The civil rights endowed with the minorities and the existence of social relations across ethnic boundaries have not prevented the occurrence of violence between ethnic groups. Over the years, form time to time, we have evidenced a great show of violence and hostility breaking out between ethnic groups. This surge of violence is a concerning issue for the government. The question arises as to why people who have co-existed peacefully for decades, suddenly turn hostile towards one another. The manifest issues are mostly religion and language.
In the following pages we shall examine a few of these issues and analyse the latent causes behind this violence.
Language Conflict
In recent years tension and conflict arose over the issues of language. The government’s desire to create a wider national movement in an otherwise segmental ethnic society, expedited tension in several parts of the country. The Government selected Hindi as the national language to create a national community by joining all the members of the different ethnic communities. This attempt at ‘unity in diversity’ has adverse effect on the Indian population. We have evidence of violence in the South like Tamil Nadu, where severe rioting took place over the Hindi issue. According to the non-Hindi speakers, the language policy of the government meant an advantage for the Hindi speakers, who are perceived to dominate the economic institutions and have political authority. To illustrate this type of conflict, we will describe the language conflict in Assam.
In Assam too, riots broke out in 1972, between the immigrant Bengali Hindus and the local Assamese population. The Assamese demand the withdrawal of the option of answering in Bengali. Earlier, similar riots had occurred after independence, when the Assamese had demanded their language be made the regional language. These conflicts must be viewed within the economic and political structure of Assam.
There are three communities that dominate the different sections of the economic sphere of Assam. The Bengali Muslims, who are migrants from Bangladesh, who either serve in the tea gardens or manage their own land; the Marwaris, who monopolise trade; and the Bengali Hindus, who are migrants from West Bengal, and dominate the administrative services. The Assamese were unable to avail these opportunities as they lacked in skills and contacts to take up banking activities of the Marwaris. Secondly, they lacked education to take up the administrative jobs. Finally, they were unwilling to work in the estates at low
wages.
India’s Independence had two effects on Assam. The Congress party that came to power in the State then, was dominated by Assamese and there was a growing emergence of an Assamese middle class. This middle class with its interest in the administrative services considered the Bengali Hindus an obstacle
to their economic advancement. Also an policy giving job preference to the Assamese would have automatically applied to the Bengali Hindus who have lived there for recruitment. These facts materialised in the growing fear of economic domination amongst the Assamese middle class who wanted to prevent
the growing economic strength of the Bengali Hindus. The Assamese middle class reacted through an assertive regional identity in order to claim their due share in the economic development.
Religious Conflict
The genesis of religious conflicts in India, is often attributed to the advent of Muslims to this country. But this kind of theorisation is erroneous, as communalism, as a socio-political form is a modern phenomenon. Tensions had prevailed between the Hindus and Muslims prior to the colonial rule, due to the expropriation or dispossession of power of the Hindus and Muslims (Malabar). But these tensions were accentuated later with the British introduction of electoral policy and the imperialist divide-and-rule policy, this gave rise to the competitiveness and hostility between the two communities. This later materialised in the emergence of the Muslim League leading to later the formation of Pakistan. Though the nationalist leaders believed that the communal problems will be resolved in the post-Independent period they were proved wrong. Let us look at some examples of ethnic conflict based directly on region.
1) Hindu- Muslim Conflicts in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh: The manifest cause behind the rioting of August 1980, was the entry of a pig in a congregation during id. Some 50,000 persons were gathered to listen to the qutbah or sermon, when the pig wandered inside violating the Muslim sense of cleanliness and defining the sanctity of the prayer. This incident was followed by looting, arson, rape by a frenzied mob. The rampaging and killing by one group was retaliated by the other party.
This incident throws light on in the socio-political structure of the town. The Muslims in this town had been traditional artisans engaged in making brassware vessels. Recently, some of them have started manufacturing brassware and exporting it to the West Asian countries. This has broken the existing monopoly of the immigrant Punjabi Businessmen. These immigrant Hindu Punjabis were originally from Pakistan who came to India after Partition. The relative success and prosperity of the Muslim businessmen distributed their Hindi counterparts. The Muslims were securing extensive orders from West Asian countries and their commonality of region with these West Asian countries magnified and adverse fears of the Hindu businessmen in communal lines. The Muslims were rapidly acquiring sufficient capital to purchase sophisticated tools, to own property and were expanding their business in a large scale. The Spectre of Muslims dominance and Gulf money was raised. The political parties exploited these fears. The trade interests and economic jealousies became instrumental in fanning the fires of communalism aided by political parties and financed by traders. A climate of hostility and suspicion was created, which resulted in violent rioting.
