Communal violence is a form of violence that is perpetrated across ethnic or communal lines, where the violent parties feel solidarity for their respective groups and victims are chosen based upon group membership. [1] The term includes conflicts, riots and other forms of violence between communities of different religious faith or ethnic origins. [2]
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime includes any conflict and form of violence between communities of different religious groups, different sects or tribes of same religious group, clans, ethnic origins or national origin as communal violence. [3] However, this excludes conflict between two individuals or two families.
Communal violence is found in Africa, [4] [5] the Americas, [6] [7] Asia, [8] [9] Europe [10] and Oceania. [11]
The term "communal violence" was coined by European colonial authorities as they wrestled to manage outbreaks of violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in their colonies, particularly Africa and South Asia, in early 20th century. [12] [13] [14]
Communal violence, in different parts of the world, is alternatively referred to as ethnic violence, religious violence, non-State conflict, violent civil disorder, minorities unrest, mass racial violence, inter-communal violence and ethno-religious violence. [15]
Human history has experienced numerous episodes of communal violence. [18] For example, in medieval Europe, Protestants clashed with Catholics, Christians clashed with Muslims, and Christians perpetuated violence against Jews and Roma. In 1561, Huguenots in Toulouse took out in a procession through the streets to express their solidarity for Protestant ideas. A few days later, the Catholics hunted down some of the leaders of the procession, beat them and burned them at the stake. [19] In the French town of Pamiers, communal clashes were routine between Protestants and Catholics, such as during holy celebrations where the Catholics took out a procession with a statue of St. Anthony, sang and danced while they carried the statue around town. Local Protestants would year after year disrupt the festivities by throwing stones at the Catholics. In 1566, when the Catholic procession reached a Protestant neighborhood, the Protestants chanted "kill, kill, kill !!" and days of communal violence with numerous fatalities followed. [20] In 1572, thousands of Protestants were killed by Catholics during communal violence in each of the following cities – Paris, Aix, Bordeaux, Bourges, Lyon, Meaux, Orleans, Rouen, Toulouse, and Troyes. [16] [17] In Switzerland, communal violence between the Reformation movement and Catholics marked the 16th century. [21] Ireland has a long history of communal violence with the period between July 1920 and July 1922 being particularly violent. This period of time saw the partition of Ireland and the establishment of Northern Ireland. The violence that occurred during this time in several towns/cities within Northern Ireland has been referred to as the Belfast Pogrom.
The Horn of Africa and the rest of Western Africa have a similar history of communal violence. Nigeria has seen centuries of communal violence between different ethnic groups particularly between Christian south and Islamic north. [22] [23] In 1964, after receiving independence from British rule, there were widespread communal violence in the ethnically diverse state of Zanzibar. The violent groups were Arabs and Africans, that expanded along religious lines, and the communal violence ultimately led to the overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar. [24] [25] Local radio announced the death of tens of thousands of "stooges", but later estimates for deaths from Zanzibar communal violence have varied from hundreds to 2,000-4,000 to as many as 20,000. [26] [27] In late 1960s and early 1970s, there were widespread communal violence against Kenyans and Asians in Uganda with waves of theft, physical and sexual violence, followed by expulsions by Idi Amin. [28] [29] Idi Amin mentioned his religion as justification for his actions and the violence. [30] Coptic Christians have suffered communal violence in Egypt for decades, [31] with frequency and magnitude increasing since 1920s. [32]
Communalism is a term historically used to denote attempts to construct religious or ethnic identity, incite strife between people identified as different communities, and to foment communal violence between those groups, particularly in Asia. [33] It derives from history, differences in beliefs, and tensions between the communities. [34] Communalism is a significant social issue in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. [34] Communal conflicts between religious communities in India, especially Hindus and Muslims have occurred since the period of British colonial rule, occasionally leading to serious inter-communal violence. [35]
The term communalism was coined by the British colonial government as it wrestled to manage Hindu-Muslim riots and other violence between religious, ethnic and disparate groups in its colonies, particularly in British West Africa and the Cape Colony, in early 20th century. [12] [36] [37]
The 4th Earl of Minto was called the father of communal electorates for legalising communalism by the Morley-Minto Act in 1909. [38] The All-India Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha represented such communal interests, and the Indian National Congress represented an overarching "nationalist" vision. [39] In the runup to independence in 1947, communalism and nationalism came to be competing ideologies and led to the division of British India into Pakistan and the Republic of India. British historians have attributed the cause of the partition to the communalism of Jinnah and the political ambitions of the Indian National Congress. [40]
East, South and Southeast Asia have recorded numerous instances of communal violence. For example, Singapore suffered a wave of communal violence in 20th century between Malays and Chinese. [41] In Indian subcontinent, numerous 18th through 20th century records of the British colonial administration mention communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, as well as Sunni and Shia sects of Islam, particularly during processions related to respective religious celebrations. [42] [43]
