Forms of collective violence : riots, pogroms, & genocide in modern India [1 ed.] 8188789399, 9788188789399

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READINGS This series from Three Essays Collective focuses on works ofscholarship which touch upon issues of contemporary concern. They address a wide range of themes in history, society, politics, culture, education and the media. South Asian themes predominate in, but do not exhaust, the scope of these publications. They are intended to familiarise readers with current debates in their respective fields, nen as they enlarge areas of enquiry.

••• • OTHER TITLES Aiju Ahmad. On Communalism and Globalization: Offensives of the Far Right (New Edn.) .

Amar Farooqi, Opiwn aty: The Making of Early Victorian Bombay Archana Prasad, Against Ecological Romanticism: Verrier Elwin and the Making of an Anti-Modern Tribal Identity ·

Ashraf Aziz, Light of the Universe: Essays on Hindustani Film Music Barbara Harriss-White, India's Market Society: Three Essays in Political Economy

Biswamoy Pati, Identity, Hegemony, Resistance: Towards a Social History of Conversions in Orissa, 1800-2000 Brinda Karat, Survival and Emancipation: Notes from Indian Women's Struggles

J,ckJ,. ANayag and Vbonique Bae! (eda.), Re-mapping Knowledge: The Malting of South Asian Studies in India, Europe and America, 19th-20th centuries John Saal, Development After Globalization: Theory and Practice for the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age KN Panlkkar,An Agenda for Cultural Action and Other F.ssays (Second Edition)

ICristoffel Lieten, Views on Development: The Local and the Global in India and Pakistan

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Meera Nanda, Breaking the Spell of Dharma and Other Essays Meera Nanda, The Wrongs of the Religious Right: Reflections on Science, Secularism and Hindutva

Mukul Dube, The Path of the Parivar: Articles on Gujarat and Hindutva Omar Kbalidi, Khaki and Ethnic Violence in India: Army, Police and Paramilitary Forces during Communal Riots

Omar Khalidi, Muslims in Indian Economy Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffa y, Confronting Saffron Demography: Religion, Fertility, and Women's Status in India Radhi.ka Desai, Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (New Revised Edn.) Sbereen Ratnagar, The Other Indians: Essays on Pastoralists and Pre-Historic Tribal People

Sunil Kumar, The Present in Delhi's Pasts Utsa Patnai.k, Republic of Hunger and Other Essays Vasudha Dalmia, Orienting In4ia: European Knowledge Formation in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Vijay Prashad, The American Scheme: Three Essays

Zaheer Baber, Secularism, Communalism and the Intellectuals

FORTHCOMING Angana Chatterji, Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's PresentNarratives from Orissa

Colin ·1..eys, Total Capitalism Michael Witzel, The Aryan Question, Pro and Contra .

Sbubb Mathur, The Everyday Life of Hindu Nationalism: An Ethnographic Account, 1990-94

Sunll Kumar (ed.), Demolishing Myths or Mosques and Temples?: Readings on History and Temple Desecration in Medieval India ·

Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Popular Cuhure and DailyLife in Ayodhya

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FOl1111 If ClllecUn IIIIIICI

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Fonns 01 Collacllva Vlolance Riots, Pogroms, and Genaclde

In' Modem lndla

Pal I.Brass

Three Essays COLLICTIVI

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First Edition September 2006 copyright C 2005 by Paul R. Brass All rights reserved

ISBN 81 -88789-39-9

Three Essays c o • • ■ c • , • •

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B-957 Palam Vihar, GURGAON (Haryana) 122 017 India Phone: 0 98681 26587, 0 98683 44843 [email protected] Website: www.threeessays.com Printed at Glorious Printers, New Delhi

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This one is for Susan Halon, my partner in life, who has been by my side through all these latest adventures

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Forms of Collective Violence

then. It is likely that most readers will feel the same way, as I myself did when I read their account. Feelings and sentiments apart, the central point here is that the actions of these girls mock the .very categories that were created by Indian nationalists and Muslim separatists to ,· define their new nations and to justify the violence they brought down upon their peoples. But, India and Pakistan are hardly unique examples of the mockery of categorical designation of peoples as a basis for the creation and consolidation of states. Indeed, if there is a place in which advocates of human rights should stand in this new century, it is rigorously against every leader and every group of people-political, ethnic, religious, and whatever-that claims exclusive rights to territory on behalf of an entire category of people.

Notes I am grateful to Harish Puri for pointing out two errors in the original version of this chapter that have been corrected herein. 1

Allen D. Grimshaw, "Genocide and Democide;' in .Encycloptdia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Volume 2 (San Diego: Academic Press, 1999), p. 58.

2

Many examples of this point ofview could be cited. Among the most dearly articulated is Mushirul..Hasan, Legacy ofa Divided Nation: India~ Muslims Since Independence (Boulder, CO: 1997); see especially pp. 55-6.

3

Among the very few worthwhile books available in 1999 when the research for·this article was done is the superb account of Penderel Moon, Divide and Quit: An Eyewitness Account of the Partition of India, new edition (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). Other useful accounts include the highly biased work of Gopal ·Das Khosla, Stern Reckoning: A Sll1WJ' of the Evmts Leading Up To and Following the Partiticm ofIndia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989, originally published in 1949); Robert S. Corruccini and Samvit Kaul, Halla: Demographic Consequences ofthe Partition ofthe Punjab, 1947 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1990) and Suranjan Das, Communal

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Riots in Bengal 1905-1947 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991). There is also a fictionaliud accoun.t in the stories of Saadat Hauan Manto, Mottled _ Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories ofPartition (New Delhi: Penguin, 1997). For a useful survey offictionalized accounts of the partition and its consequences, see Ian Talbot,"Literature and the Human Drama of the 1947 Partition," South Asia, VoL xv111, Special Issue (1995), 37-56. See also Ian Talbot, Frtedom~ Oy: 17lt Popular Dimension in the Pakistan Moffltlfflt and Partition Experience in North-West India (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1996), which contains a rare discussion in chapter v, including autobiographical accounts of refugees from East Punjab, of the massacres that occurred as they fled to Pakistan.

· The absence until very recently-and even now the very meagre presence -ofserious research on what happmed during the partition is regrettable also from another point of view. It has meant that the partition exists as a disastrous ( for the Indian side) disjuncture in the arrival of the Indian state on the world scene and, on the Palcistan side, as a regrettable but necessary catastrophe that made possible the creation of the Pakistan state. But the sharpness and horrific character of the partition has made it appear as a kind of terrible accident that cannot be fit into the perceptions ofthe people of India and Pakistan concerning their past and future. Historians have at the same time failed to provide a narrative of the history of these two new states into which the partition can be fit. On these points, see Gyanendra Pandey, "In Defence of the Fragment: Writing about Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today," in Economic and Political ~ XXVI, Nos.11 & 12 (March, 1991 ), 559-72 and David Gilmartin, "Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History: In Search of a Narrative," Journal of Asian Studies, LVII, No. 4 (November, 1998), 1068-95. There has been a considerable expansion of writing on Partition since the research for this chapter was done. Notable works include Ravinder Kaur, Narratives of Resettlement: Past, Present and Politics among 1947 Punjabi Migrants in Delhi, Ph.D. thesis, Department of International Studies, Roskilde University Centre, Denmark. 2004; Ian Talbot and Darshan Singh Tada, Epicentn of Violence: Partition Voices and Memories from Amritsar (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006); and the collection of articles titled "Partition: Many Meanings," in the Economic and Political Week~ (June 3, 2006). 4

In the latter category, there is one outstanding work by Urvashi Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (New Delhi: Viking Penguin, 1998). Also noteworthy is Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India~ Partition (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998).

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5

Das, Communol Riots, hu loobd at the Benpl recorda. A,aha Ja)al hu made use of the Lahore records in •Nation, Reuon (aic) and Rdigion: Punjab's Role in the Partition of India,• Economic and Political ~.xxx111, No.32 (August 8, 1998),2,183-90; holftftr,at least one Watern scholar was denied access to these records and told by a responsible authority in Lahore that they did not exist; personal communication. Swarna Aiyar has made excellent use of the railway police and other civilian and military intdligence records in the India Office La"brary; sec her•~ Anarchy': The Partition Massacres in Punjab, 1947: South Asua. Vol xv111, Special Issue (1995), 13-36.

6

E.g., Corruccini and Kaul, Halla, p. 37, who estimate a maximum of 400,000 deaths, but with an enormous margin of error, namdy,plua or minus 100,000.

7

"The communal venom that bad seeped into the minds of all the communities, got expression in large-scale arson, murder of innocent men, women and children, looting, forcible conversions and abduction of women. These events left no doubt in the minds of the people that the establishment of a separate Muslim State was the only alternative.• Satya M. Rai, Partition ofthe Punjab: A Study ofIts Eff«ts on tht Politics and Administration oftire Punjab (I) 1947-56 (Bombay: Asia, 1965), p. 47.

•

For these reasons, Khosla argues, •1t was ••• in Calcutta, and Calcutta alone,

that so much violence and hooliganism were displayed on Direct Action Day•; Khosla, Sttrn Reckoning, p. 49. 9

Kirpal Singh, •introduction: in Kirpal Singh (ed.), Stlect Documents on Partition ofPunjab ... (Delhi: National Book Shop, 1991 ), p. ui.

