Bombay riots

For other riots, see List of riots in Mumbai.

1992-93 Bombay Riots
Date6 December 1992 – 26 January 1993
Location
Bombay, Maharashtra, India
Casualties
Death(s)900 (estimate), 575 Muslims, 275 Hindus, 50 Others.
Part of a series on
Violence against Muslims
in independent India
Major incidents

The Bombay riots were a series of riots that took place in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), Maharashtra, between December 1992 and January 1993. An estimated 900 people, predominantly Muslims, were killed.[1][2] The riots were mainly due to escalations of hostilities after large scale protests by Muslims in reaction to the 1992 Babri Masjid Demolition by Hindu Karsevaks in Ayodhya;[3] and by Hindus in regards with the Ram Temple issue.

Shiv Sena, a Hindutva political party in Maharashtra, is said to have organised the riots.[4] A high-ranking member of the special branch later stated that the police were fully aware of the Shiv Sena's capabilities to commit acts of violence, and that they had incited hate against Muslims.[5]

Historian Barbara Metcalf has described the riots as an anti-Muslim pogrom,[6] where the official death toll was of 575 Muslims, 275 Hindus and 50 others.[7] The riots were followed by the 1993 Bombay Bombings.[8]

  1. ^ Engineer, Asghar Ali (7 May 2012). "The Bombay riots in historic context". The Hindu.
  2. ^ Punwani, Jyoti. "Why there's no noise about the Mumbai riots". Rediff.
  3. ^ "Full Srikrishna report: Chapter 1". Sabrang Communications.
  4. ^ Tambiah, Stanely J. (1997). Leveling Crowds: EthnoNationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia. University of California Press. p. 254. ISBN 978-0520206427.
  5. ^ Blom Hansen, Thomas (2001). Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay. Princeton University Press. p. 137. ISBN 978-0691088402.
  6. ^ Metcalf, Barbara (2006). Robert W. Hefner, Muhammad Qasim Zaman (ed.). Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education. Princeton University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0691129334.
  7. ^ "Understanding the link between 1992-93 riots and the 1993 Bombay blasts". Firstpost. 6 August 2015.
  8. ^ ERCES Online Quarterly Review Archived 10 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Religious Identity of the Perpetrators and Victims of Communal Violence in Post-Independence India