Bombay riots

The Bombay riots usually refers to the riots in Mumbai, in December 1992 and January 1993, in which an estimated 900 people died. The riots were mainly due to escalations of hostilities after large scale protests by Muslims in reaction to the 1992 Babri Masjid Demolition by Hindu Karsevaks in Ayodhya; and by Hindu mobs in regards with the Ram Temple issue.

Quotes

• [from December 7 onwards] “large mobs of Muslims came on the streets and there was recourse taken to violence without doubt.” [in Nirmal Nagar jurisdiction] “a Ganesh idol in the Ganesh Mandir on Anant Kanekar Marg was found decapitated and moved out from its place of installation and eleven temples in different jurisdictions were damaged, demolished or set on fire.”
  • Srikrishna Report quoted in Arvin Bahl, published in Gujarat after Godhra: real violence, selective outrage by Ramesh N. Rao, Koenraad Elst, 2003, Har Anand Publications. Republished in Politics By Other Means: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch Reports on India, 12 January 2004, South Asia Analysis Group

• In the 1995 report on the Mumbai riots, HRW sought to place the blame for the violent events exclusively on the Hindu community and completely ignored the role of Muslim communalism in the riots. This should be compared with a more objective report on the occurrences by the Srikrishna Commission. There was not a single eyewitness account of attacks on Hindus in the HRW report even though Hindus had also suffered many casualties! ....In April 1996, HRW released another report on the Mumbai riots titled, “Communal Violence and the Denial of Justice.” This report repeats the things discussed in the first report, albeit in much more detail. As in the first report, exclusive blame for the violence is placed on the Hindu community and the Shiv Sena, Muslims are exonerated of all blame, and a biased analysis of encounters between Muslims and the police is presented. What is ironic about this report is that it was written as a response to Chief Minister Manohar Joshi’s decision to terminate the Srikrishna inquiry. The purpose of this report is to encourage the continuation of the inquiry and the implementation of its recommendations. Yet, despite the fact that the Srikrishna Report notes that roughly one-third of those killed in the riots were Hindus, there is not a single mention in the HRW report of any attack against Hindus! In addition, every single one of HRW’s eighteen eyewitness accounts describes attacks on Muslims,and none describe attacks on Hindus. From reading HRW’s report, one would be surprised to find that any Hindus suffered from the violence. HRW even uses testimony from a Muslim man “who participated in a demonstration,” (not exactly the most objective of sources) claiming that Shiv Sena members attacked the demonstrators. Just imagine HRW using testimony from Hindu “demonstrators” or “activists.”
  • Arvin Bahl, published in Gujarat after Godhra: real violence, selective outrage by Ramesh N. Rao, Koenraad Elst, 2003, Har Anand Publications. Republished in Politics By Other Means: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch Reports on India, 12 January 2004, South Asia Analysis Group

• The Times of India has succeeded in its Goebbelsian design: the world has never heard about the Muslim initiative in the Bombay riots, and even well-meaning people.. think of them as a "pogrom", inflicted without provocation by mean and hateful Hindus on the unsuspecting Muslim minority… The outside world has never heard this account of the January riots because the decisive news channels… have chosen to black out all reference to the Muslim initiative… Following Press Council rules, the paper did not mention which community was on the attack and which one on the defensive, until three days later, when the Shiv Sena started its retaliation. From that point onwards, the first three days, when Muslims were on the attack… were kept out of view, but the details of subsequent Shiv Sena-led Hindu violence against Muslims were reported in full.
  • Elst, K. (2010). The saffron swastika: The notion of "Hindu fascism". p 779 ff. (also in "Communal Violence and Propaganda" by Elst K. published in 2014. and quoted in [1])

• In the later controversy over the Srikrishna Commission's report on the Bombay riots, an admittedly biased report written under instructions of the then ruling Congress Party and shamelessly whitewashing Muslim violence all while putting the Hindu side in the dock, the Shiv Sena tried to wimp out by ordering the discontinuation of the Srikrishna inquest and by denying its allegations. The one-person Srikrishna Commission was mandated by the Congressite government... The report produced by Justice Srikirhsna only proved the suspicions of bias which had led the state government to dismiss it.
  • Elst, K. (2010). The saffron swastika: The notion of "Hindu fascism". p 785

• On 7 January, mobs of Muslims in the Muslims areas named above fanned the streets and caught passers-by on the busy roads. Those suspected to be Hindus were made to remove their pants, and if they were found to be uncircumcised, they were stabbed to death. The police were under strict instructions from the state government not to shoot at Muslim mobs. The main area of this activity was in the Muslim heartland in south Mumbai.
  • Shrikant Talageri, 'The Bombay riots', December 1996, quoteed in: Koenraad Elst, The Saffron Swastika p. 781