10

Tan Tai Yong has.argued that the Sikhs and their principal political leaders and organizations, notably the A~ali Dai and Master Tara Singh. followed a consistent line of opposition to the Pakistan demand up to this point and only now resigned themselves to the inevitable. His account suggests continuity in the Sikh political position designed to protect their position and their bargaining power in the midst of a rapidly changing political context. Yet, even Yong remarks that, by accepting the partition of India and the Punjab, the Sikhs had "painted themselves into a comer-; •Prelude to Partition: Sikh Responses to the Demand for Pakistan, 1940-47; International Journal ofPunjab Studies, Vol. I, No. 2 (July-December, 1994), 167-96, citation from p. 190. Yong's argument is an extension of an earlier analysis that he cites by Indu Banga, •The Crisis of Sikh Politics (19401947):' in Joseph T. O'Connell, Milton Israel, and Willard G. Oxtoby (eds.), Sikh History and Religion in the 'lwentitth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto, Centre for South Asian Studies.1988), pp. 233-55.

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11

Yong. •Prelude to Partition,• argues fon:efully and more dearly than mo.1t who have written on the subject that the Sikh role in the violence associated with the partition of the Punjab was central. He opens his article with the statement that •the Sikhs, enraged that the Punjab would be partitioned and half of it given to the newly created state of Paltistan, reacted with unbridled fury and plunged the province into a state of carnage and destruction:-He argues further that this destruction was planned,organized, and coordinated by the Sikh leaders and concludes by saying that •the Sikhs took the final initiative that was to result in the communal violence of 1941•; citation from pp. 167 and 191.

12

On the workings of the boundary commission, see especially, Tan Tai Young. •'Sir Cyril Goes to India': Partition, Boundary-Making and Disruptions in the Punjab; International Journal ofPunjab Studies, Vol. IV. No. 1 (JanuaryJune 1997), 1-20.

13

Nor were Sikh leaders at all subtle in declaring their aims in advance. For example, Mountbatten wrote in his personal report dated July 18, 1947 that •the Sikhs have warned Jenkins through Giani Kartar Singh that they will have to take violent action if they are not satisfied by the Boundary Commission's award. They said openly that they proposed to sabotage communications, canal systems, headworks, etc." As will be shown below, they also openly declared that massacres of Muslims would be required to force the Muslims out of East Punjab to facilitate mhange of population. In fact, there was not much damage to communications, canal systems, and headworks during the partition violence; they were much better protected than the population. For the best, indeed the only, serious scholarly analysis of the organiud Sikh attacks during the partition massacres in Punjab, see Aiyar, "~ugust Anarchy:• Moon put the matter bluntly a few years later: •The determination of the Sikhs to preserve their cohesion was the root cause of the violent exchange of population which took place." Moon, Divide and Quit, p. 280.

14

15 16

Paul R. Brass, "Introduction: Discourses of Ethnicity, Communalism, and Violence; in Paul R. Brass (ed.), Riots and Pogroms (New York: New York University, 1996) and Theft ofan Idol: Tat and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997). Jalal, •Nation, Reason (sic) and Religion; p. 2,188. From document 112: 31 May 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten), in Nicholas Mansergh (ed.), The Transfer of Power, 1942-7, Vol. XI: The Mountbatten V",ceroyalty: Announcement and Reception ofthe 3 June Plan, 31 May-- July 1947 (London: HMSO, 1982) (Hereafter Mansergh, XI), pp. 23-7. It is

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curious that.in these last mentioned raids, Jenkinadoes not specify whether or not the raiden were Hindus, Sikhs. or both. 17

Footnote reference to "a situation report"by Jenkins on his visit to Gurgaon in 116, Mountbatten to Llaquat Ali Khan, 1 June 1947, in Mansergh, XI, p.31.

11

Document 1292, 30 July 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten) in Mansergh, XII, pp. 425-27.

19

Document 1306, 1 August 1947 (Telephone message from Mr. Abbott) in Mansergh, XII, p. 459.

20

A rare and exemplary piece of research has been done on the violence

between Meos and Hindus by Sbail Mayaram, Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory and the Shaping ofa Muslim Identity (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), in which the author presents strong evidence that what occurred in the princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur and in the adjacent Punjab district of Gurgaon, where the Meos were widely distributed, was nothing less than genocide against the Meos. Further details on the roles of the princely states in general in the genocide are in Ian Copland, State, Community and Neighbourhood in Princely North India, c. 1900-1950 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1995), esp. eh. iv. 21

Document #337: 4 August 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten; Enclosure (Memorandum)) in Mansergh, XII, p. 516.

22

Document #382: 8August 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten) in Mansergh,XII, pp. 583-84.

23

Document #432: August 11, 1947 (Note by Major General D. C. Hawthorn) in Mansergh, XII, p. 667.

24

Ian Talbot, Punjab and the Raj, 1849-1947 (Riverdale, Md.: The Riverdale Company, 1988), p. 228. Aiyar also notes the extensive involvement of former Indian National Army men (Indian soldiers in the British army in World War II, captured by the Japanese, who formed a deserter army to fight against the British) and even of "regular Indian Army officers on leave"; "'August Anarchy:" p. 32.

25

Talbot, Punjab, p. 233.

26

See also Aiyar, "'August Anarchy:" pp. 28-30 and 34.

27

Document #403, 9 August 1947, Jenkins to Mountbatten, Mansergh, XII, p. 636. However, Captain Savage had reported in an interview with Mountbatten, Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, and Sardar Patel four days earlier

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that he had been informed that Master Tara Singh himself had told his fellows that there wu a plan to blow up a train, called "the Pakistan Special with remote control firing apparatus and after wrecking the Special, set it on fire, and shoot the occupants." Tara Singh's plans or knowledge of them also included one to assassinate Jinnah; document 1345: August 5, 1947 (Record of interview between Mountbatten, Jinnah, Liaquat, Patel, and Captain Savage), Mansergh, XII, p. S57. lwo days later, a Pakistan special train did run over a mine and two persons were killed as a consequence of the explosion; (document #418: 10 August, 1947 (Note by Major General D. C. Hawthorn) in Mansergh, XII, p. 648. This could, of course, have been a coincidence, but there can hardly be any doubt that Sikh groups did target trains moving to Pakistan with Muslim occupants, whom they also massacred when they could. 21

Document #224, 24 July 1947, (Mountbatten to Listowel) in Mansergh, XII, p. 326.

2'

Jenkins, as usual, was bluntly on the mark in a response to criticisms from all sides (Congress, Muslim League, and·Sikh) that he was not doing enough to stop the violence: •The critics," he remarked,"are themselves participants in the events which they profess to deplore:'Document 1337: August 4, 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten; Enclosure (Memorandum)), p. 512. He had earlier also expressed his scorn for press statements by political leaders against the violence, saying that the "real remedy is active intervention by political leaders not by Press Statements but by contacts which they unquestionably ~ss with violent elements." (Document 1327, 24 June 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten), in Mansergh, XI, p. 606. Talbot also notes that Mountbatten could persuade the Muslim League and Congress members of his Interim Government to agree to call on "the local community and political leaders to help restore order" only with great . difficulty for they did not like the implication "that their supporters were at least partially responsible for the violence"; Talbot, Punjab, p. 229.

30

Talbot, Punjab, p. 234. Talbot gives no date for this statement, but implies that such appeals made by Sikh leaders were ineffective.

31

Document 1432: 11 August 1947 (Note by Major General D. C. Hawthorn), in Mansergh, XII, p. 667.

32

Village- and site-wise figures for the West Punjab districts may be found in Khosla. Stem Reckoning, pp. 320-349; this'biased volume provides no figures for the East Punjab districts, though the author was an Indian civil servant and should have had easjer access to Indian records and reports. Instead, his book focuses mostly and his statistics entirely on the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in West Punjab upon Hindus and Sikhs.

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For eumple, Talbot, Pamjab, p. 225 remarks that tlw massacre of the Sikhs in West Punjab in March 1947,•set off• chain ractioa maliatory killings."

«

34

Punjab government figures released on 26 July 1947 gave the figures of persons killed in Rawalpindi District as 2,263 non-Muslims and 38 Muslims; Khosla. Stem Reckoning, p. 112.

35

Document 167: 11 July, 1947 (Record of lntemew betwttn Jenkins and Jathedar Mohan Singh and Sudar Harnam Singh), in Mansergh, XII, p. l03.

36

Khoala, Stem Reckoning, p. 112.

37

Document 1306: 1 August, 1947 (Telephone mtssagt from Mr. Abbott), in Mansergh, XII, p. 459.

31

Document 1337: 4 August 1947 (Jenkins to Mountbatten; Enclosure (Memorandum)), in Mansergh, XII, p. 516.

39

Sumanta Bane*e• •The Partition and Its Survivors•; review of The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition ofIndia by Urvashi Butalia; Viking Penguin India, New Delhi, 1998, Economic and Political W«*1 XXXVHI, No. 39 (September 26, 1998), p. 2,518.

40

Banerjee, •The Partition and Its Survivors,• p. 2,518.

