1961 Jabalpur riots

1961 Jabalpur riots
Part of Religious violence in India
Location of Jabalpur in India
Date	4 –9 February 1961
Location	Jabalpur, India
Methods	Killing, Arson, Looting
Parties
Hindus Muslims
Casualties and losses
5 killed 50 killed

The 1961 Jabalpur Riots were the first major-scale riots between Hindus and Muslims in post-Partition India, which erupted in the city of Jabalpur in the state of Madhya Pradesh. This riot was linked to the emergence of a small class of successful Muslim entrepreneurs who created a new economic rivalry between Hindu and Muslim communities.

These riots shook Jawaharlal Nehru as he never expected communal riots of such intensity in independent India. Hindu nationalist organizations including ABVP, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh played a major role in this riot. Officially 55 were killed, though according to unofficial accounts, 200 were killed. Nehru responded by lambasting the Bhopal Congress government which was being headed by Chief Minister Kailash Nath Katju. He angrily noted that Congress leaders were found to be 'sitting inside their houses like purdah ladies' during riots.

The Congress had adopted secularism as its main ideology but had admitted, right from the anti-colonial freedom struggle, all sorts of elements. Hardly a handful of few had strong secular convictions. Even among its top leadership, there were Hindu fundamentalist elements with anti-minority proclivities. In the 1960s – A series of riots broke out, particularly in the eastern part of India – Rourkela, Jamshedpur and Ranchi – in 1964, 1965, and 1967, in places where Hindu refugees from the then East Pakistan were being settled. In the later years, post-Nehru saw violent riots including 1969 Gujarat riots, 1970 Bhiwandi Riots. These riots gave political rise to Hindu fundamentalist forces, which played a major role in engineering them and benefitting from religious polarization.

Background

Free Press Journal newspaper on 14th February 1961 mentions that the communal press has exploited crime by some adolescents, which has led to riots in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

The rioting in Jabalpur has largely been attributed to the emergence in the Muslim community, which had lost its political and business elite in 1947 Partition of India. Hindu industrialists and businessmen, faced with new competition were willing to resort to violence in order to preserve their position. The beedi (cigarette) industry in Jabalpur was dominated by Muslims in the 1960s.

On 3 February 1961, a Hindu girl was raped by two Muslim boys named Maksood and Latif. One of them was the son of a Muslim beedi businessman. The Hindu girl ended up committing suicide. The Muslim boys were arrested that day and presented before the Magistrate.

The Yug Dharma, a local Hindi Daily, associated with Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) published the news of the rape incident with communal banner head-lines: "Hindu girl raped by Muslim scoundrel on point of dagger. The helpless student poured kerosene oil and burnt herself. Accused son of an industrialist. Sensation and tense atmosphere in the whole city". This newspaper was distributed in the town in the early hours of the 4th February. Other local dailies also published the news but, relatively, not in that sensational strain.

On the morning of 4 February 1961 about 200 local students took out a procession to condemn the rape incident. The procession was led by a Hindu nationalist organization ABVP. The procession turned violent, for which the Army had to be deployed. The Army brought the situation under control on the 5th. But on the 7th, after the Army had been withdrawn, Hindus attacked the town's Muslim quarters and shops. The violence continued till late night. According to the newspaper New Age, the riot was attributable to alarmist rumours spread by Yug Dharma, that the forces of law and order had been attacked by the Muslims. The premeditated character of the riots could be deduced by the fact that the Hindu houses and shops, situated within the Muslim quarters had been marked beforehand. So, the houses and shops of Hindus were spared, but those of Muslims were burnt and looted. Officially fifty-five people were killed, mostly Muslims. These riots caused huge losses to Muslim businessmen, and they lost their share of control of the beedi industry.

