1961, October 3: Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh)

57% Hindus, 41% Muslims

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh: C. B. Gupta, Congress Party, December 1960–October 1963

After the Jabalpur riots, which badly shook the Indian leadership and the Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, further violence flared up in Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh), just before the 1962 general elections. The city is famous for the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), whose students are predominantly Muslim and which has claimed minority status for years. During the student-union elections of October 1961, not a single Hindu student was elected. Muslims held a victory procession, provoking counter-demonstrations by activists from the BJS (Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Indian People’s Alliance) and the ABVP. A clash subsequently broke out between Muslim and Hindu students in a university hostel. A rumor that a Hindu student had been killed on campus sparked off violence in the city on October 3. University employees were assaulted by students from the town’s Hindu colleges. The riot claimed 14 lives, mostly Muslim.

***(Brass 2006: 71); ***(Brass 1965: 90–109); ***(Graff 1982: 65), ***(Jaffrelot 1996 167)