Book Review
Mumbai Riots, 1992-3: Revisiting the Affected
Irfan Engineer
Director, Institute of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai, India. Email:
Riots and After in Mumbai: Chronicles of Truth and Reconciliation
By Meena Menon
Sage Publications, India;
2011, pp 267 + xcii, Rs. 595.
Major communal riots from 1950-2002 have claimed about 11,855 lives in India(Engineer, 2004),[1]Wilkinson suggests that overall number of casualties (dead and injured) since independence in Hindu-Muslim riots is arond 40,000(Wilkinson, Introduction, 2005).India is witnessing a low key but steady genocide. There have been a few major riots that continued for days or those in which over 500 persons were killed – in Nellie, Assam, in 1983, in Delhi in 1984, in Gujarat in the year 1969, 1985 and 2002; in Maharashtra in 1984 and 1992-93 and in Kandhamal in the year 2008 and 2009. Communal riots have now become a distinct feature of India, especially since the 1980s. Violence for the making and the marking of identity, collective and individual, is increasing(Robinson, 2005, p.19). Media covers the riots, generating temporary interest, and then it is business as usual, except for the victims, minorities, and a very small section who affirm secular governance and stand up for human rights. The section that stands for secular and impartial governance and for the human rights though disturbed and concerned, wield very little influence and are a voice of marginalized sections that gets drowned soon in the cacophony of development, progress, growth, stock markets, other issues that concerns politics of the country – like corruption, or extent of welfare measures, growing crime etc. There is a general outcry to forget the riot, and no one who planned, instigated, conspired and abetted the riot is punished and in most cases even the participants are not punished and victims more or less left to their own resources to survive. The policy of amnesia about riots and the victims leads to even larger riot (or some prefer to call it a pogrom) with even higher number of deaths and more ghastly atrocities and that continue for longer duration.
Paul Brass suggests that institutionalized riot systems have been created since independence in certain regions, particularly in north and western states in India, which can be activated during periods of political mobilization or at the time of elections. Communal violence is far from being spontaneous occurrences. The production of a riot, Brass argues, involves calculated and deliberate actions by key individuals, like recruitment of participants, provocative activities and conveying of messages, spreading of rumours, amongst other specific activities. There are frequent rehearsals until the time is ripe and the context is felicitous and there are no serious obstructions in carrying out the performance. While Varshney and Wilkinson find that riots occur where networks of engagements and intergroup communication or social networks linking administration and the community (or institutionalized peace system) are missing, Brass argues that producing riot requires institutionalized system of riot production (or IRS) and presence of such IRS in a city makes it riot prone. Though mere frequency of riots at a particular site does warrant the inference that a system of riot production exists, but its existence is not proved and must be demonstrated. The instigators and perpetrators of acts of collective violence have gone unrecognised and unnoticed for far too long. Brass further argues that even if civic engagements do exist in civil society in India, they cannot withstand the poser of political movements and forces that seek to create inter-communal violence. (Brass, Development Of An Institutionalsied Riot System In Meerut City, 1961 to 1982, 2004) “The communal riots during the [19]50s appear to be more the result of sudden outbursts of group violence. From the [19]60s communal riots appear to be systematically engineered. The loss of life during communal riots in the [19]50s was much less... Thus communal riots were becoming more bold-thirsty” (Desai, 1984, p. 22).
There is however, paucity of good literature on what happens to the victims of communal riots. One of the reasons for recurrence of communal riots is that there is a tendency to forget the victims and justice. There are fewer studies on the impact of the riots on communal relations in the long term resulting in near ignorance about the plight of the victims of riots and how they cope with the situation after riots. T.K.Oommen(2008) studied the Reconciliation in Post Godhra Gujarat. There have been few studies of victims of anti-Sikh riots in Delhi 1984. However, there have been none on the post-riot situation in Mumbai.
