Rene Girard in his study of scapegoating mechanism explained the frustration/displacement motivation. When social systems approach crises, challenge of intra group resentments is met by displacing those frustrations on to an out group scapegoat. We can see this phenomenon in
India where every spike of communal riots can be traced to preceding atmosphere of heightened caste-class struggle within Hindu society. Gujarat in the caste riots turned communal riots in mid 80s, UP and Bihar from the late 70s after introduction of caste based quotas at the
state level, then the turn of the 90's with the Mandal mobilization sparking off high pitched Hindutva activity and communal violence. A paper by Bulutgil & Prasad (2023) on Muzaffarnagar riots demonstrated that anti Muslim violence took place precisely in those villages which
had seen rising inequality between Jat landowners and Dalit/MBC workers. The book Violence and Democracy by Kazuya Nakamizo similarly traces communal violence in Bihar (particularly Bhagalpur anti Muslim pogrom) in the intra Hindu conflict between rising agrarian castes &
traditionally dominant upper castes, reeling from collapse of Congress dominant system. Girard also talks about how the scapegoat outgroup resembles in many respects the challenger in-group whose frustrations are being diverted. The similarity in the lifeworld of Hindu & Muslim
subaltern groups (in terms of occupation, residential areas, and livelihood challenges) also fits well into this paradigm. Given this historical context, one ought to brace for a further spike in communal violence as caste census agenda assumes centrestage. Would not be
surprised if we see a major incident of communal violence in the coming future in a critical battleground state like Bihar or Maharashtra. Already, everyday communal violence in Maharashtra has risen to unprecedented levels & CM Nitish Kumar is now at his weakest vis a vis BJP.
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