South India. Old issues. Fresh anxieties (1981–2011)
This chronology has hardly referred to South India. This does not imply that violence does not exist there, but it hardly concerns the relations between Hindus and Muslims. As mentioned earlier, the Muslim population does not suffer in the South from the deadly Middle-Ages images of ferocious horsemen galloping from Central Asia to plunder and raze great Hindu temples and cities. In the South, Islam arrived by way of pacific sailors and merchants, who stayed on inter-marrying, if only temporarily, with local women. They adjusted very well, learned the local languages, remained modest as far as their status was concerned, but also extremely faithful to Islam, strong believers as they were. Then, opportunities came, which helped them to acquire higher statuses and distinguished positions. A number of kingdoms were born out of a declining Mughal Empire, and also through the rivalries and wars between the French and British East India Companies (Dupuis 1963). Tipu Sultan is still a great name in Mysore.
Came the day when the British Empire fell and another centre of power emerged in Delhi. This was Free India which, in 1947, had just been partitioned. It was of course not possible for the new government to tolerate independent princely states in the very heart of the country. In 1948, the Indian Army, through the «Hyderabad Police Action», removed the Nizam of Hyderabad, who, like the Maharaja of Kashmir, was still hesitant about whether to join India or Pakistan. Hyderabad is thus a very special case in South India. The «heiress of the mythical Golconda,» then a wealthy city whose princes had direct links with the British crown, is today, as the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh, one of the most dynamic metropolises in India, but also a sensitive and riot-prone city. Hindus are in a large majority, many among them in the administration having been called along the years by the Nizam himself (as civil servants, they were extremely efficient). We have thus a very interesting and complex population, with several political parties in competition to win their favors at the polls: the Congress Party which has reigned without any serious opposition here for decades; the BJP which has always looked upon Hyderabad as the gateway to South India; various dissidents who are regular troublemakers; and then the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), an active, regional organization built by the film star, Rama Rao, known for his incarnations of various gods on the screen.
As in many places in India, processions are familiar and frequent events. In Hyderabad, the main festival, Ganapati (merging the idols of Lord Ganesh in the local lake) is celebrated with much passion and fanfare. For many years, Ganapati was conducted in a relatively peaceful manner until things began to sour in the Old City, the very place where politicians, at times, would play with fire. Here, in the heart of Hyderabad, is a real ghetto, where low-status Muslims lead miserable lives; they are either migrants from rural areas or Muslims «from the past», whose patrons left for Pakistan. In order to survive, they would accept any job, any transaction with their old connections of the Gulf and its new opportunities-they are even at times compelled to sell their daughters for short marriages with wealthy Arab businessmen. Land grabbing quarrels are frequent, and susceptibilities are running high. The local organization which is fighting to protect their interests is not the last one to react sharply: the Majlis-Ittihad-ul-Muslimin (MIM) is not a «fascist» party, as it is often said, but its fiery leader, the late Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, was not prepared to tolerate any kind of Hindu provocations (Wright 1963). The first serious confrontation took place in 1978 (the Rameeza Bee case), and the atmosphere never ceased to deteriorate thereafter, exacerbated by the huge dimensions that a blind Congress Chief Minister, Chenna Reddy, gave to the Ganesh festival (Engineer 1991b). In 1983, there was an extremely violent and bloody sequence, although the emerging TDP showed there a real sense of responsibility. However, simmering tensions never stopped. Violence erupted again and again, the Ayodhya crisis adding fuel to old resentments (Owaisi, by then a recognized MP, was a member of the Babri Masjid Action Committee [BMAC]). The story goes on, as there is always a rumor at hand to create agitation.
Regarding the deteriorating relationship between Hindus and Muslims reaching the South, the first alert occurred in 1981, with the agitation following the Meenakshipuram conversions of several hundred Dalits to Islam. Then, in 1985-1986, came the news about the «Shah Bano case» and the Babri Masjid controversy. Southern Muslims were not supposed to be interested or concerned. Still, on that fatal December 6, 1992, they were glued to the television just as much as their cousins in the North. Then anxiety mounted, if only because there were now, in the deep South, some new organizations, like the Hindu Munnani in Madras or certain Muslim militant groups in Kerala (e.g., the once dangerous Islamic Sevak Sangh of A. N. Madani), who were extremely noisy, assaulting and killing each other.
News coming from Bombay was not particularly comforting either: there were bomb blasts, new mafia networks, together with the increasing activities of Pakistani agents and the dynamism of those jihadis (Abou-Zahab and Roy 2004), who were now trying to set deep roots in India’s southern regions. Anxiety increased as well, because each bomb blast meant enquiries, police action, citizens being treated as suspects, and Muslim youngsters being sent to jail without trial. Fortunately, there were no violent reactions. People knew better.
In Kerala, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), still hated in the North, is an extremely positive factor. Rioting is rare in these regions and, when it does occur, it does so only for local reasons, as for example, with rivalries between fishermen (in Marad in 2002–2003). In fact, in those days, besides some places in Karnataka which have become rather sensitive like Bangalore (mentioned earlier) or Mangalore, the only riot which has been extremely serious and was repeated twice was in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu) in 1997, and again in 1998. L. K. Advani, the BJP leader who was visiting the city at the time, had a narrow escape.