Nehru's reaction to the Riots

In a letter to chief ministers on 20 February 1961, Nehru referred to the "deplorable communal incidents occurring in Jabalpur and some other towns of Madhya Pradesh". He referred to the "widespread attack on Muslims and their houses and shops" as being "pre-planned and organised". He wrote, "Local newspapers fan the flames [and] communal organisations come to the forefront".

After the 20 February letter, Nehru wrote more comprehensively about the communal issue to chief ministers on 6 March of the same year. In it, he noted that the upsurge of communal violence in some places in Madhya Pradesh shocked him not merely because of the damage done to life and property but "even more so because it uncovered something that was painful to us". He angrily noted that Congress leaders were found to be 'sitting inside their houses like purdah ladies' during riots.

Nehru formed the National Integration Council in response to the riots. However, the council remained mainly on paper and was not able to control riots in the future.

Aftermath

After 1961 Jabalpur Riots, series of riots broke out, particularly in the eastern part of India – Rourkela, Jamshedpur and Ranchi – in 1964, 1965, and 1967, in places where Hindu refugees from the then East Pakistan were being settled. Post-Nehru death , Indian National Congress got split into two factions:- Congress(O) under Morarji Desai and Congress(I) under Indira Gandhi. The Congress governmment failed to take action against the riots which took place in 70s and 80s, despite the fact that inquiry commissions clearly mentioned the role of Hindu fundamentalist organizations. Three main reasons behind it were:- Firstly, Congress was itself filled with communal elements since Independence, who used religious card for their own benefits as seen in 1949 Faizabad bypoll election involving Baba Raghav Das . Secondly, Congress supported these organizations to counter Communist trade unions, which had created unity among workers and class consciousness against businessmen who funded the Congress especially in Maharashtra. Thirdly, Muslim support had declined for Congress, post-emergency and Indira Gandhi’s slogan of poverty alleviation had lost its effectiveness. After this, Indira Gandhi openly supported these organizations especially helping Vishwa Hindu Parishad to organize Dharma Sansad at government-run convention centre at Vigyan Bhawan, where it made official announcement of launching movement for "liberation" of the Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya, the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi at Mathura, and the Vishwanath shrine at Varanasi.

In 1969, major riots took place in Gujarat. The violence was Gujarat's first major riot that involved massacre, arson, and looting on a large scale. It was the most deadly Hindu-Muslim violence since the partition of India in 1947, and remained so until the 1989 Bhagalpur violence. The Justice Reddy Commission was set up to investigate the violence. The Commission stated in its report that "There was not only a failure of intelligence and culpable failure to suppress the outbreak of violence but (also) deliberate attempts to suppress the truth from the Commission, especially the active participation in the riots of some RSS and Jana Sangh leaders".

The next year, in 1970 , riots broke out in Bhiwandi. The Justice D.P. Madon Commission was set up to investigate the violence. The final report from the commission ran to seven volumes and was highly critical of the police, stating that their action showed a clear "anti-Muslim bias" and failure to prevent the riots. The report was also highly critical of Shiv Sena for their part in the violence. The Commission stated in its report that "The organisation responsible for bringing communal tension in Bhiwandi to a pitch is the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal. The majority of the leaders and workers of the Rashtriya Utsav Mandal belonged to the Jan Sangh (the predecessor of the BJP) or were pro–Jan Sangh and the rest, apart from a few exceptions, belonged to the Shiv Sena”.

The report of the three-member judicial commission headed by Jitendra Narain, former judge of the Patna High Court, which probed the April 1979 communal riots in Jamshedpur bristles, found the RSS, top district officials and the Bihar Military Police (BMP), responsible for the violence

In 1979 , riots broke out during Rama Navami in Jamshedpur. The 1979 Jamshedpur riot was the first major riot on the occasion of Rama Navami, in which 108 people were declared to have died, among whom 79 Muslims and 25 Hindus were identified. The Justice Jitendra Narain Commission, found the RSS and the RSS-affiliated local legislator, Dinanath Pandey, responsible for having created the climate conducive to the riot.

