By D. V. Kumar
Every incident tells us a story. The incident which has happened on the 31 of May in Shillong at Punjabi lane, too, wishes to tell us one. It is a story of how a long-standing issue, if it is not conclusively resolved , would continue to flare up passions at the slightest provocation. The incident that happened between members of two different groups was the spark that was needed to set in motion a series of violent activities since the deeper underlying issue of the ‘ownership’ of the physical space called Punjabi lane remains unresolved till today. The residents of the lane argue that they have been living there for many years and hence they have a moral (possibly legal one too) right over the space while the people living in the neighbourhood express their deep sense of displeasure over the fact that the Punjabi lane remains a potentially dangerous place for them as they cannot use the road freely because many anti-social activities happen there. It has been their long-standing demand that residents living there should be evicted and relocated elsewhere. So long as such long-standing issues remain unresolved, even small incidents such as the one which happened at Punjabi lane could trigger off a cycle of violence. However, it must be said to the credit of all the stakeholders-government, headmen, women’s groups- who have played an appreciable role in ensuring that violence did not become worse than what it was. The security personnel (Meghalaya police, CRPF etc.) deserve special applause for exercising maximum restraint in the face of unending provocation from the protesters. Perhaps the police from other states could take a lesson or two from them. Efforts are currently underway to find a solution to the Punjabi lane issue and hopefully a mutually amicable one would be found soon.
A little conceptual clarification is required regarding the use of the expression communal violence. Whenever any violence takes place between two different groups in Shillong, it is described as communal violence, which in my understanding, is a conceptual error. Every concept needs contextualisation. Otherwise it could possibly distort reality. In the context of India, historically, communal violence refers to that violence which takes place between members of two different religious groups. Religion is a defining characteristic of the people involved in violence. The identity of the people is expressed in terms of the religion they belong to in that particular context of violence. But in the recent incidents in Shillong it was not religion per se which constituted the identity of the participants. Rather it was the larger question of ethnicity which was implicated in the collective violence. People were defined by the ethnic group they belonged to. Therefore communal violence would not be an appropriate expression to describe what happened recently.
Be that as it may, the larger question that this article seeks to engage with is : Why is it that in some cities/places, people do not resort to violence despite provocations and even if they do so, it is contained without much of a difficulty whereas in some other cities/places, violence is easily resorted to and it is that much more difficult to contain it? The question is not merely theoretical in nature. It has practical relevance for us in Shillong. The answer may be found in the pre-existing ties of civic engagement. Wherever there are strong ties of civic engagement between different groups, collective violence is a rare phenomenon. Even if it occurs, it is possible to contain it much more easily because of such ties.
In this context, one can draw useful insights from the study conducted by Ashutosh Varshney, a well-known political theorist, whose book Ethnic Conflict and Civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India (2002), engages with an important question as to why communal violence is such a recurrent feature in some cities in India and not in others. He compares three pairs of cities-one city in each pair known for communal tension and violence and the other for communal peace. His main thesis is that wherever there are strong ties of civic engagement, communal violence does not happen easily and even if it does it is contained without much of a problem. He explains this difference in terms of civic engagement between Muslims and Hindus in some cities. He talks about two forms of civic engagement i.e. associational (membership and participation in common business associations, professional organisations etc. ) and everyday civic engagement (routine interactions of life, joint participation in festivals, permitting children of different groups to play together etc. ). For example, he compares Aligarh, a city known for communal tensions with Calicut, which is a city relatively known for communal peace. He argues that in Calicut well-established forms of civic engagement have played a huge role in terms of preventing communal clashes. Even if there were some scattered incidents of communal violence, they were not widespread due to the presence of pre-existing ties of engagement between Muslims and Hindus there. Vested interests would find it that much more difficult to spread tensions and polarise communities when there are already some strong ties of engagement between members of different communities. In Shillong, too, perhaps there is a strong need to establish such ties of civic engagement among the members of different communities in order to ensure that healthy relations are maintained among them and small incidents do not lead to large- scale violence.
Here it must also be recognised that the majority community, wherever it is located, has a major moral responsibility towards the minorities with whom it is in constant interaction in terms of protecting the life and property of their members. That is why the increased attacks on Muslims, Dalits, people of the north-east elsewhere in India, apart from being crimes, are also absolutely morally indefensible. Such attacks, it must be realised, only undermine the moral strength of the majority community. The logic of majoritarianism is inherently a dangerous logic and goes against the foundational principles of constitutionalism. When Delhi’s Archbishop (followed by Goa’s Archbishop) recently spoke about the growing fears among the minorities about their safety, he was clearly pointing fingers at the members of the Hindutva brigade who wish to construct hindu rashtra based on precisely that kind of majoritarian logic. Physical attacks on minorities wherever they are located are morally reprehensible and need to be stopped. Right to life is a fundamental right and every citizen of the country, even if one happens to be a member of the minority community is entitled to that right.
The majority community in Shillong, too, needs to recognise its moral responsibility towards minority communities here. It would be in the larger interests of constitutional principles of freedom, dignity and equality if relations among the different communities in Shillong become healthier than they are presently now. For this to happen it is imperative that strong ties of civic engagement (both associational and everyday) are established and deepened.
(The writer teaches Sociology at NEHU, Shillong)