidents
have enjoyed the support of the state and particularly that the police has
supposedly played not only an active role but also have shown bias in the
discharge of its public responsibility while the cold blooded massacres,
heinous acts of rape have been committed on the members belonging to
the minority communities especially Muslims, Christians and Sikhs in our
country.
Besides ,sharp growth in the activities of the insurgents targeting the
population belonging to other communities, religious violence by
separatists, like more recent attacks on Hindu temples and Hindus by
Muslim militants and various Islamic terrorist outfits have accentuated the
crisis that is being faced by the state and have posed great challenges to
the unity and integrity of India.As far the functioning of the Indian State
is concerned, the state is often seen to be acceding to the pressure of both
minority at one time and to majority demands at another time, which has
fuelled the activities of various groups to engage in one gunmanship in
their search for demonstration of closeness to the issues being held onto
by the majority and the minority groups,which has contributed towards the
heightening of fear and threat to human lives and livelihood.How so ever
,these incidents might have been caused, yet it remains the responsibility
of the state and society to control the growth and occurrence of incidents
of communalism and ethnic violence. In each incident of such collective
violence ,the quantity and severity of losses only confirms the fact that a
greater degree of organization and planning that has gone into the planning

14
and coordination of such incidents in a well calibrated manner but not
executed in a proper manner.
Political parties have always had a hand in instigating and exploiting
communal violence so as to meet their electoral interests. Though
communal riots are condemned in various quarters, there is still complete
inaction both from the administration and the ruling governments in many
states. Though religious festivals and processions are generally the
starting points of communal riots, still sufficient security is not provided
during these times. There is also not much response against incidents of
communal violence from the civil society. Till the time the political parties
which instigate communal riots are voted to power, the incentives to
combat communalism will not be able to develop fully.If the above
mentioned problems are looked upon without any biasness in a national
spirit and the solutions to the communal violence are followed and
implemented with a cooperative and brotherhood spirit than this problem
of communal violence can be curtailed down to a great extent in future.

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REFERENCES:

WEBSITES:

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/ethnic-and-
religious-conflicts-india
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/society/communal-violence-concept-
features-incidence-and-causes/39237/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India#Modern_India
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/society/communal-violence-concept-
features-incidence-and-causes/39237/

BOOKS:

1.Communal Violence in India by P R Rajgopal.

2.Communal Violence in Post-Independence India.

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