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INDIA: Latest Riots Show Simmering Communal Tensions

KOLKATA, India, Mar 3 2010 (IPS) - This week’s riots in two southern Indian towns highlight how communal tensions in this country of nearly 1.2 billion people simmer just under the surface, exploding at the slightest provocation.

In the case of the street riots that broke out in Karnataka’s Shimoga and Hassan towns on Monday, the trigger was a newspaper article that alleged that exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen had written against the use of the ‘burqa’ (veil) by Muslim women.

The riots led to the deaths of two people and saw vehicles burned and shops damaged, leading to a declaration of curfew that still remains in some areas. The federal government had to rush central forces to bring the situation under control.

Tensions remain high owing to anger over a report in a Karnataka newspaper that Nasreen said she never wrote, adding that she was “shocked” by the riots.

The newspaper attributed to Nasreen, who was forced to stay in western countries after fleeing Bangladesh in 1994 amid accusations of ‘blaspheming Islam’, a statement that the prophet Mohammad did not believe in women wearing ‘burqa’ and that it stifled a woman’s freedom.

“The appearance of the article is atrocious. In any of my writings I have never mentioned that Prophet Mohammad was against ‘burqa’. Therefore, this is a distorted story. I suspect that it is a deliberate attempt to malign me and to misuse my writings to create disturbance in society,” Nasreen, who is supposedly in New Delhi for visa renewal, said in a statement to Indian media. “I wish peace will prevail.”

Nasreen had made India her second home till she was hounded out of the eastern city of Kolkata by Islamic fundamentalists in November 2007.

The riots were just the latest reminders of how sensitive communal and religious issues are in this predominantly Hindu country. Some 83 percent of India’s population are Hindu, 13 percent are Muslim and the rest are Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis. It has 140 million Muslims.

While it was Muslims that got angry over Nasreen’s supposed remarks, it was Hindu nationalist groups that have gotten upset over a Bollywood film featuring a Muslim star who had supported the inclusion of players from mainly Muslim Pakistan in a cricket league, and over a respected Indian painter’s work. A row erupted over the February release of the film ‘My Name is Khan’, which features India’s megastar Shahrukh Khan. His support for including Pakistani players in a glamorous cricket league run by the country’s cricket board had angered a self-styled Hindu nationalist group.

A regional group called Shiv Sena, which professes to champion the cause of the Marathi people of western Maharashtra state, smashed the glass facades of theatres and tore down posters to stop the film’s release. It was also quoted as asking Khan to go live in Pakistan instead.

The film finally opened in theatres in Indian cities in mid-February under heavy police protection. Moviegoers, especially youngsters and ardent fans of the actor Khan, turned up in large numbers despite the threats from Shiv Sena.

“The rise in intolerance in India is owing to administrative support to the fundamentalists,” argued respected sociologist Dipankar Gupta. “These people (zealots) can kill for a cause, but cannot die for a cause. Sadly they often enjoy the administrative support of the governments and ruling parties like it happened in Mumbai with the film ‘My Name Is Khan’.”

“The Taslima issue that just erupted is a manufactured case and there are political reasons behind them,” Gupta said in an interview.

Just last week, the news that 95-year-old Indian cultural icon M F Hussain took up Qatari nationality because of threats from Hindu nationalist groups brought to mind the cost of extremism.

Hussain went into exile in 2006, living in Dubai and other places after Hindu groups targeted him for painting their goddesses in the nude. He decided to change citizenship because he did not feel protected by the Indian government, Hussain said.

“India is my motherland. I can never hate my motherland. I love India, but she rejected me,” Hussain was quoted as saying Wednesday in an interview to a Malayalam-language daily.

Sharmila Tagore, a Hindu Bollywood actor who has been married to a Muslim cricketer for over four decades, calls it a national shame that one of India’s most famous painters had to stay abroad and accept Qatari nationality.

“It is a great loss. India to me is a secular, democratic country. It is unfortunate that a cultural icon like M F Hussain at this age still has to prove his credentials,” she told local NDTV channel at a debate on the issue.

As for Nasreen, Kolkata-based writer and social worker Mahasweta Devi says she believes the Bangladeshi writer has every right to live in India and write what she writes. “I don’t know what she has written (if at all) that led to the riots. But all I know is that she only writes. Why can’t she stay in Kolkata from where she was hounded out earlier in the name of communal riots?” asked the writer, who has won a Ramon Magsaysay award. “Criminals can stay in this city, but not a writer like Taslima. It is shameful,” added Devi.

Sadia Dehlvi, a well-known columnist and writer, said: “We are indeed getting intolerant as a society. There is a need for walking the path of moderation.”

At the same time, she says, the kind of writing that Nasreen does should not be encouraged. “We are witnessing extremism of either kind — the one of the religious bigots and the one of the free speech advocates,” she said. “I don’t go with either because moderation had been the cornerstone of Indian society.”