41

Corruccini and Kaul, Halla, p. 62 (Survivor Account 12).

42

Banerjee, •The Partition and Its Survivors," p. 2,520.

43

Though one should never forget that what appears gruesome to most people is titillating to some, probably a not insignificant proportion of any populace.

44

Many such accounts may be found in Corruccini, Khosla, and Butalia.

45

As Bhalla puts its, "..:there was violence of such fiendishness that each reminder of it still comes as a shock to our decencies and still violates our sense of a common humanity"; Alok Bhalla,"Memory, History and Fictional Representations of the Partition; Economic and Political Week~. xxx1v, No. 44 (October 30-November 5, 1999), p. 3,120. My point is that there is no such thing as •a common humanity." Belief in it, however noble and inspiring, is misguided.

46

Aiyar bas noted that "at no time [before, during, and after the massacres) was there a complete collapse of either the colonial state or the successor states"; "1.ugust Anarchy:" p. 35.

47

Khosla, Stem Reckoning, pp. 161-62.

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41

Corruccini and Kaul, Halla, p. 63 (Account I 3).

49

Document 111, 31 May 1947 (Liaquat Ali Khan to Mountbatten), in Mansergh, XII, pp. 20-22.

s• Das, Communal Riots, p. 161; this author later mixes the metaphor and refers to the"wave of communal violence" in several Bengal distric'5 that followed the August, 1946 Calcutta riot as"partly .... a chain reaction"; p.189. 51

Jalal, "Nation, Reason (sic) and Religion; pp. 2,187-88.

52

Jalal, "Nation, Reason (sic) and Religion; p. 2,188.

53

Jalal, "Nation, Reason (sic) and Religion," p. 2,190.

54

A general account is provided in Andrew Major, "'The Chief Sufferers': Abduction of Women During the Partition of the Punjab; South Asia, Vol. XVIII, Special Issue (1995), 57-72.

55

Jalal makes a similar point: "All said and done, the commonality of masculinity was stronger than the bond of religion. Men of all three communities delighted in their momentary sense of power over vulnerable women .. . Gender eroded the barriers that religion had been forced to create.... Alas, Punjab had betrayed its patriarchical (sic) bent more decisively than the affective affinities of religious community." "Nation, Reason IsicI and Religion; p. 2,190.

56

It is possible that many men did not seek the return of abducted women, though it is equally unlikely that we will ever know what proportion of families whose wives or daughters were abducted aslted or did not ask to have them recovered. Jalal remarks that "some women must undoubtedly have been abducted" in the Bihar massacres of 1946, but she imagines that "almost all of them were recovered, there were hardly any conversions and when, after the return of peace, an announcement was made inviting the Muslims to give names of abducted women, no names were mentioned"; Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman:Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakist/Jn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 84. That no names were given does not prove there were no abductions. The film, "Silent Waters," suggests yet a further dimension of the suffering of these abducted women, depicting the search ofa young Sikh man for his mother, living in Pakistan, having borne from her Muslim husband another son, who becomes a fiery Islamic fundamentalist. The film ends with the mother adopting the same solution as so many women did at the time of Partition itself, namely, suicide by jumping into a well.

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s7 Banerjee. •The Partition and Its SurYiwrs,· p. 2,519; Butalia, The Otl,,er Side ofSilence, p. 196. 51

For Bengal, see Das. Communal Riots. pp. 179 and 196-98.

st Scheduled Castes is the official tmn in India for those castes of low status formerly called •untouchables." ,o •Arguments of the Sikhs:" presented by Sardar Harnam Singh, in Mian Muhammad Sad11Uah, et al. (eds.), T11e Portition of the Punjab 1947: A Compilation ofOffida1 Documents, Vol. II (Lahore: National Documentation Centre, 1983 ), p. 125. 61

"Arguments of the Sikhs,"p. 130.

62

Article 1, section two allowed the states to count three-fifths of their slave population as part of their population base for determining their quantum of representation in the House of Representatives.

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3

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INSTITUTIONALIZED RIOT SYSTEM IN MEERUT CITY, 1961 TO 1982

In many parts of India where Hindu-Muslim riots are endemic, especially in the northern and western states,. institutionalized systems of riot production have been created in the years since Independence, which are activated during periods of political mobilization or at the time of elections. Far from being spontaneous occurrences, the production of such riots involves calculated and deliberate actions by key individuals, the conveying of messages, recruitment of participants, and other specific types of activities, especially provocative ones, that are part of a performative repertoire. Moreover, all .these actions may require frequent rehearsals until the time is ripe, the context is felicitous, and there are no serious obstructions in carrying out the performance. That Meerut has been in the past a site of endemic HinduMuslim riots is clear enough from the list of. such events shown in Table 1. Serious riots, that is to say riots with deaths, have occurred in Meerut City since before Independence-in 1939

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Table 1: lllob ud Riot Deeda1 ln Meea at C1ty, 1939 to 1991 Official Da,tl, 1blJI

Datt

1939(0ct.2) 1946(Nov.7-ll)

8 29

Prt-Indqoulena Total

37

1961 (Oct. S-8) 1968 (Jan. 28-30) 1973 (Dec. 11) 1982 (Sq>. 7-11; 29-30 - Oct. 1) 1986(Mar. l) 1987 (Apr.-Jul.) 1989(Aug. ll) 1990(Scp.22) 1990 (Nov. 2-3) 1990(Dec.12-13) 1991 (May20) 1991 (June 12) Post-Indepe,ulenc.e Total

14 13 7 3 136' 1 1 12 1 32 1 263

Grand Total

300

Unofficial

Estimato

1jib 17C

~

1631/329' 16i 41

Noto:

a Figures are from the Varshney-Wtlkinson dataset deri'ffll from The 1imes of India, kindly provided to me by Steven Wilkinson. b Interview with Tansir Ali Shah, in Meerut, 18 August 1983. c Of which 16 wer~ Muslims, one Hindu 'killed due to mistaken identity', according to Aswini K Ray and Subhash Chakravarti, 'Meerut Riots: A Case Study', Sampradayikta Virodbi Committee, New Delhi, nd, 1968?, p. 11. d Wilkinson's dataset divides this loog period of violence in Mterut into two separate riots, for which he gives the figure of 11 dead in the first, 31 in the second. e SA A Sabzwari, 'Mttrut in Law Court',Meerut, 1983. f Wilkinson's dataset gives death tolls in 1987 on 7 different dates; I have combined them all into one figure. g'Muslim India 73', January 1989, p.18,citing Kuldip Nayar in Sunday Obsemr, 27 November 1988. h Muslim Advocate's Council,~ Objective Study of 1987 Mterut Riots to Assess, How Deep is the Injury? and What Loss the Country Suffered?', Meerut, 1989, pp.A-1 toA-23. i TOI, November 3 and 4. j 'Muslim India 98', F-ebruary 1991, p. 78.

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and 1946-and after Independence in 1961, 1968, 1973, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, and 1991 .1 Although no major riots have occurred in Meerut City since 1990, I have confirmed in recent visits to the city (January, 2004) that an Institutionalized Riot System (IRS) continues to function and could be activated in future. However, this article will focus on the riots of 1961 and 1982, leaving the other riots and an explanation for the current dormancy of the IRS for analysis in later publications. I use the 1961 riots as a kind of benchmark to contrast with the later ones, to illustrate the changes that took place in the intervening period in their intensity and deadliness, and to explain how and why those changes have taken place. While my last book,2 which focuses on the history of riot production in the town of Aligarh, has been, for the most part, favorably received so far, legitimate issues have been raised concerning whether or not one can infer from the mere frequency of riots at a particular site the presence ofan IRS and, secondly, whether the frequency of such riots in the past is a predictor of future riots.3 A third issue has arisen as a consequence of the argument presented in the work ofAshutosh Varshney concerning the critical importance of what he calls "civic engagement" in riot prevention and the absence thereof as equally important in explaining the occurrence of riots.4 With regard to the first two issues, I have first to clarify my position as follows. The mere frequency of riots at a particular site does, to my mind, warrant the inference that a system of riot production exists, but does not prove its existence. The latter must be demonstrated. Quantitative, statistical analyses cannot demonstrate the existence of a dynamic process. The latter can be revealed fully only by ethnographic research. Press reports and other documentary sources may also be useful in

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providing evidence for or against tb,, existence of an IRS. The primary scientific value of the discovery of the importance of the IRS as an explanatory factor in the production of riots is that it directs attention away from spurious explanations of riot occurrences, particularly those that argue that they are spontaneous occurrences arising out of historical animosities between peoples. But, the discovery also has policy implications since it demands that attention be paid to the actual instigators and perpetrators of acts of collective violence that everywhere have for far too long and far too often gone unrecognized and unpunished. With regard to the second question, Wilkinson's data hPC identified previous frequency of riots as a significant explanatory variable in riot production.5 But, it certainly does ,not have universal power. One important reason that it does not have higher explanatory power is that local conditions that have provided the context for the creation of an IRS may change over time, placing the activation of the riot system in dormancy or, rather, to use my own metaphorical terminology, reducing it to the rehearsal phase, but not eliminating it from the site, thereby ensuring its availability ifand when the political context changes. With regard to the issue of the critical importance of civic engagement, that is, the existence or absence of interreligious associations and interpersonal relations, I have found this argument of little value. It has neither statistical nor persuasive ethnographic support.6 Most important, my research demonstrates that, even where elements of civic engagement do exist in civil society in India, they cannot withstand the power of political movements and forces that seek to create intercommunal violence. I believe that what is true for India is true

