The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India

6. The Geography and Demography of Riots

6 I The Geography and Demography of Riots INTRODUCTION Collective violence such as riots rarely-indeed almost never-engulfs an entire town or city ofany substantial size. Nor does it ever include all elements in the city's social organi:r.ation, whether defined by class, caste, religion, or other cultural community. This obvious and elementary character of collective violence is usually ignored in studies that identify the sites ofviolence as the cities or towns in which they occur. The literature commonly refers to racial or religious riots as having occurred in Detroit or Chicago or Newark or, in our case, in Bombay or Hyderabad or Aligarh. Paired comparison and ecological studies almost invariably also take the social, economic , and demographic characteristics ofthe entire cityor town as the bases for comparison. Rare is the study, Michael Keith again providing a stunning exception, that identifies precisely the site within the urban area in which violence occurs and within which nobody living within its boundaries could escape noticing, if not participating in, the action. Keith's study goes even further and takes us down to the street and the community centers in which the action occurs. He describes not just that action occurring when the violence breaks out, but the action that is continuous and that lays the basis for the explosive violence that follows.l Only in that way can the dynamics ofriot production be uncovered. In this chapter, Iwillfirst identifythe broad areas ofthe cityin which riotous violence is concentrated. I will then identify specific areas which have repeatedly been sites of violent outbreaks, and specify the types of demographic, social, and economic environments in which they occur. In the second chapter in this part, I will consider the economic bases for communal conflict and violence in Aligarh. 149 150 / The Geography and Demography ofRiots GEOGRAPHY AND DEMOGRAPHY There are several geographical and demographic features ofAligarh City that are of great importance in understanding political change and communal relations there since Independence. The first is the fundamental division created during colonial rule between the Civil Lines area and the old city. The Civil Lines is a chara(.ieristic British creation that existed in most ofthe towns and cities where there was a significant presence of British administrators. These areas were cantonments for British armed forces and posh residential areas for its administrative officers, usually created out of rural space on the outskirts ofexisting towns. In Aligarh, in addition-and ultimatelyofgreater importance-the Civil Lines provided the site for the establishment of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and, with its expansion, for the residential bungalows of its faculty and staff. Largely because of the presence of the AMU and its predominantly Muslim faculty in the Civil Lines, the population of the Civil Lines ward was more than 50 percent Muslim in 1951. Insofar as the university community itself is concerned, the vast majority ofwhom live in the Civil Lines, 86 to 88 percent are Muslim today.2 The division between the Civil Lines and the old city is sharply marked, physically, emotionally, demographically, culturally, and in lifestyle. Physically, the Civil Lines is separated from the old city by tlle railroad line and the Ramghat Road, which meet to form a triangle comprising the northeastern sections of the city, and by the flyover (viaduct) at Katllphula, over which one travels to reach the old city (see Map 1),3 Most of the land lying to the northeast ofthe railway line, "except the Railway Colony and the Indian residential mohallas on the eastern side"4 is included in the Civil Lines. Lelyveld, in his reconstruction of the life and times of Aligarh at the founding of the AMU, remarked on the contrast existing even then between the old city and Civil Lines with its newly founded college as follows: "Nothingcouldbegreater than the contrast between the chaos of KoH's [Aligarh's] winding streets and the deliberate order of the Aligarh College."5 Hirt described the Civil Lines area in 1955 as follows. It is characterized by large, widely spaced upper class residences and administrative and judicial buildings arranged along wide, predominantly straight streets. The MuslimUniversityoccupies alargetractofland inthe northwestern part of the area.6 The Geography and Demography ofRiots / 151 Gular Ro"'---4l ~foIonY Med~ollege • New and newly incorporated mohallas MAP 1. Aligarh City 152 / The Geography and Demography ofRiots In more recent times, especially in the last decade or so, new...