2) Hindu-Sikh Conflicts in Punjab : When viewing the Hindu-Sikh situation we are faced with a problem. Compared to the previous cases of language and religious conflicts discussed earlier, here we are confronted with people who are culturally well assimilated. The Hindus and the Sikhs in Punjab often intermarried. The case of one of the sons of a Punjab-Hindu family being converted to Sikhism is not uncommon. Unlike the Hindu-Muslim relations, there have been no historical animosity between the Sikhs and the Hindus. Yet sharp conflicts have arisen between the two communities in recent times. There has occurred a succession of violent happening. Starting with the killing of innocent people in Punjab, followed by the army action in the Golden Temple, and the subsequent assassination of the late Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. This assassination was followed by a frenzy of mass killing of Sikhs in Delhi and surrounding areas. There was a one-sided brutal assault on the Sikhs. Their property was set on fire and goods stolen from their shops. The whole community was made a scapegoat for the actions of a few co-religionists. The intensity of the violence was more on the outskirts of the city than within. The Punjab problem can be viewed in the light of the rivalry between onetime ruling Congress party at the Centre and the Akali Dal in Punjab. This militant political wing of the Sikh community demands not only religious autonomy but economic and political autonomy as well.
The Akalis represent the aspirations of the Sikh upper class, who have come in direct conflict with the Punjabi Hindu upper class. The difference in the ideologies of the Hindus and the Sikhs can be traced to their social division. A high proportion of the Sikhs reside in the rural areas and are engaged in rural
activities, where a high proportion of the Hindus live in the urban areas and follow commercial and administrative services. In their inter-commercial rivalry, the businessmen of the two communities find it to their advantage to mobilise their respective communities. The Akalis on their part want to assert their religious hold over the prosperous Jat Sikhs, who dominate the rural areas, and are getting increasingly alienated from the traditional regions hold. Thus, both for the Akalis and the affluent section of the Sikhs, the assertion of the communal identity by way of religious channel has become most essential for mass support. This growing need to alienate from the mainstream of Indian nationalism, derives its support and finance from affluent Sikhs, especially those residing abroad. Today, the Sikhs are divided into the terrorists, the supporter of the fundamentalist ideology and those who do not support it, the moderates.
Common Features of Ethnic Conflicts
Certain general features can be observed from the study of ethnic conflicts in India. These are:
Ethnic conflicts are a consequence of organised communal bodies. For the conflict to become a public issue, usually the organised bodies which are backed by political parties have to come to the fore. Thus communal bodies become institutionalised Ethnic conflicts indicate that whatever be the manifest cause-language, region or religion-the latent cause is not rooted in cultural disparity. Conflicting economic and political interests form the basis of the latent cause. The tensions generally arise when a minority group feels deprived of an equal position in either the economic or political sphere as compared to the majority group, uses the primary ties to motivate and activate their ethnic group against the dominant group. For instance, the Hindu-Sikh conflict is between peoples who are not culturally different, but rather are well assimilated group. Thus, we may say, that ethnic conflicts arise not because of mon common goals but because of conflicting interests.
The allegiance or the basis of group loyalty depends on the principle of mutual interest. For instance, during the 1972 Assam riots, the Bengali Muslims, who share cultural similarities with Bengali Hindus did not side with them, instead they supported the Assamese exchange of not being outside from their land, by the politically active Assamese.
SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF ETHNIC CONFLICTS
A coherent and effective response to ethnic conflicts has to keep in mind, the common as well as the unique factors which account for clashes between groups of people. Some insist that so long as economic inequalities exist, such clashes are bound to persist. Since it is not easy to end economic disparities between people, ethnic conflicts will also not be easy to stop.
Some others argue that before looking at the long-term solutions to these problems, certain immediate steps can be taken. Those who favour this suggest that the first step towards sustenance of communal harmony is to identify the causes that flare up riots. These are: (a) rumours, (b) suspicion against the other community, (c) building up sectarian feelings amongst people by religious heads, local political party, and self-styled leaders. To overcome these, it is important to induce encouragement in people to widen their perspectives, to keep an open mind and to be tolerant towards others. This can be achieved by encouraging the members of the different communities to have a dialogue, with each other. This would help in understanding the other community and also reflect their own limitations and the possibility of overcoming them. People favouring these measures also insist that cross-cultural participation must be more frequent, especially during festivities and ceremonies. The people in the riot prone areas must be made to understand not to give ear to rumours unless it is followed with evidence. Because of the absence of direct communications, politicians, selfstyled leaders and miscreants’ circular rumours which cannot be verified. This aggravates tensions. The process of sustenance of communal harmony is most essential in spite of it being slow and requiring a lot of patience and toil to reach to the grassroot level of society in order to motivate and socialise people.