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elsewhere as well. Therefore, from a policy point of view, it is a pure diversion to invest resources in promoting civic engagement, when attention and resources should be directed towards uncovering the system and process of riot production and the producers thereof. In the remainder of this chapter, I will provide ethnographic evidence to support my arguments on these three issues primarily from my own original research in Meerut between the years 1983 and 2004.7 This article discusses only two of these riots, those of 1961 and 1982. The Riots of October, 1961 The Meerut riots of October, 1961, which were enacted on October 5 to 8, followed two days after the Aligarh riots of October 1 to 3 in which 15 people were reported to have been killed. The Meerut riots were almost equally deadly. Thirteen people were reported killed during these days and one other person was killed on October 11 during curfew relaxation, bringing the reported death toll to 14. Riots occurred as well during this month in thirteen other cities and towns in western Uttar Pradesh (U. P.), but did not extend further to other parts of the state. These western U. P. riots occurred four months before the Third General Elections. The Congress was the ruling party in Delhi and in the state government and the dominant party in Aligarh City and Meerut City. The communal composition of the populations of Aligarh and Meerut cities was roughly similar. Hindus and others constituted a majority in both towns, comprising 55 % and 58 % • of the total respectively, compared to Muslims with 35% and 37%.

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The Home Minister of the state government, responsible for law and order, was Chaudhuri Charan Singh, who took a hard stand against the communal riots in Meerut and elsewhere, instructed the District Magistrates to take firm action, and sent police reinforcements to Meerut. On October 8, additional forces were also sent to Meerut from both the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and the army, as they had been previously sent to Aligarh as well.8 The Origins of the Meerut Riot System: An Eyewitness Account Among the myths associated with Hindu-Muslim and other types of interreligious and interethnic riots is that they are ignited by a spark at one site after which the flame then spreads to other sites, or it is said that they occur like viral infections that also spread from place to place. One of the most striking elements uncovered in my interviewing and in the documentary evidence was that there was, in fact, a direct connection between the riots in Aligarh and Meerut. But the connection between the two appears to have been neither igneous nor viral. The account below is based primarily on a single interview with a person who was eyewitness to some of the events. The interview was conducted in 1983, 22 years after the events, so we cannot imagine it to be an entirely accurate rendering even of what he saw and experienced at that time. It is clear from his account, however, that he saw a great deal and that the memory of it constituted what Hume has called "a vivid impression" in his mind that never left his consciousness.9 Adescendant of one of the greatest Muslim zamindar families of Meerut district, that of the Nawab of Sardhana, he was at the time of the interview an advocate in the Meerut City Court. I contrast below his account with the

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Dtbalisb >.tulraji. •The Dance of Death: Provincial Armed Constabulary Futla the Communal Cauldron iD Aligarh." 77lt Ml!tk. Cover Story, December 23,1990,pp.35-37.

6'

Why the Medical College was Selected, (Cydostyled sheet provided to me by the Aligarh Muslim University authorities (Public Relations Office), 1991 [l).

64

PUCL Bulletin (March, 1991). With regard to the •shoot-at-sight" order, however, I am informed by Vibbuti Narain Rai in a personal communication that •there is no provision of Shoot at Sight under Indian Jaws.• He notes. rather, that, •this is a hype created by media; but that •many senior police officers• also use this term. Indeed, there will be sneral further occasions noted below in which this term hu been (mis)used.

65

Why the Medical College.

66

Interview no. 23 (file Aligarh 84-99) with Professor, Aligarh Muslim University, a Congress supporter, on January 3, 1991; [taped in English).

67

Interview no. 24 (Aligarh file 84-99), Aligarh, January 3, 1991.

61

Interview no. 26 (Aligarh file 84-99) with riot victims and interlocutor, January 3, 1991; Itaped).

69

Interview no. 31 (Aligarh file 84-99), November 21, 1997; [taped in Hindi with simultaneous translation done by Professor Mathur of AMU English department). And, of course, the crowd being composed of Hindus, there was no likelihood that the police would fire to disperse it.

70

Nagrik Samanya statement, p. 17.

71

TOI, September 9, 1982.

72

TOI.September 10, 1982.

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TOI, September 10, 1982. H~ver, see fn. 64. It appears that the misuse of this term is 111 example either of an incorrect and improper statement on the part of~ amborities or of inaccurate press reporting or both.

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Shri G.M. Banatwala in Lok Sabha 82: 470-71. The TOl,September 9, 1982 noted that,on September 8,"Three bodies were ~mi from the Bhumiaka-Pul atta which is not under curfew."

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S. K. Gh~ "Communal Disturbances in Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), l 980~ in S. K. Ghosh (ed.), Communal Riots in lndill (Mm tire Ch~ Unittdly) (New Deihl: Ashis, 1987),p. 219.

76

TOl,September 13, 1982.

n TOI, September 14, 1982. 1•

IE, September 21, 1982.

79

IE, September 25, 1982.

80

Braj Raj Kishott, Anatomy of Metrut Riots (New Delhi: CPI [Communist Party of India) publication, 1983), p. 11.

11

Nagrik Samanya Statement, p. 26.

12

NIP, October 5, 1982.

13

Statesman October 6, 1982.

" Pioneer, October 8, 1982. as Pioneer, October 8 and 11, 1982. 16

I do not have an exact date for the final termination of curfew in 1982.

17

Paul R. Brass, "Development of an Institutionalised Riot System in Meerut City, 1961 to 1982, Economic and Political W~ (October 30, 2004), pp. 4,839-48 and this volume, chapter 3

11

AN-67.

19

AN-67.

90

Interview no. 24 (Kanpur interviews part 1), in Kanpur on August 19, 1993. I have a similar complaint from the Qazi Shahar of Kanpur in AN- 19: •Ifthe administration had been decisive, efficient and awakened, the curfew would have been enforced on 6th December, 1992 in the day and the ghastly incidents could have been avoided so the entire liability rests on the shoulders of tho.,e civil and police officials who were at the ttlevant time, at the [helm)

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oftb!af&in in tbe dlyancl bytbeir ir.diflerm,muctant ud caPons-ttitude they YffY much cmtributed to tbe eruption and lplad of the rioting. fw [police firing) and Ima of bum•n lifts and their properties.'" 91

llindusmn Tama [HT),Nomnber 16, 1992.

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Interview num~r 1 (ICanpur intcniews part 1), with District Magistrate, on July 18, 1993 [not taptd; recall).

,, HT, December 8, 1992. 94

National Haald [hereafter NH), December 10. f992.

95

HT,Deetmber 12, 1992 (datelineNewDelhi,Dec.11).

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NH, Deetmber 12, 1992. But again, s« fn. 64.

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HT,December 16, 1992.

" NH, December 13, 1992. "

NH, December 14, 1992.

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HT,Dectmber 16, 1992.

101

HT, December 16, 1992.

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I haw mysdf been gi,en curfew passes oo acouple of occasions during riots in Mttrut and Aligarb, sometimes with a police guard, and haft been able to ilierview persom in curfew-bound areas or areas under curfew relaurino.

io, On the gathering of crowds in curfew-bound uas in Meerut, 1982, see T()I, Septem~r 12, 1982. 104

These included, among other highly mpected citiuns, an a-gmernor of the state of U.P.; Shri Harikesh 1'abadur in Lok Sabha 82: 333-34; also Satya Pal Malik in Rajya Sabha 82: 219.

105

Satya Pal Malik in Rajya Sabha 82: 219. It is,howmr,not necessarily desirable to issue pwes freely to journalists during riots. While journalists from the J~ading English-language papers may make good use of such passes through impartial, informative reporting, the local vernacular press is a different matter. They are often themselves enmeshed in the local riot systems, quite content to file false, inflammatory reports or, Jess harmfully, to sit in the central police station and note down the official police accounts of the numbers of deaths. In Rai's account, these local journalists are not only not interested in serious reporting of what is going on during riots, but, likt the local politicians and other local notables, are mostly interested in taking

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adYantage of the ocxalion to bate the attention of the district and police auth«itiea from whom they can solicit peisonal fm,ra, such u, in the fictionaliud account of Rai,bouse plot allotments in a journalists' Colony:' for which distribution baa been held up becauae of the riots; Rai 98: 86. 106

In Rai's account; fistful(s] • of passes are routinely issued to•touts,political leadcrs,journalistsandsdf-appointtd'socialllftll'km':wbothenhandtbem ~r to •cronies," while those in diR straits requiring medical attention or burial of their dead have "to beg and plead and cajole to get ema one pus.• Rai 98: 75.

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S. A. A. Sabzwari, •Mtmlt" in Law Co&lrl, Notice to Govt: Through S. A. A. Sabzwari,Advocate, 23 April. 1983, (COPtaining material dated 31 December, 1982), p. 9. Similar reports of violation of curfew mtrictions by RSS men, with or without impunity, have been reported in many riots in Aligarh and in Meerut. For example.during the 1961 Meerut riots, one Rarneshwar Dayal. an •a.s.s. organistr: wu arrested along with •about 350 persons• for "violating the curfew mtrictioas and spP"ading false rumours.• ro1, October 8, 1961.