Congress and Secularism

After Independence, many leaders in Congress only showed lip service to secularism and were openly committed to Hindu fundamentalist ideology on matters including temples, religious conversions, cow protection, and language and supporting fundamentalist organizations.

In 1948, the by-election was announced for Faizabad constituency. The city of Ayodhya was part of this constituency. Acharya Narendra Deva was running for the elections. He was a hardcore socialist as well as an atheist and had a liberal outlook. Congress fielded a sadhu named Baba Raghav Das against him. Govind Ballabh Pant, CM of Uttar Pradesh, well known for his conservative and Hindu fundamentalist views, went to Ayodhya and declared in his speeches that Narendra Deva didn't believe in the divinity of Lord Rama as proved by the fact that he didn't wear chhot or tuff of hair at back of head displayed by all devout Hindus. Baba Raghav Das distributed tulsi leaves to emphasize the spiritual difference between him and Narendra Deva. Ayodhya overwhelmingly voted for Baba Raghav Das and Congress won the elections by playing the Hindu card.

On the night of 22–23 December 1949, idols of Lord Rama were placed in Babri Masjid by Mahant Digvijaynath, who was arrested and jailed earlier for inciting the crowd to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi. Jawaharlal Nehru ordered its removal. The pushback to the prime minister's orders came not just from then District Magistrate KK Nair and city Magistrate Guru Dutt Singh, but also from within the Congress in Faizabad. Congress MLA from Faizabad, Baba Raghav Das, was among those who vociferously opposed any move to remove the idol, even threatening to resign if that happened. Finally, the idols remained in the masjid and paved the way for Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

In 1949, Govind Ballabh Pant had refused to arrest Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh leader M.S. Golwalkar, though the Chief Secretary, Rajeshwar Dayal, and Jaitley, a senior police officer, had produced a truckload of evidence of Golwalkar's plans to stage a pogrom against Muslims.

Morarji Desai, told a convention on national integration in New Delhi on November 29, 1964: “The Hindu majority is clean hearted and fair minded. I cannot say the same about the majority of Indian Muslims”. Immediately after Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhi's prayer meeting on January 20, 1948, Jamshid Nagarvalla of the Bombay CID asked Bombay's Home Minister, Morarji Desai, for permission to arrest V.D. Savarkar on the basis of Madanlal's visit to him the week before. Desai angrily refused.

On 12 November 1964, a religious programme was organized in Pune to celebrate the release of Gopal Godse, Madanlal Pahwa and Vishnu Karkare from jail after expiry of their sentences in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination case. Dr. G.V. Ketkar , grandson of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, editor of Kesari and Tarun Bharat, presided over the event and revealed that six months before assassination, Nathuram Godse had disclosed his plans to kill Gandhi. This led to huge public outrage and in 1966, the Kapur Commission was formed headed by Justice Jevanlal Kapur of the Supreme Court. It examined evidence not produced during the trial, including the testimony of Savarkar’s bodyguard Appa Ramachandra Kasar, and his secretary Gajanan Vishnu Damle. The court had earlier acquitted Savarkar because of lack of evidence or testimony. Had the bodyguard and secretary testified in 1948, Savarkar would have been convicted by the court. The testimonies of Kasar and Damle confirmed Nathuram Godse and Apte's visits to Savarkar on January 14 and 17, 1948. Kasar told the Commission that they visited Savarkar again on or about January 23, upon their return from Delhi after the bomb incident. Damle stated that Godse and Apte met Savarkar again in the middle of January and sat with him in his garden. Justice Kapur's findings were clear. He noted the deadly negligence of the police. He concluded: "All these facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group". Justice Kapur Commission, conclusively found that Savarkar was indeed involved in the assassination plot. However, Savarkar had passed away in 1966 , whereas Kapur Commission report got published in 1969 and this is the reason he escaped conviction.