The frequency of communal violence in South Asia increased after the first partition of Bengal in 1905, where segregation, unequal political and economic rights were imposed on Hindus and Muslims by Lord Curzon, based on religion. The colonial government was viewed by each side as favoring the other side, resulting in a wave of communal riots and 1911 reversal of Bengal partition and its re-unification. [44] In 1919, after General Dyer ordered his soldiers to fire on unarmed protestors inside a compound in Amritsar, killing 380 civilians, communal violence followed in India against British migrants. [45] There were hundreds of incidents of communal violence between 1905 and 1947, many related to religious, political sovereignty questions including partition of India along religious lines into East Pakistan, West Pakistan and India. [46] The 1946 to 1947 period saw some of the worst communal violence of 20th century, where waves of riots and violence killed between 100,000 and a million people, from Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Jain religions, particularly in cities and towns near the modern borders of India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh. Examples of these communal violence include the so-called Direct Action Day, Noakhali riots and the Partition riots in Rawalpindi. [47] [48]
It has recently been argued that in the post-colonial era, communal riots between the Hindus and the Muslims contributed to the making of Muslim ghettos in those cities that had witnessed sustained communal mobilizations. It has furthermore been shown that the communalized real estate market, urban planning, and communal mobilizations often come to constitute each other in developing spatial majoritarianism. [49]
The 20th century witnessed inter-religious, intra-religious and ethnic communal violence in the Middle East, South Russia, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. [12] [50]
The Indian law defines communal violence as, "any act or series of acts, whether spontaneous or planned, resulting in injury or harm to the person and or property, knowingly directed against any person by virtue of his or her membership of any religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes within the meaning of clauses (24) and (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution of India" [51]
In Indonesia, communal violence is defined as that is driven by a sense of religious, ethnic or tribal solidarity. The equivalence of tribalism to ethnicity was referred locally as kesukuan. [12] Communal violence in Indonesia includes numerous localized conflicts between various social groups found on its islands. [52]
In Kenya, communal violence is defined as that violence that occurs between different community who identify themselves based on religion, tribes, language, sect, race and others. Typically this sense of community identity comes from birth and is inherited. [53] Similar definition has been applied for 47 African countries, where during 1990–2010, about 7,200 instances of communal violence and inter-ethnic conflicts has been seen. [54]
Colm Campbell has proposed, after studying the empirical data and sequence of events during communal violence in South Africa, Palestinian Territories and Northern Ireland, that communal violence typically follows when there is degradation of rule of law, the state fails to or is widely seen as unable to provide order, security and equal justice, which then leads to mass mobilization, followed by radicalization of anger among one or more communities, and ultimately violent mobilization. Targeted mass violence by a few from one community against innocent members of other community, suppression of complaints, refusal to prosecute, killing peaceful demonstrators, imprisonment of people of a single community while refusal to arrest members of other community in conflict, perceived or actual prisoner abuse by the state are often the greatest mobilizers of communal violence. [55] [56]
Research suggests that ethnic segregation may also cause communal violence. Empirically estimating the effect of segregation on the incidence of violence across 700 localities in Rift Valley Province of Kenya after the contested 2007–2008 general election, Kimuli Kahara finds that local ethnic segregation increases communal violence by decreasing interethnic trust rather than by making it easier to organize violence. [57] Even if a small minority of individuals prefer to live in ethnically homogenous settings due to fear of other ethnic groups or otherwise, it can result in high degrees of ethnic segregation. [58] Kahara argues that such ethnic segregation decreases the possibility of positive contact across ethnic lines. [59] Integration and the resultant positive interethnic contact reduces prejudice by allowing individuals to correct false beliefs about members of other ethnic groups, improving intergroup relations consequently. [60] Thus, segregation is correlated with low levels of interethnic trust. This widespread mistrust along ethnic lines explains the severity of communal violence by implying that when underlying mistrust is high, it is easier for extremists and elites to mobilize support for violence, and that where violence against members of other ethnic groups is supported by the public, perpetrators of such violence are less likely to face social sanctions. [61]
In China, the communal violence in Xinjiang province is called ethnic violence. [62] Communal violence and riots have also been called non-State conflict, [63] violent civil or minorities unrest, [64] mass racial violence, [65] social or inter-communal violence [66] and ethno-religious violence. [67]
Religious persecution is the systematic oppression of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or their lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within societies to alienate or repress different subcultures is a recurrent theme in human history. Moreover, because a person's religion frequently determines his or her sense of morality, worldview, self-image, attitudes towards others, and overall personal identity to a significant extent, religious differences can be significant cultural, personal, and social factors.