•• TOI.September 14, 1982.

'°' IE. September 21, 1982. 110

Samu Mukherjee in Lok Sabha 82: 342.

111

Interview number 4 (Kanpur interviews, part I), on July 19, 1993 Itaped in English].

112

My own observations in north India are that they are universally ineffective, an impression also shared by Rai In his description, the peace committee

members make "predictable: "trite" speeches, are sometimes themselYeS hypocrites and riot-mongers, and are convened by the district administration during riots only for show and to satisfy complaints made by high-ranking politicians that the services of such people wm not being utilized to control riots; Rai 98: pp. 80 and 90-91. My own impressions and observations are the same. ''' See also on this point SteYtn I. W'tlkinson, WJtes and V-u,lence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (Cambridge: Unifflsity Pras, 2004), ap. pp. 94-96. 114

Figura on the numbers of Muslims QJled in post-lncleJ>endence riots are available only for the riots in the l 960s and l 970s,after which the communal composition of those killed has not been publicly reported. The figures for the early riots confirm the disproportion in the numbers ofMuslims killed,

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but Rai 98 (p. 112) baa ioliatfd that the pm:entagie ol Muslims killed in riots that haft lalten place since the datruction of the mosque at Ayodhya in 1992 •has in fact been above ninety.• As for the arrest rates, he notes that Mwlims comprise an •unbelievably larger"proportion of those arrested and ~aken into custody"by the police during post-independence riots in general (pp.114-15). In addition, according to my own information concerning polict treatment ofpersons.especially Muslims and lower castes takm into custody, many, if not most, will also have been cursed, abused, dtfiled, and beaten. 11

'

This is Rai's proposal (p.119).

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5

INDIAN SECULARISM IN PRACTICE

The bulk of writing on the question of secula~ism in contemporary India has focused on an issue that has its origin in Western civilization, history, and religion, namely, the relationship between the state and religion, and specifically concerning the establishment or not of a state religion or the official recognition of a multiplicity of religions. Most of this writing also reaches the hardly surprising conclusion, given the focus, that the beliefs and practices of Western civilization, history, religion, and state policy towards religion are either not relevant to the religions, religious practices, and religious beliefs of the peoples of the subcontinent, or else require considerable modifications to make them so. The battle is often joined between those who argue for their relevance and deny that their nonin·digenous origins pose insurJllOUntable obstacles and those who take the opposite position. 1 In this essay, I will take a

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different view of the matter, arguing that the political issues and political practices that involve the question of secularism in India have a different focus and meaning altogether from the issues and practices that dominate Vlestem societies and polities. The first point to note is that, in practice, as opposed to academic discussion of the matter, the issue of state and religion is not central in Indian political discourse. The issue exists, of course, in the English-language newspapers, in the party platforms of the political parties, and in judicial decisions where the emblematic subject matter concerns whether or not India should at last frame a uniform civil code applicable to all religious groups or should retain the separate so-called personal laws ofdifferent communities. In fact, this issue has been reduced to the question of whether or not Muslims in India should be allowed to retain their own personal laws, that is, laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, alimony to a divorced wife, and inheritance especially. And this reduction is of the utmost importance in understanding what lies behind this discussion, which is not primarily an abstract issue of state policy towards religion, but concerns more the definition of the Indian nation, the meaning of citizenship, and the relations between the two largest bodies of religious believers in the country, Hindus and Muslims. Since the relationship between these two communities, as they are called, has too often involved separatism, antagonism, and extreme violence in the form of riots, pogroms, massacres, and even genocidal attacks, the political arguments concerning secularism in India revolve especially around this matter of Hindu-Muslim relations. Secularism, in the political discourse of the country, therefore, is defined by its opposite, which does not refer to state policy on separation of state and rdigion, but to popular animosities and their consequences, namely,

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separatism, defined in social and political terms. Secularism is the opposite of separatism; secularism means national unity. It is more common, however, to frame the opposition as one between secularism and communalism, but that is a polemical framing rather than an analytical one, as I will show.2 Indian Secularism and Universal Values What then does secularism actually mean to those who are actively involved in politics, either in political practice or political commentary in India? For such people, secularism means first ofall universal values applicable to persons of all faiths or none, but it does not refer to all values. It does not refer to whether or not one has one wife or four, whether one has faith in a higher being or nol Rather, it refers to personal behavior in everyday life in one,s relationships to, and with, others, particularly to and with others with different religious beliefs and practices or none. Such values are often unspoken, matter of fact, not proclaimed loudly. Others are so fundamental that, even those who act differently, cannot argue against them: the right to life, to safety, to work, to practice one's religion or not, and so forth. But, what is essential to understand in the Indian context is that all these fundamental values and practices are, in fact, denied to many, if not most people in everyday life in the country through caste discrimination, police misbehavior and brutality, and the consequences of extreme and grinding poverty. Moreover, they are often denied to whole categories of people, including caste and religious groups, particularly Muslims in post-Independence India. Indeed, Muslim political spokesmen have, more or less continuously over the past century, complained about discrimination against them in public employment, language use, and

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safety during communal riots. It should be noted, however, that before Independence, under British rule, Muslims were often favored in most of these respects and that their demands then were quite inflated. Nor are all their grievances now necessarily to be taken at face value. But it is a contemporary fact in India that Muslims are discriminated against in most parts of the country in public employment, that their favored language/script, Urdu, has been nearly eliminated from public instruction in north India, and that they have suffered grievously in countless communal riots in which they have been attacked and killed by state police forces. It is here that the first meaning of secularism in. India applies. Secularism means-and some of this is written into the constitution of the country-that all religious and cultural groups in India are entitled to practice theirfaith, to be instructed through the medium oftheir mother tongue, and to be protected, not attacked without cause by the police. So, secularists and their political organizations respect the religious beliefs of the other; exchange greetings with each other during their respective religious holidays and festivals; 3 accept a multiplicity of languages for various uses in the country or in particular parts of the country; abhor communal riots, condemn them openly, and, in recent years, form public interest groups to investigate them and expose those who have fomented them. With regard to the question of Hindu-Muslim riots in particular, secularists do not blame either Hindus or Muslims as communities for riots. Rather, they blame the politicians, Hindu and Muslim, where they find either or both responsible, and such non-communal factors as economic competition. Their analyses may be, and sometimes are, faulty, but the stance is not Moreover, the stance is entirely different from that of people

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and organizations characterized as "communal• in India. Hindu communal groups blame Muslims as a community, or large parts of the Muslim community, after every riot, no matter whether most or even all the victims are Muslims. Most Muslim political leaders do not blame the Hindu community as a whole. They specifically blame particular political parties, especially militant Hindu groups, and the police. But, some of their self-proclaimed leaders do blame the Hindu community as a whole. Others, while proclaiming themselves as secularists, demanding only equal rights for members of their community, are themselves communalists, who use the grievances of their community as a basis for inflating their own political importance, often to the detriment of their community.

Indian Secularism: Nationalism and History Secularists, therefore, are universalists in the terms just described, though many masquerade as secularists, who are not in practice. But Indian secularists are also nationalists. Their values are universal, but their focus, of course, is on the practice in their own country. However, it is not merely a question of practices, but of identity, citizenship, nationality, and history. Secularists are nationalists who believe and teach that there is an Indian history that encompasses all the peoples ofthe subcontinent. They, therefore, reject the common division of Indian history, before the imposition of British rule, into Hindu and Muslim periods. Many also reject any idea, of course, that the histories of the peoples of the different regions of the country are distinct from that of the country as a whole, which, they assert, has always striven for unity. Further, secularists stress the indigenous origin of the vast majority of the Muslim population of the country.

