Interfaith solidarity in the face of anti-Muslim violence on Ram Navami in India

From 30 March to 1 April, around the Hindu festival of Ram Navami, Muslim residents across West Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand witnessed a wave of communal violence. In the district of Howrah in West Bengal, men paraded through the city setting vehicles ablaze, ransacking shops, throwing bricks and glass bottles filled with petrol. In two cities in Bihar, Bihar Sharif and Sasaram, even a graveyard wasn't spared from fire. Petrol bombs were thrown inside the Murarpur mosque and the 110-year-old Azizia library was burnt down, with over 4000 Islamic books reportedly destroyed. In Vadodara, Gujarat, there were incidents of stone-throwing, damage to the Dhuldoyawad Masjid and threats to "repeat 2002" – a reference to the infamous anti-Muslim riots in the state that year. In Aurangabad, around 500 people set fire to at least 13 vehicles, while throwing stones and petrol bombs. At least two people were reported dead, with several reportedly injured.

Weeks later, residents in these areas are still recovering. Such violence around Ram Navami, they say, is a relatively recent phenomenon. In April 2022, India saw communal violence across nine states, and incidents of "provocation and low grade violence" in three others, resulting in 100 people injured and at least three deaths, according to a report by the Citizens and Lawyers Initiative. The flashpoint was the same – religious processions marking Ram Navami, as well as Hanuman Jayanti. As the report notes, India has seen religious processions followed by communal riots since as far back as the 1920s. But recently, Ram Navami processions have more and more been taken over by "militant Hindutva organisations" because Ram is an essential figure in the political imagination of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the main force behind Hindutva. The report also noted "eerie patterns" in the communal violence of April 2022 – all the incidents involved large groups of "saffron-clad" men armed with swords, guns and tridents, deliberately taking routes through largely Muslim neighbourhoods, and often chanting slogans about a Hindu nation.