The book under review is a good contribution to the scarce literature on monitoring the situation of victims and long term implications of riots. Meena Menon revisits the victims of Mumbai riots that shook the city in 1992-93 and painstakingly chronicles their plight. She examines the process of Truth and Reconciliation and concludes that the victims are still waiting for the truth to be acknowledged and there is no reconciliation worth the name. The victims have been forced to reconcile to the position that they won’t get justice under the present dispensation which is inclined towards the majoritarian identity. The victims cope with the lack of reconciliation by deriving psychological satisfaction that God will punish the perpetrators of the riot and in fact God has punished many of them as they have been afflicted with deadly disease like HIV/AIDS. They also believe that many of the perpetrators died early from unnatural causes. The entire government machinery works to keep policemen and perpetrators of the riots out of the purview of punishment. Sarpotdar was the only politician who was handed down a sentence for his involvement in the riots and that too because of patrolling by the military personnel. Even Sarpotdar did not have to undergo the sentence. Most victims lost their livelihood and the compensation in most cases was as little as Rs 5000/- for the loss of property. There was very little community support to get back on track.
Meena Menon’s study concludes that perceptions about Muslims after the riots have hardened and the attitudes hardened for worst after repeated bomb blasts. The famed resilience of Mumbai is wearing thin as far as normalization of relations between the two communities is concerned. In the 1992-93 communal riots in the city, Muslims did not come across as a community that was offended but rather they deserved the treatment they got. Media coverage of the riots helped the perception that if not for the Shiv Sena, the majority community would have been finished. Post riots, even innocent members of the community faced communal profiling by security agencies, especially following bomb blasts.
Menon has extensively gathered information from the victims and documented their present situation. Segregation and ghettoization received a boost after riots. Many victims were forced to shift from the mixed localities against their will after the riots as they feared their security. The victims have lost confidence on the society, criminal justice system and police. Even on media, she concludes. Menon quotes one victim who told her ‘dil toot gaya, ab saha nahi jata’ (I am heartbroken, can’t bear anymore).
The documentation and chronicling would have had immense value if the author had worked out an overall perspective and drawn empirical conclusions which are missing. Even without empirical conclusions by the author, the book is a rich contribution to study of riots and its aftermath. The author also chronicles all the communal riots in Mumbai in her long introduction examining the sources from archives.
References:
Brass, P. R. (2004): ‘Development Of An Institutionalsied Riot System In MeerutCity, 1961 to 1982.’ Economic and Political Weekly Vol.XXXIX No. 44, October 30-November 5, 2004 , 4839-4848.
Brass, P. R. (2004): The Production Of Hindu-Mulsim Riot In Contemporary India.OxfordUniversity Press,Delhi.
Committee for the Protection of Democtratic Rights; Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana. (1993, March 01): The Bombay Riots: Myths and Realities. Retrieved March 22, 2011, from CSCS Archives / Human Rights / Civil Liberties:
Communalism Watch. (2009, February 28): Collective Felicitation of Farooq Mapkar and his Legal Team. Retrieved March 21, 2011, from Communalism Watch:
Desai, A. R. (1984): Caste And Communal Violence In Post-Partition Indian Union. In A. A. Engineer (Ed.), Communal Riots in Post-Independence India (pp. 10-32). Sangam Books, Hyderabad.
Engineer, A. A. (2004): Communal Riots After Independence - A Comprehensive Account. Shipra Publications,Delhi.
Engineer, A. A. (1997): ‘Communal Riots and the Role of the Police: Some Case Studies’. In I. A. Ansari (Ed.), Communal Riots: The State and Law in India (pp. 240-254). New Delhi: Institute of Objective Studies.
Riots at Mumbai During December 1992 and January 1993. Mumbai: Government of Maharashtra.
Robinson, R. (2005): Tremors of Violence - Muslim Survivors of Ethnic Strife in Western India. Sage Publications India , New Delhi.
Varshney, A., & Wilkinson, S. I. (1995): ‘Hindu Muslim Riots In India (1960-1993): What We Know’ Towards Secular India, VOl. 1, No. 4 - October- December 1995 , 34-83.
Wilkinson, S. I. (2005): Introduction. In S. I. Wilkinson (Ed.), Critical Issues in Indian Politics: Religious Politics and Communal Violence (pp. 1-33). OxfordUniversity Press,New Delhi.
eSS Book Review, Engineer on Menon
February 2012
1.This figure is computed from Table 24, Pp 230-235 in the book under reference. The figure is merely indicative and may not be an accurate figure. There are discrepancies in different tables given at the end of the book depending on the source from which the table is derived. Table 17 on page223-224 gives a total figure of those killed in riots as 14,686 in 13,952 incidences of riots with 68,182 injured for the same period – 1950-2002. These figures also do not include communal riots in Nellie, Assam, in which more than 3000 persons were killed.)