The salem riots, 1882. Judiciary versus executive in the mediation of a communal dispute

Abstract

Studies on the origins of Hindu-Muslim riots in nineteenth century India have rightly stressed the distinction between what Professor Norman Brown calls "the precipitating causes" of conflict and the deep-seated religo-cultural differences that have long kept these two communities apart. As Norman Brown says, the precipitating cause "might be a quarrel over ownership of a parcel of land and the right to erect a religious building on it, or the playing of music by a Hindu wedding procession as it passed a mosque where such a noise constituted sacrilege, or exaction of exorbitant rent of interest by a landlord or money-lender of one religious persuasion from a tenant or debtor of the other, or sacrifice of a cow by Muslims, or the clash of crowds when a Hindu and a Muslim festival coincided." But under- lying these communal clashes were the deep-seated religo-cultural cleavages, a product of sharp doctrinal and social divergences, and reinforced by bitter historical memories, by economic dispartities, and by ever-growing fears of future domination of one group by the other. Undeniably, almost everywhere in India, these memories and fears had erected a wall of mutual distrust and hatred between the two communities and this ill-feeling periodically vented itself in street fighting, destruction of property, desecration of temples and mosques, and vengeful killing.