State and police complicity marked the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom

Evidence

The recent ascendancy of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and related Hindu nationalist parties has placed other religious groups—notably Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians—on the defensive and produced many a violent encounter. In February 2002, fifty-eight Hindu activists returning from a pilgrimage to that disputed site in Ayodhya died in a Godhra, Gujarat fire, after local Muslims attacked their train. With backing from police and politicians, organized Gujarati Hindus began chasing down Muslims through much of the state, eventually killing about one thousand people and leaving one hundred thousand homeless. Gujarat’s Hindu nationalist government did little to apprehend the killers, and the BJP, with an openly anti-Muslim campaign, won a landslide victory in Gujarat’s December 2002 elections. After September 11, furthermore, the national government itself began cracking down on Muslim activists who opposed the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, firing on demonstrators and banning the Students Islamic Movement of India. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 521

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s private library on the 2002 Gujarat pogrom (Annihilation of Caste annotations) and to the hypothesis that dominant-group violence is legitimated as defense against subordinate ‘rights demands.’ — connects to: The 2002 Gujarat pogrom killed over 2,000 Muslims with arrests skewed overwhelmingly against Muslims — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 431; The 2002 Gujarat pogrom arrested almost exclusively Muslims despite no evidence; Gujarat’s 2002 anti-Muslim violence was state-orchestrated and electorally rewarded — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 696 (+3 more)
• SEED: Useful empirical anchor for an essay arguing that party-capture of the state converts majoritarian contention into sanctioned violence — elite-directed pogrom as regime-sponsored repertoire.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 521

Broader Connections

• Gujarat’s 2002 anti-Muslim violence was state-orchestrated and electorally rewarded #expands (0.93) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 696
• State officials were granted free rein to kill Muslims in 2002 Gujarat #expands (0.92) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 435
• The 2002 Gujarat pogrom arrested almost exclusively Muslims despite no evidence #exemplifies (0.88)
• Modi incited violent mobs to massacre Muslims in 2002 Gujarat #corroborates (0.85) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 430
• Modi personally incited the 2002 Gujarat massacre that killed at least 800 Muslims #corroborates (0.85)
• The 2002 Gujarat pogrom killed over 2,000 Muslims with arrests skewed overwhelmingly against Muslims #exemplifies (0.82) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 431