The death toll in Hindu-Muslim rioting in the South Indian city of Coimbatore has risen to 13, most of them Muslims. Many more, including a member of the Tamil Nadu state assembly, have been injured. Armed gangs were reported to have fought running battles on the streets and damaged government and private buildings. The state police failed to bring the situation under control, and reinforcements were rushed from the neighbouring states of Karnatka and Kerala. The communal violence was triggered by an apparently unrelated incident of a police constable's killing. The constable happened to be a Hindu, and the attackers were Muslims. It took no time for the personal feud to turn into a Hindu-Muslim riot.
Such riots in India are commonplace, as neither religious tolerance nor rule of law are among the virtues that India's so-called secular democracy has managed to inculcate among its people. And, more often than not, "saffron brigades" of one variety or the other have been deliberately triggering off a communal frenzy to derive political mileage while the self-proclaimed secular parties have turned a blind eye to outrages of terror and intimidation. Nevertheless, South India has, by and large, been less afflicted by the communal virus as Hindu fanatic outfits have failed to counter the popular appeal of the regionalist plank. The outbreak of communal violence in a Tamil Nadu city is, therefore, more a cause for concern.
Ironically, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu is currently in the dock for its links with the Tamil Tigers. Following its indictment by the Jain Commission, it is preoccupied with defending itself against the Congress onslaught. The communal flare-up in Coimbatore may not have been engineered by the adversaries of the DMK, but it has shown that communal harmony in India is hostage to vested interests. While the avowed secular forces in India are busy forging an anti-BJP alliance to ward off the communal threat, it is shameful that a government run by one of the secular parties has failed to rein in the promoters of communal frenzy and violence in its own state.
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