Hindu-Muslim violence is changing

Actually, I think there is another dimension to this discussion, which I thinks beings with looking at Maoist insurgencies. In addition to communal violence, insurgencies have gone down over the years as well since the government started changing its traditional strategies. Historically, they used the military and physical force to capture the Maoist insurgents, but often these individuals were able to evade capture due to the support of the local tribal populations that felt disenfranchised.

The government switched up this strategy with financial incentives like roads, infrastructure, or health care services being provided to the tribal population, which indirectly provided a pathway for the military to move into insurgent spaces. Like roads gave access to isolated forested regions and a path to move troops around. Ironically enough, this caused the tribals to turn on their insurgents as a significant portion of them opposed development plans that would benefit tribal populations, but would have the insurgents’ positions. Something this resulted in active violence against the tribes that the insurgents were originally supposed to be fighting for, which caused them to turn on them.

A significant portion of the communal violence, especially in places like Kashmir, which remains a major centre for insurgency. This new strategy has started to be implemented there as well. Another thing would be the fact that new insurgency management techniques and technology have been pioneered in many parts of the world. I am going to say something, I am not trying to place moral value judgment here, I am passing on something I was told by someone. I genuinely do not want to get into a geopolitical topic that I find quite unpleasant. Aside from that warning, I was told by someone (for better or worse) that the insurgency tactics used by Israel in places like the West Bank have been adopted by many other groups across the world since they were somewhat successful. Think of the Pegasus spyware business that happened a few years ago in America and India. Anti-riot and Anti-insurgency technology has come a long way. The success of these tactics and technology still doesn’t guarantee everything every time.

Another factor would be the financial complications of riots. For one, no one can truly control riots in any meaningful manner since rioters will start attacking each other and property. The only thing that remains in control is the trigger and the response, so the damage in many instances is quite severe. Post-90’s reforms, private businesses have expanded in their role within the economy and have come to finance many political parties over the years. I am pretty sure Tata or Ambani aren’t exactly happy with the financial costs of riots, in addition to the fact that excess violence is a bigger deterrent to foreign direct investments in their stock portfolio. Above all else, riots are things that exist beyond the state’s control, and I am pretty sure no leader likes having people who are beyond their control. None of this includes the fact that ordinary people have a lot more to lose these days, since financial conditions have improved, so losing money isn’t something that they are more willing to do.

Above all else, the BJP and their predecessors of the UPA era, Congress leaders tend to gravitate more towards neoliberal politics that focus more on financial politics. Violence (communal or otherwise) just doesn’t have the political gains that it once did in the past. In the olden days, feudalism was around extensively, food insecurity was common, and broader caste/religion conflicts were sharpened due to the partition, as well as their amplification due to poor socioeconomic conditions. Violence was a lot easier to incite and get away with since it was a lot easier to justify your actions when people aren’t recording your every move.

I still remember stories from my grandparents’ time, when they mentioned literal class warfare between the communists and the Jemni landlords, including revenge killings and actual bombs. These inciting things are harder when most people have a lot to lose and face social backlash. Even the riots in Gujarat during the 2000s resulted in a lot of international backlash, including Modi being blacklisted from entering the U.S. The BJP (or Modi at least) doesn’t want to lose their international relations, and they seem to value the opinions of other countries if the Nupur Sharma business is anything to go by.

Mind you, none of this means that communal violence or insurgency is completely gone in Manipur, Phalgam, or every other occasional incident. The number has definitely increased, considering the fact that a polarized political environment doesn’t really produce positive relations between people, and violence, once in a while, does produce electoral results. At the same time, it has really crossed the same thresholds as the past. I remember reading a statistic that stated that close to 2,000 people have died in communal incidents between 2015 and 2021 (I might be misremembering some of the dates). The same number of people died during the Gujarat riots of the 2000s; the recent rise is bad, but it is still better than the last major incident to happen, so there does seem to be some clear restraint. I guess everyone is abiding by Kautaliya’s adage that “Danda” should be the last option after Sama, Dana, and Bheda.

All of these trends in some essence relate to the idea that the government has a monopoly on violence, as told by Max Weber. The argument here was that traditional feudal societies were structured in a manner where religious courts and private individuals could engage in different acts of violence independent of the state. Over time, with the introduction of the centralized nation-state and the transition from feudalism to modern capitalist societies, the government gradually gained a monopoly on violence. The government maintains this monopoly as it is seen as the only legitimate form of violence within the present society, where the right to violence is given by the state, and can just as easily be taken away.

India in the pre-1990’s represented a mixed society where feudal value systems and practices still held significant sway over society, hence violence was never really the government’s monopoly. Once the 90’s kicked in, the whole of society shifted from feudal to a somewhat more capitalistic mode of organization that saw an even greater centralization of power around the governing apparatus. Riots in the pre-90s were possible since the state didn’t monopolize violence, but the economic reforms changed this practice. Riots in our present time strip the state of its monopoly, especially when state-sanctioned violence can de-legitimize the state’s authority to use violence. Even the BJP wouldn’t want its citizens to start riots since it’s something that they can’t control; after all, a raging mob doesn’t differentiate between the state enforcers or their main target. For example, the communal Holi riot of 1757 involved a mob hurling rocks at a Muslim judge’s office as much as it involved attacking a Hindu merchant’s home; the mob didn’t particularly care about who they attacked in their frenzy. In this new reality, the main issues relating to Indian muslims these days heavily stem from segregation, animal bans, discriminatory hiring practices, poverty, and other more mundane systematic issues that affect daily life.