3 of 5 states with highest communal incidents in 2017 set to go to polls: How riot by design works
The BJP has adopted communal polarisation as an established poll strategy.
The central government has informed the Parliament that 2017 saw 822 communal incidents in the country, which killed 111 people and injured 2,384. The figures are the highest since the BJP government came to power in 2014.
The most number of incidents were reported from Uttar Pradesh (195), followed by Karnataka (100), Rajasthan (91), Bihar (85) and Madhya Pradesh (60).
The statistics, prepared by the ministry of home affairs, point to a chilling trend – three of the top five states are headed for crucial Assembly polls within months, and in the other two, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the BJP has recently formed the government.
The states that come next are Bengal (58 incidents), where the BJP has embarked on a determined campaign to make inroads, and Gujarat (50), which again saw the Assembly polls conclude recently.
Has the BJP thus adopted communal polarisation as an established poll strategy? Also, even after coming to power, it is apparently unable, or unwilling, to rein in hardline elements.
Bihar and UP
It has been well documented by now that the BJP’s spectacular victory in Uttar Pradesh a year ago was ushered in through rampant hate campaigns and fearmongering, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself establishing the shamshan-kabristan binary.
Before that, in Assam, where the BJP registered a historic victory, the run-up to the polls had been marked by a five-fold increase in communal incidents.
A few months ago, in 2015, the lead-up to elections in Bihar had seen a similar rise in communal clashes.
The BJP lost the election, but managed to engineer an upset and joined the government as the JD (U)’s ally in July 2017. Soon, Hindutva forces began flexing their muscles, and by September, the town of Araria had seen violent protests over the “sacrifice of a cow” on Eid ul-Adha (the BJP lost the Araria by-poll on March 14).
Recently, the Bhagalpur riots-tainted IPS officer Krishna Swaroop Dwivedi was appointed as the state’s police chief, prompting many to comment that this marked the end of CM Nitish Kumar’s tryst with secularism.
Uttar Pradesh, the glittering jewel in the saffron crown, has been on the boil ever since the BJP came to power. From Muslims being attacked for their clothes and mere meals to Christian schools and missionaries targeted, achhe din seem to have become elusive for the minorities.
The ruling party’s leaders are openly supporting those accused of killing Muslims – Sangeet Som had promised he would try to get bail for Mohammad Akhlaq lynching accused, and 15 of the 18 did – and fanning hatred through lies, as was seen in the aftermath of the Kasganj riot.
Thus, while Bihar has seen communal clashes go up despite the balancing effect of chief minister Nitish Kumar, Uttar Pradesh has turned into a tinderbox, one flame away from disaster.
Karnataka
Karnataka is scheduled to go to the polls soon and, over the past few months, witnessed hectic campaigning by the BJP. Attempts to frame the election as pro-Hindu versus anti-Hindu – by portraying CM and Congress leader Siddaramaiah as a "Muslim sympathiser" – have already begun, by no less than BJP chief Amit Shah and BJP's new star campaigner Adityanath.
On January 10 this year, Shah, addressing a rally in Karnataka's Holalkere region, had said: “As many as 21 BJP and RSS workers have been killed in Karnataka in the last three years and the government is not even investigating it. When the BJP comes to power, it will send all the people to jail. This government is an anti-Hindu government.”
Before that, Adityanath had labelled the Siddaramaiah government anti-Hindu for overturning the beef ban that the BJP had brought in when in power in Karnataka.
Southern Karnataka has always been a communal cauldron, but violence in the recent months has spread to the northern parts of the state too, aided by the likes of BJP leaders Anant Kumar Hegde and Shobha Karandlaje, who have used the same combination of lies, threats and hate speeches to demonise and intimidate Muslims.
The celebration of Tipu Sultan Jayanti has been used as another point of polarisation, with Hegde in 2017 calling the emperor a “brutal killer, wretched fanatic and mass rapist”.
The ground, thus, is being laid for Hindus in Karnataka to vote en-block for the BJP. The resultant clashes between communities are sadly viewed as little more than collateral damage.
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh
Both these states are ruled by the BJP, and both chief ministers – Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in MP – are facing anti-incumbency. Faced with discontent from different caste groups and farmers, Raje has been playing the Hindutva card rather liberally.
Alwar lynching victim Pehlu Khan and his companions were branded cow smugglers, while their murderers are yet to be caught. The Karni Sena was allowed to run wild over the Padmaavat controversy. Shambhulal Regar, who killed a Muslim man as “punishment for love jihad”, and encountered no obstacle when, from within jail, he made a video justifying the murder and continued to spread hate.
Again, all these are targeted acts meant to pit Hindus against other communities. They are not spontaneous clashes between people, but, as American political scientist Paul R Brass puts it, “institutionalised systems of riot production”, put in place by the ruling party.
In Madhya Pradesh, both Muslims and Christians continue to feel inhibited and unsafe.
By-polls lesson?
The defeats suffered in the recent by-polls, in UP, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, should hopefully come as a lesson to the BJP that communal polarisation with criminal consequences is not a substitute for fulfilling promises made to voters.
However, the other possibility is that a panicked party may amp up its divisive tactics, and more lives are exchanged for votes.