The Partition of India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent and the creation of two independent dominions in South Asia: India and Pakistan. The Dominion of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Pakistan—which at the time comprised two regions lying on either side of India—is now the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947. The change of political borders notably included the division of two provinces of British India, Bengal and Punjab. The majority Muslim districts in these provinces were awarded to Pakistan and the majority non-Muslim to India. The other assets that were divided included the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Royal Indian Air Force, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. Provisions for self-governing independent Pakistan and India legally came into existence at midnight on 14 and 15 August 1947 respectively.
Sectarianism is a debated concept. Some scholars and journalists define it as pre-existing fixed communal categories in society, and use it to explain political, cultural, or religious conflicts between groups. Others conceive of sectarianism as a set of social practices where daily life is organized on the basis of communal norms and rules that individuals strategically use and transcend. This definition highlights the co-constitutive aspect of sectarianism and people's agency, as opposed to understanding sectarianism as being fixed and incompatible communal boundaries.
Sectarian violence and/or sectarian strife is a form of communal violence which is inspired by sectarianism, that is, discrimination, hatred or prejudice between different sects of a particular mode of an ideology or different sects of a religion within a nation/community. Religious segregation often plays a role in sectarian violence.
Religious segregation is the separation of people according to their religion. The term has been applied to cases of religious-based segregation which occurs as a social phenomenon, as well as segregation which arises from laws, whether they are explicit or implicit.
Islam is India's second-largest religion, with 14.2% of the country's population, or approximately 172.2 million people, identifying as adherents of Islam in a 2011 census. India also has the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. The majority of India's Muslims are Sunni, with Shia making up around 15% of the Muslim population.
Direct Action Day was the day the All-India Muslim League decided to take a "direct action" using general strikes and economic shut down to demand a separate Muslim homeland after the British exit from India. Also known as the 1946 Calcutta Riots, it soon became a day of communal violence in Calcutta. It led to large-scale violence between Muslims and Hindus in the city of Calcutta in the Bengal province of British India. The day also marked the start of what is known as The Week of the Long Knives. While there is a certain degree of consensus on the magnitude of the killings, including their short-term consequences, controversy remains regarding the exact sequence of events, the various actors' responsibility and the long-term political consequences.
The Bombay riots were a series of riots that took place in Bombay, Maharashtra, between December 1992 and January 1993. An estimated 900 people, predominantly Muslims, were killed. The riots were mainly due to escalations of hostilities after large scale protests by Muslims in reaction to the 1992 Babri Masjid Demolition by Hindu Karsevaks in Ayodhya; and by Hindus in regards with the Ram Temple issue.
