Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta
In early 2014, months before Narendra Modi stormed to power, the Rajya Sabha witnessed a debate that appears much more germane now. Responding to leader of opposition Arun Jaitley’s contention that the parliament did not have the jurisdiction to pass the anti-communal violence bill, Union minister Kapil Sibal invoked the 2002 Gujarat riots and argued that if such violence was a “state-sponsored communal activity”, then it is not merely a “law and order” issue.
Jaitley, on the other hand, was firmly opposed to the National Advisory Council (NAC), a non-elected body, having drafted the Bill that guaranteed protection to minority communities. He believed that the Bill overrode federal powers of state governments. He said that it included directions for action to be taken against complicit and incompetent state government officials and gave universal guidelines to maintain public order – powers that are solely the state executive’s domain.
Outside the parliament, the Bharatiya Janata Party had been campaigning against the bill, alleging that the anti-communal violence bill was actually “communal” and a part of the Congress’s “Muslim appeasement” political ploy.
Amidst opposition over federal overreach, the anti-communal violence bill was eventually shelved.
Over the last 10 years, a number of communally-charged events have rocked the country, more frequently than what could have been imagined in 2014. The Nagpur violence early this week is the latest in the series. As Hindutva groups like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal agitated to press the government to demolish Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s tomb in Sambhaji Nagar, none other than the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis endorsed their views.
On March 10, 2025, Fadnavis sparked a row when he said that he believed Aurangzeb’s grave should be removed. The anxieties among different communities in Nagpur after the riots had barely calmed down when Fadnavis further fuelled them by saying that it was “unfortunate that the government has to take responsibility for protection of Aurangzeb’s grave” and that any attempt to glorify the Mughal king will not be tolerated.
At a time when the chief minister who is also the state’s home minister could have doused the communal fire, Fadnavis chose to make the political environment even more combustible by taking the side of the aggressor groups. Demonising Aurangzeb has been a long–term goal of the Sangh parivar, despite the fact that historians have dealt with the subject in great nuance over many years. That aside, Fadnavis has not only failed as the man-in-charge to maintain social harmony, but went out of his ministerial responsibility to stoke communal anger among the Hindus.
Of late, BJP chief ministers like Fadnavis and Adityanath have made it a habit to fuel tensions with their statements. Polarising statements in a volatile environment used to be heard from fringe elements, but that isn’t the case. Adityanath recently endorsed a high-level police official in Uttar Pradesh who asked Muslims to stay home if they did not want to be unwillingly smeared with colours on Holi. Taking a cue from him, legislators from the saffron party like Rameshwar Verma in Madhya Pradesh or Haribhushan Thakur Bachaul in Bihar threatened Muslims in a similar way.
These are only instances in the last few months. A number of anti-Muslim violence were reported in Madhya Pradesh after India won the ICC Champions Trophy early this month and on the day of Holi. Similarly, a Muslim man reportedly died in Uttar Pradesh after he was allegedly assaulted by a group of men who forcibly tried to smear him with colours on Holi.
In more cases than one, the police under BJP governments have acted in a blatantly partisan manner. For instance, when a victory procession disrupted Ramzan prayers and raised derogatory slogans against Muslims in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh after the Indian cricket team won the ICC trophy, clashes erupted. However, the police arrested 13 people, all of whom happened to be Muslims, despite the fact that a video showed a few participants in the rally provoking namazis with chants of “Jai Shri Ram” and vandalising vehicles in front of the mosque. Similarly, in Madhya Pradesh, the police reportedly paraded Muslim men in Ujjain and Damoh for allegedly transporting beef in crowded areas.
Such incidents have become common in BJP-ruled states, where police personnel have shown no hesitation is displaying their communal streak.
It hardly came as a surprise when India Hate Lab’s 2024 reported a 74.4% rise in hate speech, with the BJP-ruled states accounting for 79.9% of communal incidents. Among them, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh ranked at the top of the list of hate speech events, having reported nearly 50% of such cases last year. Almost all such cases targeted minorities, Muslims facing the maximum brunt with 98.5% hate directed towards them.
Yet, after fuelling an already charged environment, Fadnavis now has the audacity to term the Nagpur violence as “pre-planned”, ostensibly by minorities – in what seems like a clear attempt to deflect attention from his own failure to contain Hindutva aggression on streets and portray a politically-motivated campaign as a “law and order” problem. As of now, the only event that looks “pre-planned” is the organised demand by groups like VHP and Bajrang Dal to raze Aurangzeb’s tomb and the chief minister’s immediate endorsement of the call that clearly was intended to rile Muslims.
As both government officials and politicians from the ruling BJP appear to be complicit in fomenting a communally-volatile environment, the question that Sibal asked becomes all the more urgent and pertinent. How long should it take for those in power to acknowledge that communal violence isn’t a mere “law and order” issue? How far should one go to realise that communal hate can’t be alienated from the political context of the times, which incidentally survives on spreading hate and fear?
The article appeared in the thewire