Aria Thaker's book review of Communal Violence: Causes and Responses by Irfan Engineer

The Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVIII No. 49, December 07, 2013

The Origins of Communalism

by Aria Thaker
Aria Thaker (ariathaker@gmail.com) is with Davenport College, Yale University, United States.

Book Reviews

Issues of Communal Violence: Causes and Responses by Irfan Engineer (Mumbai: Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution), 2013; pp 51, Rs 150.


In his Issues of Communal Violence: Causes and Responses, Irfan Engineer discusses the societal conditions that bring about and perpetuate communal riots in modern India. Most of the time, Engineer’s analysis strikes an effective balance between theoretical and empirical explanations; he discusses the nature of communalism, but also provides ample proof of his reasoning by citing scholarly studies and documented incidents from Godhra 2002, Mumbai 1992, and many other instances of communal violence. In a few sections, however, Engineer’s explication of particulars regarding the formation of riots seems a bit simplistic. Overall, however, Issues of Communal Violence is a persuasive text, one that disentangles many issues often confused in media and popular discourse surrounding riots today.

What Is Communalism?

Engineer begins his book by engaging with other scholars, quoting liberally from different texts in order to explain varied theories regarding the origins of communal violence. Some scholars, Engineer states, describe communal violence as the direct result of mounting religious tension, some state that it is caused mostly by political and economic factors, and some claim it results from a confluence of factors – ideological, religious, political and material. Through his careful consideration of a diversity of ideas, Engineer provides a thoughtful portrayal of the complexity – and controversy – surrounding the idea of what communalism is and how it happens.

Issues of Communal Violence, however, is not without its own, powerful voice. Engineer assertively dispels much of the propaganda surrounding riots, such as the idea that communal organisations exist to “protect” people of their faith against violence from other communities.

Engineer writes,

There is not a single instance where Shiv Sainiks marched to the largest Muslim ghetto in Mumbai – Bhindi Bazaar – to secure Hindu minorities in the area when some of them were attacked as a revenge to Muslim casualties in other areas, nor did Muslim-armed groups that were attacking Hindus in the Bhindi Bazaar area ever try to protect Muslims in the areas where they were vulnerable and in the minority.

Evolution of Riots

Sometimes, however, Engineer is overzealous in his attempt to explain communal violence. For example, in his discussion of the evolution of riots, Engineer delineates four categories of people who participate in communal violence. These categories, in order, are: the organisers, the trained fighters, the people who spread rumours to inflame communal sentiment, and the people who have motivations other than communal hatred. Engineer’s categorisation does effectively convey the vast network of efforts that go into the planning and execution of what is often erroneously perceived as spontaneous violence.

It may be true that the four listed roles form the backbone of most communal riots and wanton violence. However, it is simplistic to conclude that therefore there must be only four distinct categories of people who contribute to the violence. The distillation of communal elements into four categories discounts the possibility that some people occupy two, or multiple of the niches Engineer presents. The first and fourth categories, in particular, seem to have a great deal of overlap, as do the first and third.

Not only do the four main categories of participants fail to include complicit law enforcement and political officials, they consciously omit the inclusion of people who are swept up in mobs and become participants of communal rioting. According to Engineer, the involvement of ordinary people who were simply swept up in mobs “was not on large scale”. It is unclear what Engineer’s source is for this fact. He cites two examples of interviewed Hindus who have, out of confusion and curiosity, engaged in throwing bombs and rocks at Muslim buildings. He later dismisses such involvement, saying that the same people later helped shelter and aid Muslims. But what were the circumstances that allowed the interviewed subjects to be receptive to the ideas of throwing petrol bombs and rocks? While moral culpability may be a tricky issue when it comes to mob mentality, and no one will dispute that a riot planner is much more at fault than someone “caught up in the moment”, participation in communal violence at all levels must be acknowledged and examined if we are to fully investigate the manner in which communalism and religious bigotry become entrenched in society. After all, many of the same social forces that caused the two interviewed subjects to throw weapons at mosques may have caused riot planners to become as prejudiced and vengeful as they are now.