Indian nationalism is an instance of territorial nationalism, which is inclusive of all of the people of India, despite their diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds. Indian nationalism can trace roots to pre-colonial India, but was fully developed during the Indian independence movement which campaigned for independence from British rule. Indian nationalism quickly rose to popularity in India through these united anti-colonial coalitions and movements. Independence movement figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose, and Jawaharlal Nehru spearheaded the Indian nationalist movement. After Indian Independence, Nehru and his successors continued to campaign on Indian nationalism in face of border wars with both China and Pakistan. After the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 and the Bangladesh Liberation War, Indian nationalism reached its post-independence peak. However by the 1980s, religious tensions reached a melting point and Indian nationalism sluggishly collapsed in the following decades. Despite its decline and the rise of religious nationalism, Indian nationalism and its historic figures continue to strongly influence the politics of India and reflect an opposition to the sectarian strands of Hindu nationalism and Muslim nationalism.
From a historical perspective, Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed of the University of Stockholm and Professor Shamsul Islam of the University of Delhi classified the Muslims of Colonial India into two categories during the era of the Indian independence movement: nationalist Muslims and Muslim nationalists. The All India Azad Muslim Conference represented nationalist Muslims, while the All-India Muslim League represented the Muslim nationalists. One such popular debate was the Madani–Iqbal debate.
Hinduism in Fiji is the second-largest religion, and primarily has a following among Indo-Fijians, the descendants of indentured workers brought to Fiji by the British as cheap labour for colonial sugarcane plantations. Hindus started arriving in Fiji starting in 1879 and continuing through 1920, when Britain abolished the slavery-like indenture system. Fiji identifies people as "Indo-Fijians" if they can trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent, Hindus form about 27.9% the population of Fiji.
Interactions between Muslims and Hindus began in the 7th century, after the advent of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. These interactions were mainly by trade throughout the Indian Ocean. Historically, these interactions formed contrasting patterns in northern and southern India. While there is a history of conquest and domination in the north, Hindu-Muslim relations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been peaceful. However, historical evidence has shown that violence had existed by the year 1700 A.D.
Religious violence in India includes acts of violence by followers of one religious group against followers and institutions of another religious group, often in the form of rioting. Religious violence in India has generally involved Hindus and Muslims.
The cow protection movement is a predominantly Hindu religion and political movement aiming to protect cows, whose slaughter has been broadly opposed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians and Sikhs. While the opposition to slaughter of animals, including cows, has extensive and ancient roots in Indian history, the term refers to modern movements dating back to colonial era British India. The earliest such activism is traceable to Namdhari (Kooka) Sikhs of Punjab who opposed cow slaughter in the 1860s. The movement became popular in the 1880s and thereafter, attracting the support from the Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayananda Saraswati in the late 19th century, and from Mahatma Gandhi in the early 20th century.
Self-segregation or auto-segregation is the separation of a religious, ethnic, or racial group from other groups in a country by the group itself naturally. This usually results in decreased social interactions between different ethnic, racial or religious groups and can be classed as a form of social exclusion.
The 1969 Gujarat riots involved communal violence between Hindus and Muslims during September–October 1969, in Gujarat, India. The violence was Gujarat's first major riot that involved massacre, arson, and looting on a large scale. It was the most deadly Hindu-Muslim violence since the partition of India in 1947, and remained so until the 1989 Bhagalpur violence.
There have been several instances of religious violence against Muslims since the partition of India in 1947, frequently in the form of violent attacks on Muslims by Hindu nationalist mobs that form a pattern of sporadic sectarian violence between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Over 10,000 people have been killed in Hindu-Muslim communal violence since 1950 in 6,933 instances of communal violence between 1954 and 1982.
Opposition to the Partition of India was widespread in British India in the 20th century and it continues to remain a talking point in South Asian politics. Those who opposed it often adhered to the doctrine of composite nationalism in the Indian subcontinent. The Hindu, Christian, Anglo-Indian, Parsi and Sikh communities were largely opposed to the Partition of India, as were many Muslims.
Composite nationalism is a concept that argues that the Indian nation is made up of people of diverse ethnicities, cultures, tribes, castes, communities, and faiths. The idea teaches that "nationalism cannot be defined by religion in India." While Indian citizens maintain their distinctive religious traditions, they are members of one united Indian nation. Composite nationalism maintains that prior to the arrival of the British into the subcontinent, no enmity between people of different religious faiths existed; and as such these artificial divisions can be overcome by Indian society.