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ABSTRACT
What factors explain the recent rise of Hindu–Muslim violence in rural India? Using the 2013 communal riots that broke out in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts as a theory-building case, this article advances two arguments to account for this important development. First, it holds that these clashes must be understood against the backdrop of the high-stakes 2014 general elections, which generated incentives for several national and regional parties to use conflict as a means to win votes. Second, the paper demonstrates that politicians chose to strategically instrumentalize violence among rural—rather than urban—communities because of the lower likelihood of backlash expected from rural voters. In contrast to urban voters, who have repeatedly experienced such clashes and who have developed a willingness to punish violence-wielding politicians, rural voters' relative lack of exposure to communal riots made them both more easily mobilizable and less likely to sanction elites in 2013. Qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews, official government records, and newspaper reports from two rural (Muzaffarnagar and Shamli) and one urban district (Meerut) in Uttar Pradesh as well as New Delhi provide support for these arguments.
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to Ursula Daxecker, Pippa Norris, Tariq Thachil, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on previous versions of this article. Acknowledgements are also due to Richard Lent at the College of the Holy Cross who provided vital GIS support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 In a related vein, simulation studies have highlighted that fewer governments led by the Indian National Congress (INC) would have resulted in significantly more riots in India (Nellis, Weaver, and Rosenzweig Citation2016).
2 According to an alternative narrative, however, a motorcycle collision between a Hindu and a Muslim triggered the riots (Khyati Citation2016). Due to space constraints, this article focuses on the alleged harassment in its discussion of the triggers that led to the violence.
3 Horowitz (Citation2001, 382) notes that riots are predominantly urban because precipitants and the ethnic heterogeneity of cities support instrumentalizing such conflict. Similarly, Brass (Citation1997:, 20) finds that the possibilities to mobilize large groups of people, easily spread rumors, and carry out attacks with anonymity make urban areas more riot-prone than their rural counterparts.
4 Shamli was carved out of Muzaffarnagar district in 2011. While Muzaffarnagar and Shamli were the epicenters of conflict in 2013, three adjoining districts—Meerut (urban) where two deaths occurred and Saharanpur (rural) and Baghpat (rural) where one fatality each were reported—experienced low-level clashes.
5 While the author was working on a related project in Meerut in August 2013, violence broke out in Muzaffarnagar. As it was not advisable to travel to this district at the time, the village-level fieldwork in Uttar Pradesh was carried out in 2015 and 2016. In the meantime, the author conducted interviews in Meerut and New Delhi. Thus data collection took place in 2013, 2015, and 2016, and the period under investigation here is the timeframe in 2013 prior to and during which the riots occurred.
6 In India, this has been the case in the towns of Ahmedabad and Vadodara in Gujarat.
7 The Jats are an agricultural community who live in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, and Punjab. Jats practice many different religions, including Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism.
8 This is one of the categories under which communal incidents in India are classified. The other category is “Accident.”
9 Since 2002, the BSP has had some success in increasing its vote share—from 9% in 2002 (Verma Citation2002) to 20% in 2012—among UP's Muslims.
10 All results are as reported by the Election Commission of India.
11 One BJP politician even stands accused of circulating a fake video about the deaths of Sachin and Gaurav on YouTube (Raghuvanshi Citation2015).
12 The following data demonstrates Meerut's decline in the incidence and scale of Hindu–Muslim conflict: while 184 and 49 individuals died during communal riots in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, between 2000 and 2010, only three riot-related deaths occurred in the city.