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Sophisticated Hindu nationalists will not necessarily rtject these points of view of the secularists, but most militant Hindus have a different view. They do consider that there was a long period of Muslim domination of the subcontinent, in which Hindus were discriminated against, their religious practices derided, and their temples destroyed and replaced by mosques. Moreover, this Muslim period followed after a "golden age• of Hindu history, which was both national and regional in scope, but was all part of a grand, overarching Hindu civilization. They see Islam as a religion of conquerors, who came from Persia and the Middle East, and forcibly converted poor and low caste peoples.4 These peoples, even when they are acknowledged as of indigenous origin, are nowadays characterimt as belonging to non-Indic religions. So, whatever their actual descent, they do not now belong to Indian, that is to say, Hindu civilization. In a nutshell, therefore, secular versions of Indian history include Muslims and do not separate the Muslim period from the rest of Indian history as a black period of destruction and devastations. On the other side, Hindu nationalists either exclude Muslims as legitimate participants in the historical making of India or include them only grudgingly. Composite Nationalism and Hindu Nationalism There are, however, multiple points of contact between the secular and Hindu nationalist points of view. For example, some Hindu nationalists will nod their heads in agreement that Muslim art, architecture, literature, and poetry are part of the glories of Indian civilization. But, the points of contact sometimes amount to a merger. For, the purpose of any survey, reconstruction, or fabrication of Indian history is to justify several claims: first, that Indian history has displayed a striving for unity of the

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subcontinent and its peoples that has persisted through time; second, that unity must never again be compromised; third, that unity is essential to achieve India,s rightful place in the • world as a great power; fourth, that any threat to that unity must be squashed by the utmost force, should any group be recalcitrant enough to resist. In all these respects, secular and Hindu nationalists agree, as they do on the great goal that inspires it, namely, that of transforming India into a great, modem state. What does this mean in practice? It means that secular and Hindu nationalists alike agree that no compromise is possible not only with regard to separatist and secessionist demands based upon religion, but to the establishment of any units of the country demarcated from the rest by religion. This prohibition applies not only to Muslims in Kashmir, but to Sikhs in the Punjab. It applies also in the northeastern region of the country where the tnbal secessionist movements that have been raging for SO years include many groups long ago converted to Cliristianity. ·Once such demands are excluded, however, secular and Hindu nationalists diverge on the matter of the nature of the Indian nation. As long as religious or any other culturally defined groups do not threaten the unity of India, secular nationalists would, as previously noted, allow all such groups maximum freedom to practice their religions and promote their regional languages and mother tongues. Secular nationalists stand for composite nationalism, as it was called during the nationalist movement itself. India was to be, and to remain, a nation composed of many different religious, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups united primarily in their identification with the past, present, and future of India as a whole as a great new/

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old nation in a world.of nations. Diversity was, and is, to be celebrated. Militant Hindu nationalists have a different view here, namely, that whatever the cultural differences among the various groups in the country, they must be united in the same way as they imagine the great nations of the West to be united, that is, as homogenized citizens acknowledging a common history, a common civil identity, and a common civil law. These Hindu nationalis.ts claim that their conception constitutes true secularism, that ofthe so-called secularists being "pseudo-secularism." However, the insincerity of their claim is revealed by their refusal to accept any other designation for the citizens of the country except "Hindu." They do not prefer the term Indian, which they consider a foreign word for their country, but derive the very name of the country and most everything else cultural about it from the Hindu epics and other Hindu historical and cultural materials. The militant Hindu name for the country, for example, is Bharat, derived from the name of the hero of the Mahabharata, and the name of the militant Hindu party is the Bharatiya /anata Party, which would translate literally in English as the Bharatian People's Party. But there are contradictions in the stances of the secular nationalists as well. The great party that led the nationalist movement and governed the country as its dominant party for four decades after Independence, the Indian National Congress, was the primary secular force in the country during that period, however imperfectly it practiced septlarism. But there was one imperfection that struck at the heart of its secular nationalist claims, namely, that it did not truly see India as a composite nation. On the contrary, it saw the country as a frangible mosaic, whose unity had to be constantly protected against fissiparous forces. Moreover, they saw the greatest threat to the unity of the

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country as the divide between Hindu and Muslim communal forces; and they saw the role of the Congress as maintaining a fragile peace between the two sets of forces. Consistently with their secularism, however, Congress leaders did not say that the Hindu and Muslim communities as such were divided, but that they were led astray by communal Hindu and Muslim organizations. So, on occasion, the Congress imposed bans on the functioning of these organizations or threatened to do so, always with a supposed even hand. That is, whenever militant Hindu organizations fomented trouble that' endangered the peace, Congress leaders threatened to impose bans on both Hindu and Muslim organizations considered to be communal. So, secularism, again, is not primarily an issue of the state and religion or the state versus religion, but of nationalismnationalism of a particular type, called com1>9site nationalism. But this composite nationalism has another term, namely, the state, defined not as secular or religious, but as strong and centralized. The state that secular nationalists want is a strong state. And here comes the final irony: this strong state will remain strong by recognizing that there are two major communities in India, as well as some minor ones, whose separate existence must be recognized as well as their right to maintain separate cultural and religious and legal institutions. Duly recognized by the state, all these separate communities will be loyal to the Indian state. So, entirely contrary to one of the dominant views in the secularism-religion debate in India, the predominant secular view in India is that the religious practices, personal and family laws if so desired by a particular community, and institutions of the separate communities must all be recognized. The more extreme view, which is held by the militant Hindus, is that this is pseudo-secularism: there must be only one united ·

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nation, not composite, but one unity of citizens, all to be called Hindus, wherein the sophistry of their argument is exposed. Secul11rism and Party Politic, 11,m is a further element, just touched on above. in the secuu,rf communal contours that frame Indian political discourse and practice, namely, the existence of political parties that dtseribt themselves, and are perceived by others, especially by the minorities, and most especially by the Muslims, as secular political parties. Both parties and individual politicians are identified in India by the label secular-whether or not it is specifically in their official name or not-and sometimes by the phrase,"left and secular:though some agrarian-based parties of the center and the right have also been considered secular. One can identify a spectrum of these parties in Indian politics, but their names do not provide an infallible guide to their stance. Few parties actually have had the term secular in their titles. However, in the aftermath of the split in the Janata Partywhich defeated the Congress in the 1977 elections, formed the first non-Congress government in post-Independence India, and then broke apart in 1979 on the issue of RSS influence in the party-three of the splinter parties adopted that distinguishing label in their titles, all claiming to be the true Janata Party and all aiming to distinguish themselves from the Bharatiya Janata Party.5 Normally, however, most secular parties carry the words, "Socialist" or "People" somewhere in their title (such as Samyukta Socialist Party [United Socialist Party) , or Lok Dai [People's Party], and nowadays often carry the name, Janata (as in Janata Dai [People's Party]). But, this is not a foolproof method of identification, for the name of the militant Hindu party is the Bharatiya Janata Party, as noted above. The use of the term

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Bharatiya instead of Indian also does not necessarily indicate a party's communal character.6 For example, one of the secular agrarian parties also used that designation in its title, the Bharatiya Kranti Dai, which translates as Indian Revolutionary Party. Here, however, the giveaway that the party is secular comes in the second term, Kranti, which means ttvolutionary.7 Similarly, the Communist Party of India, in Hindi becomes the Bharatiya Communist Party, but the term Communist leaves no doubt that it perceives itself, and will be perceived by others, as secular. But a less falhl>le marker than a party>s name is whether or not certain issues are mentioned as important by party members. Secular parties and politicians do not talk about the desirability of a uniform civil code.9

What's in a Name? Secularism and Commu.nalism This matter of naming also relates to political persons. Three sets of opposite terms stand as markers in political discourse on the subject of secularism and communalism in India. That names mean something is indicated by how far these terms are accepted in political discourse. There is a double triad of terms, if the term double triad itself is not an oxymoron! On the. one side, the three terms are secular, progressive, communist; on the other side, the terms are conservative, traditional, communalist Secular and progressive are almost universally acceptable favorable designations in Indian politics-that is to say, considered favorable by those who identify themselves as such-and the two terms go together. Communist, while not as pejorative a term as in the West, is a term of abuse from the other side when referring to so-called secular, progressive elements. Insofar as the other side is concerned, conservative and traditional are acceptable terms, but communalist is not.

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Indeed, and this is important, the te1n1, communalist is accepted by nobody in India as a designator of himself/herself or for his/ her party. On the contrary, as already mentioned, most militant Hindus insist that they are true secularists in contrast to the pseudo-secularists. But this is a kind of game of words and naming. Militant Hindu activists distinguish themselves from other Hindu politicians. They see themselves as •real Hindu workers" in contrast to "secular socialist Hindus:' Such militant Hindus may even consider the term, secular, as pejorative, that is, they do not necessarily see themselves as •true secularists~ as opposed to the pseudo variety, but see themselves as true Hindus, which is what really matters to them. The following excerpt from one of my interviews with an RSS man in Aligarh reflects that point of view and illustrates as well other points that I have already mentioned. WPONDEHT:And these secular socialist Hindus are more dange-

rous than Muslims, so far (as) we Hindus are concerned. They are more dangerous. We cannot believe them. Wt cannot (accept) them as our leaders. They are our hidden enemies. They will never tell you the truth. They will abuse Hindus. They will defame Hindus.... And this is the most unfortunate situation, that whenever outsiders or foreigners come to this country and they try to meet citizens of Aligarb through this university (Aligarh Muslim University), the university does not give them a chance to meet the real persons or the nationalists of the town. I'm surprised that you are sitting in the office of the RSS and talking to those people who believe that the country is facing perhaps a greater danger than they faced in 1946 and• 47. They are openly calling their community forjihad. And nobody is taking action.'

