1989; February 24: Bombay (Maharashtra)

67% Hindus, 19% Muslims

Chief Minister of Maharashtra: Sharad Pawar, Congress Party, June 1988–June 1991

On February 24, the first Friday after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a call to all Muslims declaring that the author Salman Rushdie should be killed for the publication of his book The Satanic Verses, a bandh was organized by some Muslim groups in Bombay. The book had already been banned by the Indian government in October 1988 (after intensive lobbying by Muslim organizations and also, it should be indicated, by secular lawyers), but Khomeini’s fatwa revived the mobilization. A protest march was held. This demonstration was not isolated: a transnational wave of protest had stirred up Muslim communities worldwide, with events having been organized not only in Delhi, Calcutta, Benares, and Darjeeling but also in Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Japan, Turkey, and France-to name but a few. In Bombay, the participants were young people associated with Islamic organizations. Disturbances started in the greatly stigmatized Muslim locality of Mohammed Ali Road after the police intervened to disperse the procession. Official figures put the toll at eleven dead.

***(A. Shah 1989); ***(Engineer 1989c), ***(Wright 1990); ***(René 1997), ***(Graff 2008: 227)