Dokument #1263492
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
Communal violence between the Hindus and
Muslims in Andhra Pradesh were reported in 1984, 1987, and 1988.
For a detailed account of these incidents, please see the following
articles herewith attached:
Ajoy Bose "Eleven Die and 100 injured in Hyderabad", Manchester
Guardian Weekly, 5 August 1984, p.6.
Ganguly, Dilip «India's Legacy of Nonviolence is Disappearing
in Regional Rebellions, Terrorism, Los Angeles Times, 24
January 1988, p.12.
It is important to note that Muslims are
scattered in all parts of India and communal problems are not
limited to Hydrabad and Andhra Pradesh. For instance, riots between
Hindus and Muslims in 1987 reportedly claimed 179 lives in New
Delhi, Meerut, Ahmedabad and Baroda (Ganguly, p.12).
Intercommunal problems between Muslims and
Hindus date back to 1947. At the partition of India and Pakistan in
1947, Muslim élite opted for Pakistan leaving behind "a
socially fragmented and economically depressed Muslim community"
(Hasan, p.819). It was at this time that Muslims lost their
influence in the government as most professionals had emigrated to
Pakistan (Ibid).
In 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru declared that
India would be a secular state but the principles of secularism
were diametrically opposed to the fundamentals of Islam (Hasan,
p.818). Nonetheless, Muslims supported the National Congress in the
hope that the latter would meet their needs but in the 1960s
Muslims began to question the wisdom of their support and
dependency on the congress "because the Congress had ceased to be a
vehicle for their aspirations, and had shown insensitivity towards
their specific complaints regarding unequal educational
opportunities, discrimination in government employment, and poor
representation in central and state government, in Indian
Administrative Service, the police and the army" (Hasan,
p.823).
The Muslim Majlis-i Mushawat was formed in
1964 with the object of voicing Muslim grievances and seeking ways
of redress (Ibid). A nine-point People's Manifesto was published in
1967 but the Majlis-i failed to achieve its objectives due to the
disunity and fragmentation of the Muslim community (Ibid).
Hasan (1988) further observes that the
1960s were a period of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims
in which Muslims suffered the most (p.827). In the 1969 riots in
Ahmedabad, reportedly over 1,000 died and the majority were Muslims
(Ibid).
Violence is reported to have continued in
the 1980s under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi (Hasan, p.830).
Allegedly Muslim interests were neglected and consequently their
economic situation declined reducing them to "the lowest rung of
the ladder in terms of the basic categories of socio-economic
indicators" (Hasan, p.832). According to Hasan (1988) the Muslim
community in India is alienated from the democratic and secular
processes (p.842).
"Eleven Die and 100 injured in
Hyderabad", Manchester Guardian Weekly, 5 August 1984,
p.6.
Ganguly, Dilip
«India's Legacy of Nonviolence is
Disappearing in Regional Rebellions, Terrorism, Los Angeles
Times, 24 January 1988, p.12.
Hasan, Mushirul
"Indian Muslims Since Independence: In
Search of Integration and Identity", Third World Quarterly,
April 1988, pp. 819-843.