It should here be noted that there is a division within the Muslim community as well concerning secular values and the place of Muslims and their institutions in an Indian secular state. Most of the ~If-proclaimed leaders of the Muslim community, whether

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they live a secular or deeply religious life, are communally oriented, if not communalists. Their focus is on the grievances of Muslims as a community and on the preservation of specifically Muslim institutions and their Islamic cultural character. However, there has also been a small minority of Muslim leaders, who attack the communal elements in their own community. These Muslims-many of whom, by the way, are Shi'as, which raises an entirely different matter-were, in the first decades after Independence, considered secular and progressive. Most were on the Left, including especially Muslim Communists and other Marxists. What they attacked specifically was what they characterized as minorityism, alleged theocratic tendencies among Muslim clerics, and obscurantism, that is, unmodem thinking. There are a few others nowadays, including one or two who have become affiliated with the BJP, who come from different backgrounds-that is, not from the traditional radical left-and who share these views. Secularism and communalism are also characterized by both Hindus and Muslims as "atmospheres." Hindus in general, and not only militant Hindus, also use similar terms to those used by Muslim "progressives• to describe the "atmosphere• and the "style of thinking" of Muslims in Muslim institutions such as theAligarh Muslim University (AMU).When, for example, Muslims at the AMU, with "a peculiar style of thinking," 10 want the University education to reflect "Muslim culture: whereas Marxists oppose it, the atmosphere is communal, but some vicechancellors, it is said, have changed "the atmosphere" and made it "become very secular." What this usually means is that the V-C either identifies with the secular, progressive, Marxist group or somehow refuses to allow the issues to become framed in these ways.

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However, there hu ~ to uise within the Muslim community a considerable body of persons educated in secular schools and colleges, participating successfully in business enterprises. and expressing modernist views in politics. In short, there is a huge difference between the internal array of opinion and political pnctice among Hindus and among Muslims in India. The latter have been sorely lacking in effective, responsible, secular leaders.

Secularism and •Pseudo-Secularism" The Congress, being originally the dominant party, proclaimed itself as the upholder of secular values, seeing itself as a secular force. But, at the same time it did not see society as secular; nther the country was divided by Hindu and Muslim communal forces that threatened the peace, which only a secular party, only the Congress could maintain. The Congress appealed in this way to the Muslim minority in the country that felt threatened by Hindu nationalists. Consequently, in many elections, in many parts of the country, Congress secured the bullc of the votes of Muslims who translated the Congress credo of secularism into a guarantee of protection of their lives, property, and right to pnctice their religion in India. In appealing to Muslim fears and insecurities in this way, and successfully for a long time, the Congress has been accused of taking political advantage from the Muslims by proclaiming itself secular. However, it is also the case that, especially during the Nehru period, secular credentials were valued with respect to candidates for the Congress nomination for Parliament: Muslims and Hindus were evaluated with regard to whether or not their credentials were satisfactory, that is, whether they believed in and worked for Hindu-Muslim amity and could win

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support from both communities. This is decidedly not the case with the militant Hindu parties, though there are some exceptions that can be pointed to; they are, however~ exceptions-and of dubious authenticity. In contrast, whatever its shortcomings, Nehru's Congress at the national level was considered to be in principle and practice a secular political party.•• . It is here, nevertheless, that militant Hindus found a place to undermine the Congress and its proclaimed secular values. They say that this contradiction between the Congress' proclaimed secularism and its specific appeal to the Muslim vote exposes the Congress as "pseudo-secularist." Not only did the Congress fail to produce a uniform civil code that would integrate the Muslims fully into the country as equal citizens, but they appeased and pandered to Muslim religious, communal, and presumptively separatist organizations and tendencies. But the militant Hindu stance is deceptive, if not deceitful. They do not want only a uniform civil code. They want to eliminate the Muslim character of Muslim institutions, and/or curtail the activities of what they consider to be Muslim communal forces operating within Muslim institutions, such as the Aligarh Muslim University. They also want to ban Muslim proselytizing activities that have been carried out for a century or more by Muslim institutions affiliated to the Deoband institution in western U.P. and by the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat. 12 In practice, the ultimate political determination of what constitutes a secular political party is made by Muslim voters. Today, as in the past, Muslim voters, notably in north India, continue to perceive some particular parties as secular parties: the Congress still and the Janata parties especially. The principle criteria for such a perception are which parties at the moment

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are to be considmd the best protecton of their rights, safety, and security, and the parties most able to defeat the BJP. How then can the BJP and the RSS proclaim that, rontrary to Muslim perceptions, the secularism of the Congress and other parties is •pseudo• and only theirs is true secularism: the argument, as aforesaid, is that this pseudo-secularism treats Muslims as a separate category in the population, not included in the general population on such matters as participating in a uniform civil code, whereas the BJP wants to include them as equal citizens in the modern Indian nation-state. The catch, again as previously stated, is that the true Indian citizen, in their view, not only must accept the idea of a uniform civil code, but must accept the RSS definition of the Indian nation, which includes Hindu religious and mythological as well as historical figures as part of the common national heritage. So, secularism also refers to political speech: what issues are mentioned or not mentioned in party platforms or public speeches and what are ignored, as well as to political practices. Such political practices and forms of speech include the following: admission of Muslims into party positions, including leadership positions; speaking favorably on behalf of the Muslim community, especially in relation to communal riots, blaming them on militant Hindus; and favoring concessions for the teaching and use of the Urdu language. But there is another issue that, from time to time in modern Indian history has provided a test of a party's or a person's secularism, namely the question of conversion. Secularists generally take'the position, ifthey take one at all, that propagation of one's religion is part of both freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Militant Hindus and Hindu communalists, as well as anti-secularists who do not fall into either category, oppose

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both Christian and Muslim proselytization. 13 I cannot discuss the issue of conversion fully here for it would require a much longer essay. For present purposes, however, it is to be noted that the aversion of militant Hindus to conversion reflects their exaggf'rated and inordinate fear, mentioned earlier, that, if such activities continue, ultimately Hindus will become a minority in what they perceive as their own country. And it is not only the proselymers and missionaries who threaten Hindu India that is Bharat in this way, but the pseudo-secularists, who, the militant Hindus say, have been responsible for the pandering and appeasement of Muslims by allowing them to have their own institutions and their proselytizing beachheads. 14

Secularism and Population Militant Hindus are as much concerned with the allegedly greater birth-rate among Muslims as they are with the issue of conversion. Indeed, it is their concern with the former that lies behind their focus on the latter. The political focus on conversion, however, probably reflects the fact that it is possible to convince many people and policy-makers that this is an undesirable practice that should be regulated, and even stopped. However, it is quite a different matter to impose birth control measures on a population that learned to associate that project with the forced sterilization that took place in India during Indira Gandhi's Emergency rule. And, of course, it can hardly be applied in a discriminatory manner to one segment of the population and not the resl Nor is it practical for Hindu politicians to suggest increasing the birth rate among Hindus, as, for example, has been encouraged among Israeli Jews to keep ahead of Israeli Arab population increases.

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There is some concurrence on this issue between militant Hindus and self-proclaimed secularists. Both have a problem with the alleged greater birth-rate and consequent population increase among Muslims than Hindus. Militant Hindus are terrorized by the prospect and have promoted the publication and distribution of a projective population atlas that envisions the transformation of the Hindu and other so-called Indic peoples into a minority in the subcontinent, and even in India proper. 15 Some self-proclaimed secularists express their concerns in double-mouthed ways. For example, they say that the higher Muslim birth-rate demonstrates that Muslims are thriving in India's "secular atmosphere."16 It is likely, however, that, except among the most liberal, Left persons in the country, the fear lurks in the background. It is a common kind of fear that, as already mentioned, is afoot in Israel. It also used to be expressed in the former Soviet Union, with increased anxieties after each census about Russians becoming a minority in an ever-impending future. Even in the United States, the concern has been expressed by some that the so-called white population of the country will one day be reduced to a minority. Insofar as India is concerned, however, this fear lurks behind the demand for a uniform civil code and provides an only partly-hidden rationale for it in the minds of militant Hindus. The hidden . assumption is that it would prevent Muslims from having four wives, which is somehow associated in militant Hindu minds with Muslim proliferation, as if the three extra wives would not be producing Muslim children if they were married to monogamous males. ,

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Indian Secularism as an Attitude and a "Mentality" Secularism in India is also sometimes said to be an "attitude: It is said, for example, that, in cities and towns that have been relatively free of Hindu-Muslim violence, traders and businessmen have secular attitudes, meaning that they will do business with persons from the other community. This is hardly a meaningful criterion, however, since some Hindu businessmen will do business with Muslims, while at the same time being avid members of the RSS. 17 Muslim businessmen can also be secular for the sake of business. My favorite example is a Muslim lock maker in Aligarh, whose products carry the name of the Hindu god, Krishna. 18 Secularism is an historical attitude as well, as noted above, taking the form in daily life of whether or not one appreciates and heroizes both Hindu and Muslim historical figures. In this regard, there are in fact secular and communal historiographies and hagiographies. Go to any major library in the world with a significant collection of books on Indian history and look up the great monarchs and warriors of Indian history, as I used to do for my classes. One can instantly identify secularist, Muslim religious, and Hindu nationalist historians by what they say, for example, about Akbar (favorite of secularists, but not of devout orthodox or communalist Muslims), 19 Aurangzeb (hated by secularists and militant Hindus, favorite of religious and communalist Muslims), Shivaji (favorite of late nineteenthcentury Congress leaders, militant Hindus and Maharashtrian regional nationalists, but disliked by religious and communalist Muslims), and many other famous figures of Indian history. But, the best statement I have ever read on this matter came from a Muslim political leader, who launched a political movement on behalf of Muslims in north India, and who took the position