Police Complicity

The strongest chapter in Engineer’s book addresses police complicity in communal riots and makes a nearly indisputable case for the need for more impartiality in the world of law enforcement. Engineer asserts that the Indian police’s extreme biases result in communal bloodshed continuing and escalating for far longer than it should. Engineer states chilling statistics; for example, during the first phase of communal rioting in 1992 in Mumbai, 192 of the 250 Muslims killed were shot by police. Out of those killed, over 90% died of injuries above the abdomen, “proving that police had fired to kill and not to disperse a rioting mob”. After the 1992 riots, 97% of riot victims from the Muslim community saw the police as their enemies. Meanwhile, 93% of Hindu victims stated they would approach the police for help during riots. This is only a small fraction of the frightening facts that Engineer uses to bolster his case.

Engineer proposes various measures that the police should take in order to become more responsible and impartial: they should maintain greater vigilance in the formative stages of riots, provide immediate assistance to all victims of violence, facilitate dialogue and reconciliation between community leaders, and counter rumours through the dissemination truth. These suggestions are excellent, and, more importantly, feasible.

Curtailment of Freedom of Speech

However, Engineer also suggests a measure that would only result in further abuse of power: the curtailment of freedom of speech. In addition to the above activities, Engineer states that proactive police intervention should consist of police “arresting those making provocative speeches” (p 20). Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of democracy, and generally, it should be upheld regardless of the abhorrence of a speech’s content. Having communal leaders punished for making speeches would likely make martyrs of them among their respective communities, further inflaming communal sentiments.

In addition to that, encouraging an already-biased law enforcement system to arrest people based on inflammatory speech would result in leaders of marginalised communities being arrested at a far more frequent rate than leaders of the majority community. Detaining people for acts of speech, of course, requires that law enforcement officials pass judgment in order to deem certain speech “inflammatory” or not. And as Engineer very correctly states, “police believe that to be communal is only prerogative of Muslims”, therefore, encouraging police to arrest more people based on violence-inciting speeches which would simply result in the disproportionate and unjust arrest of Muslims and the turning of many a blind eye to any inflammatory speech made by Hindus.

Law enforcement in India should instead concentrate on consistently halting instances of violence, because no police force alone is capable of changing ideological currents that shape the motivations for such violence. It is possible for police to vigilantly respond to hatred-fuelled speech acts – with increased security, countering of false rumours, surveillance of the speakers’ other activities, crowd control, etc – without arresting people for making the speeches. Encouraging the arrests of people based on their speech acts only further justifies and allows for acts like the Gujarat Congress Party’s shutdown of an entire television channel during the 2002 Godhra carnage, or the Mumbai police’s arrest of a young woman who posted a facebook status that was perceived as anti-Shiv Sena.

Impact on Minorities

In another extremely rhetorically powerful chapter, Engineer discusses the impact of a communal social climate on minority communities themselves, describing how groups respond to violence by isolating themselves from diversity, thus leading to more strife and distance between communities and thereby causing more violence and tension. This chapter should be required reading for anyone who makes the extremely common, victim-blaming argument that people who suffer communal violence should have known better than to openly “flaunt” their religion through their clothing and other orthodox practices. According to Engineer, it is the fear of violence that causes religious identity to “suddenly become the most important aspect of (people’s) existence – that can save or endanger (people’s lives)”.

A community’s turn inward is caused by “development of perception of self and ‘other’ binary in ethno-religious or religious-nationalist terms”. Engineer shows how this polarisation is manifested outwardly in many practices – “more men start wearing skull caps or growing beards increases after riots, men pray in mosques more often as identity markers. Muslim women start wearing burkha and conform to the expected norms of behaviour to identify with the community or as a measure for security.” In an extremely disturbing footnote, Engineer cites Sophia Khan, director of Social Action Forum Against Repression, Ahmedabad, who reported a significant decrease in the amount of Muslim women filing domestic violence cases, despite the fact that domestic violence was on the rise.

Conclusions

To conclude Issues of Communal Violence, Engineer briefly explores possible avenues for ameliorating communal violence in today’s society. He correctly asserts that building peace has to exist both at the state level as well as within society. The state, he argues, “will have to perceive the threat posed by communal violence and terrorism as a threat to democracy. One cannot be fought in isolation from the other (p 45).” He is correct; in order for a democracy to function all constituents must be able to participate in a society without fear for their lives and livelihoods. At only two pages, Engineer does not leave much room in this chapter for the elaboration of actual schemes that might start solving endemic problems of communalism, but that, of course, can be a topic for another book. As it currently reads, Issues of Communal Violence is an extremely well-crafted primer on the basic issues and causes behind communalism and its violent iterations.