India’s violent spring

Press, 8 May 1978, Page 20

India’s violent spring

From the “Economist,” London

India has just passed through what may well have been its most senselessly violent month in 30 years of independence. Death tolls have been higher before, but never have so many riots occurred in so many states for so many unconnected reasons. All the endemic conflicts in Indian society seemed to be surfacing at once: caste and communal rivalries, labour unrest, taxpayers’ revolts, student militancy, all exacerbated by trigger-happy police and power-hunsr. politicians. A sampling of recent incidents:

At Pantnagar agricultural university in Uttar Pradesh, police opened fire on a mob of demonstrating farm labourers, killing at least 13 and perhaps more than 100.

In Amritsar. Punjab, two rival sects of Sikhs clashed, killing 19 and injuring hundreds. In Tamil Nadu farmers protesting against increased water and power rates blockaded several towns and were fired on by police, leaving nine dead. In Madhya Pradesh the laying off of iron ore workers started a chain of violence in which contractors’ agents set fire to miners’ shanties, the miners rioted, the police moved in and between 13 and 50 people were killed.

In Bohar a howling mob of middlecaste Kurmis set fire to a hamlet inhabited by untouchables, killing at least three.

In addition to local explosions like these, the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are in the grip of a violent agitation. spearheaded by students, against the state governments’ proposals to reserve 26 per cent of government jobs for the so-called backward castes (many of whom have thrust themselves forward to become prosperous landlords and the backbone of Jana'.r Party support). Almost all

the universities in these states have been forced to close: in Bihar a parliamentary by-election has had to be postponed. While caste was fighting caste in some parts of Uttar Pradesh, the worst HinduMuslim clash for some years tool: place in the town of Sambhal. A minor quarrel during the Hindu Holi festival at the end of March flared up into a confrontation between rival mobs; police intervened and 16 people mostly Hindus, died. It is easy to argue from Sambhal — or the Bihar riots or any of a dozen attacks on untouchables — that caste and communal tensions are increasing under Janata Party rule. But Sambhal was also the scene of communal riots during Mrs Gandhi’s emergency, and it is believed to have been ill-feeling generated then that spilled over again this spring. The fact is that India does not have adequate statistics to make a true measure of patterns of violence. The number of atrocities against untouchables has gone up in some states during the past year — but has gone down in others. There was an outcry in the Madhya Pradesh state assembly when it was disclosed that 105 untouchables had been murdered in the state over a period of months last year. But it turned out that these murders represented only 6 per cent of all murders during these months, whereas untouchables constitute 13 per cent of the population.

Frictions within the Janata Government have not helped to dispel the picture — conjured up for her own political purposes by Mrs Gandhi — of increasing oppression of minorities. The Home Minister, Mr Charan Singh, represents the powerful landowning class in rural areas (including those same castes that Bihar wants to help by reserving jobs). His opponents inside and outside the ruling party are suggesting that he has encouraged landed castes to become

more aggressive — at the expense of untouchables and other landless labourers. The one untouchable in the cabinet, Mr Jagjivan Ram, has egged on the lobby within the party that seeks to cut the Home Minister down to size.

The Janata Party has been as irresponsible as other parties in encouraging divisive tendencies; inter-union rivalries fostered by political parties, for example, are the biggest single cause of mounting industrial unrest.

But the Government cannot be held directly to blame for the failure to get violence under control. Law and order is the preserve of state governments, each of which runs its own police force. Police posts tend to be scattered thinly over the rural areas, and poorly paid policemen are all too often corrupt, brutal and inefficient. Local courts provide justice of a very limited sort, plagued as they are by delays and corruption; the bureaucracy works tolerably well in some states, hopelessly in others. All this has eroded respect for the law and encouraged the aggrieved to take to mass action.

A telling instance of how agitation can succeed is the case of Swadeshi Mills, a Kanpur textile company, which the Government agreed late last month to nationalise. Swadeshi closed down last year because it was in bad financial shape. The workers, who had not been paid for a long time, demonstrated for back wages and for a government takeover to preserve their jobs.

The Government, already saddled with 106 bankrupt textile mills, said no more rescues. The workers then seized two managers as hostages and murdered them when the police started shooting. Nine other people died, politicians expressed outrage, and the Government reversed its policy. Thus have the Swadeshi workers won by kidnapping and murder what thousands of other workers failed to get by legal means. The lesson is clear: violence pays.