KM Munshi, leader of Congress from Gujarat, talked about Gujarati Asmita or pride in his novels including Jay Somnath. He talked about Hindu identity and considered Somanath Temple to be part of it. He widely mentioned in his novels about how "barbarious" Muslim rulers like Mahmud of Ghazni destroyed it and Hindu identity was lost, which needed to be restored. The Somanath Temple restoration project received support from Sardar Patel. Jawaharlal Nehru requested President Rajendra Prasad to not inaugurate the temple. Nehru was against the idea of secular government associating closely with a temple function. However, still Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel, and KM Munshi participated in the temple inauguration. KM Munshi later became a founding member of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. His ideas of asmita or pride are widely believed to have influenced Gujarat, much more than Mahatma Gandhi himself.

In 1954, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh's launched the "Anti-Foreign Missionary Week", to protest against conversions by foreign Christian Missionaries. The agitation was suspended when the Congress government under Ravishankar Shukla, first CM of Madhya Pradesh, known for his Hindu fundamentalist views, set up a commission called the Niyogi Committee to investigate religious conversions. In 1968, Madhya Pradesh passed its Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam (Religious Freedom Act) in 1968 enforcing "prohibition of conversion from one religion to another by use of force or allurement, or by fraudulent means, and matters incidental thereto."

Gulzarilal Nanda, who served as Interim Prime Minister of India, founded Bharat Sadhu Samaj. The Bharat Sadhu Samaj was established in early 1956 after a meeting between Congress politicians and sadhus (Hindu ascetics) at Birla Mandir in Delhi. The Samaj was instituted on the belief – shared by Congress and Hindu ascetics – that these holy men would help popularize the Five-Year Plans among the country's devout millions.

Bharat Sadhu Samaj's first president, Tukdoji Maharaj, one-time Gandhian and singer would end up becoming one of the founders and vice-presidents of the far-right Hindutva group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. In the 1950s, several Congress governments enacted bans on cow slaughter in states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh.

On 25 September 1966, Sarvadaliya Goraksha Maha-Abhiyan Samiti (SGMS) was founded and headed by Prabhudutt Brahmachari. The group of SGMS contained members of the VHP including Golwalkar, Congressmen including Seth Govind Das, representatives of Bharat Sadhu Samaj, Arya Samaj represented by Ram Gopal Shalwale, Hindu Mahasabha represented by Digvijaynath and Ram Rajya Parishad represented by Swami Karpatri and Shankaracharya of Puri. This organization demanded nation-wide ban on cow slaughter.

In 1966, a major riot took place. On 7 November 1966, a crowd of nearly 125,000 people, predominantly from the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and organizers of SGMS including Hindu Mahasabha, and Arya Samaj, had assembled from far-off places at an open space near the Parliamentary Complex. A vast majority of them were ash-smeared, trident-wielding, mostly Aghori Sadhus. The sadhus had led the crowd from Red Fort to Parliament as part of a nationwide agitation to ban cow slaughter on national level. At around 1.25 pm, the demonstration took a violent turn after a “highly inflammatory speech” by the Jana Sangh MP from Karnal, Swami Rameshwaranand, who had been suspended from the Lok Sabha for unruly behaviour. Incited by his call to surround the parliament, the crowd rushed to break the police cordon, hurling stones. Wielding trishuls, swords, and spears, they tried to breach Parliament. When repelled by police, they attacked the homes of Congress politicians including K. Kamaraj and went on a rampage across the city, destroying property. The violence ended with eight dead, 40 seriously injured, and eight hundred arrests.The following day 500 leaders of the BJS, the RSS, the Arya Samaj and the All-India Cow Protection League were taken into custody, and Indira Gandhi demanded and received the resignation of her Home Minister, Gulzarilal Nanda, who had been exposed as a closet ally of the cow-lobby and patron of Bharat Sadhu Samaj. Nanda resigned as Home Minister and was succeeded by Yashwantrao Chavan.

