A setback to Odisha’s secular ethos

DThroughout the Durga Puja immersion procession in early October, a communal conflict between Hindus and Muslims broke out within the historic metropolis of Cuttack, Odisha. In line with stories, round 40 retailers have been burnt down in Dargah Bazar, a predominantly Muslim locality, main the administration to impose a curfew for a number of days and arrest greater than a dozen individuals.

This marks the second occasion of communal unrest underneath the incumbent BJP authorities, which got here to energy in 2024 after dislodging the BJD. The primary communal conflict underneath the brand new regime occurred in Bhadrak in September 2024.

The final time Cuttack noticed such violence was within the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, underneath the Biju Patnaik authorities. The most recent incident bears an eerie resemblance to the sample of riots unfolding in different elements of India, notably in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Sometimes, the sequence begins with a spiritual procession passing by Muslim neighborhoods, adopted by incidents of stone-throwing that escalate into full-blown communal violence.

Beneath Naveen Patnaik’s rule (2000–2024), there have been episodes of communal unrest in Odisha — the anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal in 2008 and violence in Bhadrak, one other Muslim-dominated space, in 2017. At the moment, mr. Patnaik headed a coalition authorities with the BJP as a associate. The Justice Naidu Fee, set as much as examine the Kandhamal violence, submitted its report back to Mr. Patnaik in 2015, however that is but to be tabled within the Odisha Meeting. However regardless of these episodes, Odisha has typically been thought to be a comparatively peaceable State.

Odisha’s Muslim inhabitants is demographically insignificant — simply over 2% — and is essentially concentrated in clusters in cities resembling Cuttack, Bhadrak, and Kendrapada. This may occasionally appear shocking on condition that Afghan rule reached Odisha as early as 1568; nonetheless, Mughal affect remained restricted. Some historians argue that this historic issue partly explains the small Muslim inhabitants. Odisha’s colonial historical past was dominated as an alternative by the Marathas, who established their rule in 1751. Fakir Mohan Senapati, the daddy of contemporary Odia literature, famous in his autobiography that Maratha rule was much more oppressive than that of the British.

Regardless of their small numbers, Muslims in Odisha have produced a number of leaders recognized for his or her secular politics. Sofia Firdous, the primary Muslim girl elected to the Odisha Legislative Meeting in 2024, represents the Barabati constituency in Cuttack. She performed an energetic position in restoring peace after the latest violence. The daughter of former Congress MLA Mohammad Moquim, she had been visiting Durga Puja pandals simply hours earlier than the clashes broke out. In earlier many years, Mustafiz Ahmad, one other Muslim chief from Cuttack, served as a minister. Shaikh Matlub Ali, from the outskirts of Cuttack, served a number of cupboards and even constructed a Hindu temple in Khandol in Mahanga constituency. Habibullah Khan was elected to the Odisha Meeting 9 instances. Notably, throughout Mr. Throughout Patnaik’s 24-year tenure, the BJD by no means had a single Muslim MLA or Cupboard minister. The present BJP authorities, too, doesn’t have any Muslim illustration within the Meeting.

Chief Minister Mohan Charan attributed the most recent incident to vested pursuits trying to tarnish Odisha’s peaceable picture. This clarification stands in distinction to the often-vitriolic rhetoric seen in States resembling UP and Maharashtra, the place bulldozer justice has develop into symbolic of state response. Odisha has not but seen such an administrative tradition, which locations the BJP authorities within the State on a considerably totally different footing. Whether or not this distinction will endure stays unsure, particularly amid deepening social polarization.

On the governance entrance, the Mohan Majhi administration has confronted a number of challenges, starting from ladies’s questions of safety, to corruption allegations within the police recruitment course of, to rising inner factionalism. inside the ruling celebration. Collectively, these components make governance more and more troublesome. No matter the federal government’s political credibility, it’s plain that Odisha’s secular ethos has suffered a setback owing to the violence in Cuttack.

Shaikh Mujibur Rehman is the creator of Shikwa-e-Hind: The Political Way forward for Indian Muslims (2024). Views are private