Hubli city in North Karnataka Communal flare up on the night of 16 April, for which the immediate trigger was an inflammatory social media post. A huge crowd gathered in front of Old Hubli station and 12 police personnel were injured in the violence that followed. So far over 130 people have been arrested in connection with the incident. However, the incident has rekindled religious animosity in a city that had gradually lost the tag of being “communally sensitive” and emerged as an important commercial centre.
While the focus was on police station gatherings, stone pelting and mob violence on April 16, it built up slowly, as the rest of the state was witnessing communal escalation. Events. During the Hanuman Jayanti procession in the Dajiban Peth area of Hubli, predominantly inhabited by the Somvansh Sahasrarjuna Kshatriya (SSK) or Pattagar community, laser beams of “Jai Shri Ram” were cast on the walls of a nearby mosque in Pendar Gali. The elders of both the communities immediately intervened to resolve the matter.
At the close of the incident, hours before the provocative video surfaced, four activists of Shri Ram Sena were released on bail in connection with the vandalism around the Hanuman temple in Nuggikeri. Army workers had driven out Muslim traders from around the temple and footage of them destroying a pile of watermelons being sold by an aged Muslim trader went viral.
Obviously, a political turmoil has started regarding this incident. The BJP is accusing the Congress of having a hand in instigating the violence, while the Congress has categorically denied it. It said that the district unit president of the Congress, who helped control the situation that night by boarding a jeep and appealing for peace, has also been targeted. With assembly elections less than a year away, this wave of events shows no signs of ending very soon. The role of private television channels in continuously airing communal inflammatory material and keeping the issue alive cannot be underestimated.
This incident and what followed does not bode well for a city that still remembers the large-scale violence during the 1980s and 90s that severely affected the region’s economy.
In fact, what is known as the ‘Idgah Maidan row’, which reached a climax in the 1990s, played an important role in consolidating the BJP’s vote bank in Karnataka and in the region in particular. The Idgah Maidan is a small piece of land in the heart of the city, where Muslims offered prayers twice a year and later Anjuman-e-Islam claimed the land, resulting in nearly four decades of litigation. In the 90s, when the BJP was trying to establish its foothold in the state, the issue of Idgah Maidan came to the centre.
In 1992, when Murli Manohar Joshi hoisted the tricolor in Srinagar on January 26, the BJP’s Karnataka unit had similar plans for the Idgah ground in Hubli, which did not go as planned. Another attempt, planned for 15 August 1992, was later aborted. With the general assembly elections on 15 August 1994, the BJP attempted to hoist the national flag at the Idgah ground and was successful amid the curfew. The result was police firing and the death of six people. That year BJP had won all the three seats in Hubli Dharwad area. In subsequent years, the BJP has consolidated its position in the region.
While swift police action this time has prevented further escalation of violence, efforts are still on to raise relevant issues in Hubli, which is a worrying sign.
Girish.s@thehindu.co.in