In 1981, 1500 Dalits converted to Islam in Meenakshipuram, Tamil Nadu due to oppression by upper-caste Hindus. These 1981 Meenakshipuram conversions caused huge uproar in the country. Indira Gandhi was reportedly saddened by it. Several rumours were spread that Arab countries are using Petrodollar to fund conversions in India. Karan Singh, who was a Congress Leader and close associate of Gandhi, had earlier told Indira to not depend on Muslims as they didn't vote for her in 1977 Indian general election due to forced-sterilizations and Turkman Gate firing incident. Indira Gandhi started playing religious card for electoral benefits. Karan Singh formed Virat Hindu Samaj with her permission. Many Virat Hindu Sammelans were held across India including Delhi , Patna which were attended by Congress leaders and RSS leaders. The main motto of these Sammelans were to "unite Hindus and fight against conversions". Around February 1983, a meeting of the Virat Hindu Samaj was organised in Muzaffarnagar. Gulzarilal Nanda, former acting prime minister, presided over the meeting. A senior functionary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Rajju Bhaiya (Professor Rajendra Singh), was present at the meeting. At the behest of Dr Karan Singh, Dau Dayal Khanna, another Congress politician, raised the Ayodhya issue.

Gulzarilal Nanda founded the Shri Ram Janmotsav Samiti on Ram Navami in 1983 and became the founder of the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement along with Dau Dayal Khanna. RSS leaders also attended an event hosted by Nanda during this time. On 7 and 8 April 1984, a meeting of the Dharma Sansad of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an RSS affiliate, was held at the Vigyan Bhawan, a top government-run convention centre in Delhi with support of Indira Gandhi. At this meeting, the organisation saw the announcement about launching a movement for the "liberation" of the Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya, the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi at Mathura, and the Vishwanath shrine at Varanasi. Karan Singh attended the Dharma Sansad. Gulzarilal Nanda supported the Dharma Sansad.

In 1960s, Mumbai had major influence of Communist parties and the frequent strikes and demands by workers had tired Bombay's entrepreneurs to the core. At that time, the left parties were the only political challenge to the Congress and both its leaders and the businessmen who funded the Congress wished to see the back of the communist trade unions whose domination even the Congress-sponsored trade unions had failed to break. Congress leaders under Chief Minister Vasantrao Naik started supporting organization named Shiv Sena, which was little known at that time. Congress wanted Shiv Sena to cut into the vote bank of Communists by raising the regional and hindutva sentiment against that of workers' unity. Shiv Sena had major role in religious based violence in 1970 Bhiwandi Riots against Muslims and caste based violence in 1974 Worli Riots against Dalits. It represented Hindu Nationalist ideology which received support from upper castes and Shiv Sena was also known as "Vasant Sena" because of the backing it received from Congress CM Vasantrao Naik.

Purushottam Das Tandon, a Congress leader known for his Hindu nationalist image, openly declared in 1948 that 'the Muslims must stop talking about culture and civilization foreign to our country and accept Indian culture. Urdu symbolizes foreign culture and Hindi alone can be unifying factors for all forces in the country'. He played a major role in making Hindi language as Official Language of India. Sampurnanand, second CM of UP and several Congress leaders vehemently opposed Urdu.

Congress leaders, Arya Samaj and Jan Sangh vehemently opposed the demand of Punjabi Suba, a Punjabi-speaking majority state. The Hindu nationalist organizations asked the Hindus of Punjab to disown Punjabi and register Hindi as their mother tongue in the Census of 1961. Before that, Arya Samaj leaders and groups had run the campaign during 1951 Census. In 1955, Golden Temple was raided by the government to quash the movement. In 1966, the Government proposed to idea to create Punjabi Suba which led to clashes between Hindus and Sikhs in Delhi. Finally, on 1 November 1966, Punjab state was create with official language as Punjabi in Gurmukhi script.