Religious violence in India Quotes

“A mob has no religion.”

“Wikipedia: Religious violence in India”

“We will look after ourselves. Let there be a direct confrontation between communal forces. The world will witness the battle, but let the police forces keep out.”

“Contrary to a widespread impression, the typical victim of Hindu-Muslim violence is a Hindu. Not, of course, that this justifies any of the occasional Hindu violence, but the fact itself deserves to be noted.”

“Once Muslims feel that the state is not going to protect them and they are on their own, it is only a question of time before they start doing what the Sikhs are doing in Punjab. As it is, when we visit a town after a communal riot, people say : if the police wasn't there, we could take the Hindus on.”

“Visnu - my dwelling place Puskara has been overcome with terror of the matangas [Turks]. The place where I myself performed the final ablutions after the great sacrifice of world creation, the mleccha army now uses to refresh themselves after their violent destruction of temples and brahman settlements.”

“In his letter dated 22 April 1926 to Viceroy Lord Irwin, Sir Henry Wheeler, the Governor of Bihar and Orissa, summed up this tinderbox situation that much of India found itself in during this time. ‘In the old days,’ explained Wheeler, ‘we used to be on the lookout for riots at the Muharram or Bakr Id [festival times], but not otherwise; nowadays they occur over anything . . .’”

“When Indian intellectuals use existing theories about religion and its history – for example, to analyse ‘Hindu-Muslim’ strife – they reproduce, both directly and indirectly, what the West has been saying so far. (…) the ‘secularist’ discourse about this issue can hardly be distinguished – both in terms of the contents or the vocabulary – from Orientalist writings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

“Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Lodhis, Saiyads, Suris and then Moghuls established their rules forcibly. They massacred people, covered the earth with cut heads. The land appeared to wear the veil of the blood of innocents. Mosques were constructed on the birthplace of Rama and Krishna. The Shivalinga of Kashi entered a well. Temples have been destroyed, Murtis broken. What will happen tomorrow now -- who knows. Oh Lord, when will you come to protect the weak?”

“They (the Hindus) differ from us in religion… There is very little disputing about theological topics among themselves; at the most they fight with words, but they will never stake their soul or body or their property on religious controversy. ... in all manners and usages they differ from us to such a degree as to frighten their children with us… and as to declare us to be devil’s breed and our doings as the very opposite of all that is good and proper,...”

“Jafar Sharif’s description of the Muharram scene for the eighteenth-nineteenth century is still more detailed. Writes he: “Whenever the Muharram… chances to coincide with Hindu festivals, such as the Ramnavmi or the birth of Rama, the Charakhpuja, or swing festival, or the Dasahra, serious riots have occurred as the processions meet in front of a mosque or Hindu temple, or when an attempt is made to cut the branches of some sacred fig-tree which impedes the passage of the cenotaphs....”

“In Dhaka, Muslims have started riots with the complicity of the police. They attacked the houses of the Hindus, raped the women and slaughtered all those who resisted. They burned down whole neighbourhoods under the eyes of the policemen. These only intervened when a Hindu grabbed a weapon to defend himself. In that case, they entered the house, seized the weapons and arrested the men. The Muslims were armed; they on their part did have that right. All attempts by Congress to bring them to peace have failed.”

“Let us not be taken in by the howls of contrived grievances which the spokesmen of Islam in India have started hawking in increasingly hysterical voices. In the history of Islam this has always been a prelude to predatory action. Hajjaj had hawked some grievances against Raja Dahir on the eve of equipping an armed force more formidable than any that had ever been sent against Sindh. The Pirpur Report of the Muslim League was only a preparation for the demand for Pakistan.”

“The wicked mlechchas pollute the religion of the Hindus every day. They break the images of gods into pieces and throw away the articles of worship. They throw into fire Srimad Bhagwat and other holy scriptures, forcibly take away the conchshell and bell of the Brahmanas, and lick the sandal paints on their bodies. They urinate like dogs on the tulsi plant and deliberately pass faeces in the Hindu temples. They throw water from their mouths on the Hindus engaged in worship, and harass the Hindu saints as if they were so many lunatics let large.”

“Even a superficial observer cannot fail to notice that a spirit of aggression underlies the Hindu attitude towards the Muslim and the Muslim attitude towards the Hindu. The Hindu's spirit of aggression is a new phase which he has just begun to cultivate. The Muslim's spirit of aggression is his native endowment, and is ancient as compared with that of the Hindu. It is not that the Hindu, if given time, will not pick up and overtake the Muslim. But as matters stand today, the Muslim in this exhibition of the spirit of aggression leaves the Hindu far behind.”

“If there is one circumstance respecting the Mohammedan period which Hindus remember better than another, it is the insulting pride of the Musulmans, the outrages which they perpetrated upon their religious convictions, and the extensive spoilation of their temples and shrines. It is right that Europeans should clearly understand, that this spirit of Mohammedanism is unchangeable, and that, if by any mischance, India should again come into the possession of men of this creed, all the churches and colleges and all of the Mission institutions, would not be worth a week’s purchase.”

“He should have remembered, there was [an Islamist] attack on Akshardham temple in September 2002, so many people were killed inside the temple, yet Gujarat maintained peace. Gujarat maintained peace even after serial blasts. There was a time when Gujarat used to have riots over kite flying and cricket matches. Gujarat has not witnessed riots for last 12 years. The children of Gujarat don’t know what is curfew all about? Gujarat has progressed because of peace and harmony. And this is what the nation needs for growth as these things will have catalytic effect in achieving that.”

“It was the same story all over again - music before a mosque, or a pig in a Muslim mohalla, or a private fracas between two toughs belonging to the two communities. The Muslims have never needed a more substantial excuse whenever they are in a nasty mood. Nor has the nasty mood been able to mend itself for long because of the continued Muslim failure to recapture power all over India and re-establish their ‘lost empire’. In case the Hindus failed to provide the necessary provocation, the Muslims could always slaughter a cow in the presence of Hindus, or abduct and molest a Hindu girl in keeping with the best behests of Islam, or take out a rowdy tãjiã procession through a thoroughfare thickly populated by Hindus.”

“[But ultimately the brunt of all such riots was borne by the Hindus. For instance, this is how Pelsaert describes the situation prevalent in the time of Jahangir (1605-27) during Muharram.] “The outcry (of mourning) lasts till the first quarter of the day; the coffins (Tazias) are brought to the river, and if the two parties meet carrying their biers (it is worse on that day), and one will not give place to the other, then if they are evenly matched, they may kill each other as if they were enemies at open war, for they run with naked swords like madmen. No Hindu can venture into the streets before midday, for even if they should escape with their life, at the least their arms and legs would be broken to pieces…””

“The third thing that is noticeable is the adoption by the Muslims of the gangster's method in politics. The riots are a sufficient indication that gangsterism has become a settled part of their strategy in politics. They seem to be consciously and deliberately imitating the Sudeten Germans in the means employed by them against the Czechs. So long as the Muslims were the aggressors, the Hindus were passive, and in the conflict they suffered more than the Muslims did. But this is no longer true. The Hindus have learned to retaliate and no longer feel any compunction in knifing a Musalman. This spirit of retaliation bids fair to produce the ugly spectacle of gangsterism against gangsterism. How to meet this problem must exercise the minds of all concerned. (p. 269)”