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that this kind of hagiograpbical writing was nonsense. He remarked rather that Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist so-called heroes of the past "massacred irrespective of religion, caste, or creed.n20 More seriously with regard to this question of attitude is that politicians in India are identified by Muslims, in particular, in tern1s of their secular or communal attitudes, the measure for which is whether or not they speak out when Muslims are attacked and killed in riots and whether or not they attack Hindu communalists and militant Hindu parties and leaders and avoid political alliances and compromises with them. There have been . many such politicians in India, who could easily be named and would be instantly recognized as such by an I11dian audience. But some are hypocrites and others are mere vote-catchers. There are others, however, whose sincerity is clear from both their statements and actions. One such is a man whom I have quoted in my most recent article, on riots in Meerut city.21 The great riots in that city in 1982 were debated in both Houses of Parliament, with every member who spoke on the issue casting blame in different directions. In the course of this man's speech, however, he made the following heart-felt remarks in Hindi to reflect his sorrow at the polarization that had developed among Hindus and Muslims in the city as a consequence of these riots. He spoke as follows. _,

Aj merath shahar meN agar ap jayeNge to ap ko sach bolne wala koi nahiN miltga. I Ap ko wahaN insan nahiN miltga I Ap ko wahaN hindu milega ya ap ko wahaN musalman miltga. lelcin ap ko wahaN insan nahiN milega I (Today if you should go into Meerut city, then you will not find anyone telling the truth. You will not find a human being there. You will find there a Hindu or you will find there a Muslim, but you will not find a human being there.) 22

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This gentleman said many other things in his speech that reflected his secular attitude, including some that I have characterized above as part of the practice of secularism and secular politics in India. He identified and castigated elements on all sides, Hindus and Muslims alike, the authorities and the police, who had been responsible for instigating and inflaming the incidents that led up to the riots, and for the killings, atrocities, and massacres that ensued. These are the marks of a secular politician. It is common in India also to refer to the secularcommunal divide as a matter of "mentality." There is, in this view, something called a "communal mentality:' a "popular mentality," embedded in the psyches of both Hindus and Muslims. Is there then also a "secular mentality"? Well, not necessarily in this view, for, by "mentality:' one of my sources really means one's identity, how one identifies oneself, especially in a crisis, as in the following statement: "You can't find a hundred percent secular person in India; they are all Hindus or Muslims. And, in crises, every Hindu is a Hindu, every Muslim a Muslim."23 The sense of this statement is also reflected in the speech of the secular politician just quoted in relation to the Meerut riots of 1982, bemoaning the communal polarization it produced. However, if there is such a thing as a secular mentality, it is expressed in that man's speech and behavior and of others like him in politics and among India's intellectual elites. But it is the communal mentality that produces the "atmosphere," previously mentioned, which becomes one of permanent hostility and mistrust. Who is responsible for the existence of a communal mentality that produces such an atmosphere? There are two diametrically opposed views. One extreme militant Hindu point of view is that the Muslim masses

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are ignorant, know nothing about the Qur'an and their religion, but are corrupted by their elites. The alternative view, stated to me most articulately by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Intelligence, a Hindu intelligence officer in Aligarh, is the opposite: "By and large, the Muslim intelligentsia is nationalist and secular, but the illiterate and semi-literate classes are totally communal."24 Secularism as Wholeness

But to understand fully the intensity of feeling that lies behind the secular-communal divide and its manifestation in specific political parties, political speech, attitudes, and most especially the definition of the Indian nation, it is necessary to go back to the founding moment of the independent Indian state. For, the issues of citizenship and nationhood discussed above ultimately tum around, and back in time to the question of the wholeness of the Indian nation and to Partition, which destroyed it, and on who was responsible for this catastrophe. Militant Hindus perceive Muslims, in categorical terms, as responsible for the partition and the violence associated with it; further, they insist that Muslims in India continue to start riots with the long-term aim in view of bringing about another division of the country. Aside from the fact that this is a travesty of the reality, in which militant Hindu elements have been mainly responsible for planning and implementation of the worst communal riots during the past several decades, this militant Hindu view does not fit into any simple category of secular or communal, but comes under the heading of group psychology, with a diagnosis as a pathology of the historical consciousness. But, this psychological interpretation is an interpolation added on to the discourse of secularism and communalism by

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observers such as Sudhir Kakar and myself.25 The symbolism that frames the question of secularism vs. communalism by political practitioners, journalists, and educated opinion generally is that of the body and its health. 26 The secularcommunal divide is also a question of bodily health, the health of the body of the nation. The Indian body can become infected, and has become infected from time to time, it is said, especially in the aftermath of communal rioting. There is a "communal virus" afoot in the land, it is sometimes said, which is infectious: it is a communicable disease, a contagion, which may spread from one place to another. The disease has only one cure: secularism, which requires a change of attitudes. For militant Hindus and many non-militant Hindus, this cure must be applied to Muslims in the country as a whole, especially those infected by the communalism of its leaders and its leading institutions. For secularists, both Hindus and Muslims are susceptible to this disease.

Secularism and Communal Violence But, to return to the question of secularism and communal violence, and to the final irony and paradox of secularism in India, both the secular and the Hindu nationalist parties have produced riots or, if they have not produced them, have found them convenient for purposes of political mobilization. The way it works is as follows: militant Hindus blame the Muslims for starting it and mobilize Hindu voters to vote for the BJP as the only party that can protect them; the secular parties blame the BJP and mobilize the Muslim votes for themselves on the grounds that only they (the secular parties) can protect them. Only the Communist parties, in West Bengal especially, have adopted a strict secular approach by preventing riots and,

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therefore, preventing any such mobilizations and countermobilizations, and themselves avoiding any appeals on communal grounds to either Hindus or Muslims. So, secularism here means again state power, but state power directed against political uses of religious/communal violence; again it has nothing to do with separation of church and state. Most secular parties, however, have made use of communal animosities and violence for their own advantage, partly in ways already mentioned, but in another way as well, namely, to use state power "to rein in or ban Hindu communal organizations:' thereby, of course, giving themselves a distinct political advantage. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this manoeuvering and manipulation, of proclamations of secularism which all major parties claim to uphold, Hindu-Muslim animosities continue to be aroused and exploited and riots continue, and continue to be taken advantage of by most political parties. It is a deadly game, in·which the issue of separation of church and state is an intellectual diversion, which has produced mainly a polemical literature.

Notes 1

As Peter van der Veer has put it, "The organization of religion, the place of religion in society, and the patterns of recruitment are so different that not

only does secularization theory itself become meaningless but so, too, do the empirical and theoretical problems derived from it in the context of Western Christianity. This has not prevented social scientists from universalizing this ill-founded story about the West to include the rest.• See his Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. (Princtton: Princtton University Press, 2001), p. IS. 2

Rather than define these terms precisely, it is my purpose in this essay to consider how they are meant and used in practice in India. Since their uses are often contradictory and paradoxical, and competing definitions are polemical, a neutral social science definition is not practical.

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3

However, this pr•ctice h•s declined in m•ny places in In4ia as a consequence of Hindu-Muslim divisions. Yet, as these lines were being written, I received from Asghar Ali Engineer, whose life and work stand preeminently,consistently, without internal contradiction, for all the secular values identified herein, an e-mail sent round to all recipients ofhis articles. The e-mail noted the near-simultaneity this season of the Hindu festival of Diwali and the Muslim festival of Id, and offered his greetings to all persons of both faiths.

4

This argument has been most effectively demolished insofar as Bengal is concerned by Richard M. Eaton, T1,e Rise ofIslam and the Bengr,l Frontier, 1204-1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

5

Stig Toft Madsen has reminded me of this development. There were actually six nationally recognized splinters of the original Janata Party that fought the 1979-80 series ofelections. The three that took the name secular in their titles were as follows: Janata Party (Secular), Janata Party (Sccular)-Cli. Charan Singh, and Janata Party (Secular) Raj Narain; Election Commission ofIndia, Reporton the General Elections to the Legislative Assemblies .•. 19'1980, VoL II: Statistical, Vol. II-A, Parts 1 to 4 (New Delhi, 1983), p. ix.

6

As Gyanendra Pandey pointed out in discussion o_n this matter of labels.

7

Though that party was not at all revolutionary!

• See, for example, a comparison of the election manifestoes for five major parties for the 1996 General Elections in India, in J.C. Aggarwal and N. K. Cliowdhry, Elections in India. 1952-96: Constituency Profiles, Results and Analysis Focussing Poll 1996 (sic) (Delhi: Shipra, 1996), pp. 50-51. 9

Interview with RSS members, Aligarh, November 21, 1997, from Paul R. Brus, The Production of Hindu-Muslim Vwlence in Contemporary India (Seattle: University of Washington Press. 2003 and New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2003), p. 326.

1 •

In the words of the DSP, Intelligence in an interview in Aligarh, July 30, 1983.

11

As Gurharpal Singh has put it, "Nehruvian secularism, for all its flaws, was

an integral part of an effort to build a plural conception of nationhood in difficult political circumstances.• See his article, "State and Religious Diversity: Reflections on Post-1947 India.• in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn 2004), p. 220. 12

On these institutions and organizations, see especially Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton

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University Praa, 1982) and Mwntu Ahmad, Islamic Ftnulllmentalum in Souds Asia, in Martin E. Many and R. Soott Appleby (eds.), Frnttlament4lisms Obsenttd (Chicago: Unil'fflity of