Reasons for Hindu-Muslim Riots in India

India is a country of unity in diversity. Over 3000 castes, 25000 sub-castes and more
than 1000 languages are spoken in India. We, the people of India celebrate and enjoy the each
festival of each community. We convey a strong message of love and endurance to whole
world. We are working together to contribute to the country's growth. We accept all who
came to India, either they were merchant, traveler or even they were attacker. We provide
them all rights like us.
Communal riots have become a distinct feature of communalism in India. Whenever
conflicting groups from two different religions, which are self conscious communities,
clash, it results in a communal riot. An event is identified as a communal riot if (a) there is
violence, and (b) two or more communally identified groups confront each other or members
of the other group at some point during the violence.1 The reason for such a clash could be
superficial and trivial, though underlying them are deeper considerations of political
representation, control of and access to resources and power. Even if many people in the
community tend to live in India, but the main communities are Hindu and Muslim. All
community has its all faith and tradition. Hence sometimes some contradiction falls in the
way of our peace. There is brief history of Hindu-Muslims riots. It does not fall after our
Independence but such types of riot were happened before the Independence. It was started
first time when Mohammad-bin-Kasim attacked on India and destroyed many of the temples
and built mosque in place of that. After that this practice was going on at the time of Mugal
emperor Aurangzeb. After Independence India was divided into two parts India and Pakistan,
although a partition plan was accepted, no large population movements were contemplated.
As India and Pakistan become independent, 14.5 million people crossed borders to ensure
their safety in an increasingly lawless and communal environment. With British authority
gone, the newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of
such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the
border along communal lines. Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly
500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000 Riot of
Muzaffarnagar is the newest example of this thing. Why this type of riot is happened again
and again in India? There are several reasons behind this fact:1. Illiteracy: - Immediately after the partition, a large number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan.
Those who stayed over in India were either Zamindars, who would have to lose all their
property if they had migrated or a section of artisan class. The Educated middle class as a
whole migrated to Pakistan as they would have much better career opportunities they owing
to lack of competition. This trend continued for about 15 years after independence. For 15
years after independence, The Muslims who were getting educated chose to migrate to
Pakistan for better opportunities. Thus we got only some illiterate and weak Muslims after
partition. After more than 65 years of independence they are not in the main stream of our
country. They preferred to take religious education instead of main stream education. This
was the biggest obstacle of their development of their think and themselves. Those Muslims
who are here is the necessary part of us, we cannot ignore him. If they get education from
main stream instead of their religious education they will also take part the development of
our country. These types of riots will be stopped.

-22. Communal Organization: - One opposes communal organizations not because they serve
the interests of people belonging to one religion only, but because they do not even do that.
One will whole heartedly support persons like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who though active
within the confines of one religion only, spread humanistic values and fought for reforms
against anything found degrading in the religion (like Sati, etc.) But the communal
organizations of our country are against any reforms within the religions and oppose any
humanization of religion. How many communal organizations have taken up the cause
against dowry? All Hindu communal organizations demand the abolition of Muslim Personal
Law but this is done because according to them otherwise the Muslim practicing polygamy
will outnumber the Hindus. One will definitely support any organization which opposes
polygamy on the ground that it is exploitative towards women. Not one communal
organization does this. These types or Organizations only exists for their personal benefit or
their religion benefit slightly, it can never help for the development of our country. They are
adding fuel to fire for these riots.
3. The Role of Police: - It is often seen that in the riot our Police plays silent role. They often
came after the riots or remain silent in the middle. Police played an extremely communal and
hideous role in this situation. The main criminal never came in face but those who are
innocent, who are unable to justice the right or wrong, who are urged by these selfish political
leaders are the victim of police. The clearest indicator of the communalist methods of police
is their way of filing crime bulletins during riots. This type of behavior of Police is
not tolerable but even no entire judicial enquiry was ordered but merely a departumental
enquiry has been promised to be instituted which as usual will end in a damp squib. Two
things are here, 1st if police play their role no riots would be occurred and 2 nd things if the
riots happen police can control without any problems.
4. The Role of the Government: -The Government is responsible for the administration of the
state. It has police and the entire necessary thing through which it can control any riots. But it
is fact that riot happens again and again. It is clear that the Government is directly responsible
for the riots. The ruling party which proclaims secular ideals when it is suitable has shown
through its conduct in the recent riots that it has stopped giving eve lip service to secularism.
All the facts lead to a single irresistible conclusion. The Government actively aided the
communalist forces and is as much responsible for the riots as anyone who has taken physical
part in them. It really defies logic that even after knowing these facts, some genuine
secularists adopt an ostrich like attitude chanting the mantra, Government is Secular.
5. The role of Political Parties:- The Political parties play their game in this time. They never
missed to get the advantage of this critical situation. If the damage is done with Muslims,
they say that they are Secular and when the damage is done by Muslims, they urge the
Hindus. If we remember Shrikrishnas report on Bombay Riots in 1992 we get it properly
According to the Srikrishna report, the immediate causes of the communal riots on 6
December 1992 were: (a) the demolition of the Babri Masjid mosque, (b) the aggravation of
Muslim sentiments by the Hindus with their celebration rallies and (c) the insensitive and
harsh approach of the police while handling the protesting mobs which initially were not
violent. This was his report, but what the fact was is known to everyone. On the basis of these
riots many politics play their game to get the power.
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6. Besides these facts, some more facts can be added which is also be responsible for riots.
(a) Unemployment: - It is universal truth, Devil's Treasure empty mind. Un-employment is
one of the biggest silent reasons of these riots; unemployed person can easily come in
delusion of un-social element. These elements used un-employed person for their profit. If
our government provide employ to the needy person than it can be stops such types of riots.
(b) Media (Print & Electronic) : - Press is considered the 4th pillar of democracy and in such
type of critical matter it plays dynamic role. But it is often seen that media does not play its
role and rather than to resolve issues they bouncing it. History has shown that media plays its
worst role in many times.
(c) Social Networking Sites: - Social networking sites, like Face book, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
are the most important things in todays society. This is the matter of status symbol, without
this a man is called retro, especially in urban area. It is popular especially in youngster, whose
is the future of our country. It is seen that the un-social elements target these youngster on
these sites easy way, people share their views, personal matter and many more things like
video, photos and notes through these social networking sites. Un-social elements take
advantage these platforms to use their criminal minds. It has seen in recently riots. These
social networking sites must be supervision of government. For this Government should form
some special protocol and many more thing and quick action should be taken if any of the
post, photos, video and comment are target some community, religion or region.
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
organizations, 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.
We must therefore demand to our Government to:(1) Stop any public demonstration of religious expressions;
(2) Stop all state aid to religious institutions;
(3) Immediate scanning of existing curriculum in schools and colleges and deletion of any
communal references;
Only Government and its organizations cannot stop these types of riots. We should also learn
a lesson from the previous riots, we cannot return the life. It is not only loss of our but it is
also the loss of our country, but if these demand could be accepted and implemented then the
riots can be stopped and we, the people of India can live together with great peace of mind.
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Name- Pankaj Kumar Singh

Sources: - Some NCERT Books, Communal Riots in India A Chronology (1947-2003),

written by B. Rajeswari and some more from Internet article.