1984 Maharashtra riots

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1984 Maharashtra riots
Location Maharashtra, India
DateMay 1984
Target Muslims
Deaths278
Injured1,118
Perpetrator Shiv Sena

In May 1984, a month long series of religious violence against Muslims occurred in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The violence primarily occurred around Bhiwandi town. It left 146 people dead and over 600 injured. [1] [2] On 17 May 1984, riots broke out in industrial belt from Bombay, Thane, and Bhiwandi. Overall, 278 were killed and 1,118 were left wounded. [3] [4] [5] The increasingly harsh anti-Muslim rhetoric and radical tactics of the Shiv Sena, a Hindutva political party, directly caused the riots. In April 1984, at Chowpatty Beach in Bombay, Bal Thackeray delivered an anti-Muslim speech in which he repeatedly employed the offensive term landya and called Muslims "a cancer." [6]

Its only cure is operation.... Oh, Hindus, take weapons in your hands and remove this cancer from its very roots.

—  Bal Thackeray [6]

References

  1. ↑ Ghosh, Srikanta (22 September 1997). Indian Democracy Derailed Politics and Politicians. APH Publishing. ISBN   9788170248668.
  2. ↑ "Bhiwandi riots: Four held from Malegaon". The Indian Express . 20 July 2006.
  3. ↑ Hansen 2001 , p.  77
  4. ↑ Asgharali Engineer (1991). Communal Riots in Post-independence India. Universities Press. p. 330. ISBN   8173701024.
  5. ↑ Hansen, Thomas Blom (2001). Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-08840-2.
  6. 1 2 Hansen, Thomas Blom (5 June 2018). Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-18862-1.


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