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Understanding communal clashes during Ram Navami processions

Apr 06, 2023 08:07 PM IST

Places where clashes took place in the past two years have been flashpoints between Hindu and Muslim communities in the past too

Although communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims are not new to India, records reveal that those during Ram Navami processions are recent and have gained steam in the past few years alone. In fact, West Bengal had been the hotbed of such incidents in the past five years.

Security personnel cordon off an area after clashes broke out between two groups during a Ram Navami procession, in Howrah district. (PTI) PREMIUM
Security personnel cordon off an area after clashes broke out between two groups during a Ram Navami procession, in Howrah district. (PTI)

In 2023, at least 15 separate incidents of communal clashes between Hindus and Muslims were reported from six states — West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. Three people died in these separate incidents and several were injured.

Last year, 18 incidents of communal clashes were reported from 10 states — West Bengal, Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Jharkhand.

The Ram Navami celebrations were subdued in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and there were no major incidents of communal clashes. In 2019, a year before Covid-19, two major incidents of communal strife were reported, one each from Asansol in West Bengal and Jodhpur in Rajasthan, according to media reports. In 2018, major communal clashes took place across Bihar and West Bengal.

Data from state police departments shows sporadic incidents of communal clashes and violence during Ram Navami processions before 2018 — in 1993, 17 people were killed during the religious procession in Karnataka’s Bhatkal town, and in 1991, some houses were burnt in Bhadrak, Odisha.

This year in West Bengal, communal incidents related to Ram Navami were reported from Howrah, North Dinajpur and Rishra in Hooghly district, spread over three days, in which a person died and several others were injured. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “hiring goons from outside” and orchestrating communal riots in the state, sparking a war of words between the two parties. She is yet to visit any of the affected places.

In Bihar, communal clashes were reported from Bihar Sharif in Nalanda, Sasaram and Rohtas districts, which then spread to three more districts, reminiscent of the 2018 communal violence during Ram Navami that occurred in eight districts over three days. So far, the police have arrested 65 people for the clashes and on Wednesday chief minister Nitish Kumar said he will expose who is behind the incidents in a few days.

A striking similarity between the incidents in the two neighbouring non-BJP ruled states was that both states also witnessed clashes in 2018 – the year before the 2019 general elections. The next general elections are set to take place in 2024. “You can easily see a pattern,” said a TMC member of Parliament requesting anonymity.

Kolkata-based political science professor Udayan Bandopadhyay said: “These (Ram Navami violence) incidents are results of incitements from Hindu outfits helping the BJP. The BJP wants to gain ground through polarisation before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The rise in vote share of the Left and Congress in recent elections has made things difficult for the saffron camp,” Bandopadhyay said.

However, clashes were witnessed this year in BJP-ruled states, too.

Communal violence in Maharashtra that started in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar district (earlier Aurangabad) and Malad in Mumbai on Ram Navami day (March 30) continued till Wednesday (April 5) with another incident reported from Ahmednagar. Several minor clashes have been reported from some other places in the state such as Jalgaon and Mumbai. In 2022, communal violence during Ram Navami was reported from Amaravati district.

In Gujarat, two incidents of stone pelting on Ram Navami processions were reported from Vadodara in which some persons were injured. There was tension in state’s Gir Somnath district after a political activist Kajal Hindustani reportedly made a hate speech against a minority community.

In Hyderabad, BJP leader T Raja Singh was booked for making derogatory speech during a Ram Navami procession and in Jharkhand, a minor clash erupted between two communities was reported from Sahibganj district on April 1, in which some vehicles and shops were damaged. In Uttar Pradesh, a clash between two groups was reported from in Lucknow district; no one was injured.

The anatomy of a riot

“In most cases, the procession gets bigger by the time it reaches close to a minority dominated area and it becomes very difficult to control the huge rowdy mob. They divert the route to reach a minority religious place where sloganeering against a community starts and playing of loud religious music on a DJ takes place. Then, there is stone throwing from some homes and the riot starts,” explained a West Bengal police officer who has seen a spree of communal incidents in the state since 2018, when the first major communal violence incidents during Ram Navami procession took place across six districts.

Arup Chakravorty, retired professor of History, Lucknow University, said that communal tension in Ram Navami processions is recent and it started with the procession turning into a weapon display show. “I think Ram Navmi processions are a relatively recent development, going back to not more than 15 to 20 years at best. Before that we hadn't heard of such big Ram Navmi processions with loud music and all," he said.

India has a long history of communal riots during religious processions from Solapur in Maharashtra in 1967 to Bhiwandi, Jalgaon and Mahad in Maharashtra in 1970 to Jamshedpur in 1979 to Kota in Rajasthan and Bhagalpur in Bihar in 1989.

The reason for violence during these processions was similar to what is being seen in Ram Navami processions these days. Different inquiry commissions constituted after each of these riots found that religious processions were taken through Muslim dominated areas and “provocative” speeches were made, resulting in a clash and deaths.

While most of these incidents could be considered as one-off incidents, the Ram Navami processions got a major boost when in 1987 the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate groups started organising the huge processions across Indian cities. “During these processions swords were carried as display weapons,” Chakravorty said.

Many places, where communal clashes were reported during Ram Navami in the past two years, have a history of communal clashes. For instance, Bihar Sharif in Nalanda district that was rocked with communal strife on this Ram Navami, was also the focal point of communal clashes in 1946, a year before Independence, in which close to 8,000 people were killed.

Howrah district, where on March 30, there was a communal clash during a procession organised by Vishwa Hindu Parishad at the time of breaking Ramzan fast, had reported communal clashes during partition after Independence in 1947. Sambhaji Nagar, has a history of communal riots, where violence was reported after demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya by Hindu groups in 1992.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Chetan Chauhan is National Affairs Editor. A journalist for over two decades, he has written extensively on social sector and politics with special focus on environment and political economy.

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