From: sunder@grusin.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Bombay Riots...
Date: 11 Jan 93 17:14:33 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
NNTP-Posting-Host: grusin.crhc.uiuc.edu


The latest UPI report says that so far 183 people are dead in Bombay. When you
include Ahmedabad, the total is 244. A top police official, who asked to remain 
unidentified, said that this was not a "Hindu-Muslim" conflict, but an inter-gang 
problem. How does that explain Ahmedabad? The reality is that it is both.
If there were no Hindu-Muslim conflicts, the gangs could not take the opportunity
to loot, pillage and burn and blame them on communal tensions.

In Ahmedabad, most of the violence is in the Muslim-neighborhood. Three people
burnt to death on Sunday and a house set ablaze. 4 more people reported stabbed
in street-fighting.

It has now spread from the predominantly Muslim neighbourhoods to the rest of
the city, affecting places like Matunga, Dadar, "the fashionable beach-side 
districts" (Juhu?), and Chembur.

The CM says that now, "Hindus are killing Hindus." There are now attacks on the
Tamil community in Bombay (that must explain Matunga and Chembur). I thought
that the Shiv Sena had given up its anti-South animus some time back. But the
police are blaming them for it. Jayalalitha has appealed to Naik to protect the
"small Tamil community" in "sundar Mumbai, marathi Mumbai." "Small?" I
thought that Bombay had more Tamils than Madras. Expect some incidents of 
vandalism on Northies (to an avg. Madrasi, the distinction between a Punjabi, 
UP-ite, Marathi etc. is irrelevant -- they all speak Hindi) by some looters in
Madras anxious to not be out-done by their Bombay-ite cousins.

The Central Railways are adding extra cars to trains to facilitate people
fleeing the city. According to the Governor (in office while a replacement
is announced, I guess) C.Subramaniam (he's a Tamil), the Army is finding it
difficult to control the mob-frenzy. "Leading citizens" have asked that Bombay
be placed under emergency and handed over to the Army. Hey, why stop there? 
Let's do the same for the rest of the country as well. Just don't let the BSF
or the CRPF in -- that'll ensure a Maharashthra-secession movement. 1200
Rapid Action Forces are also being rushed there. Typical of Govt., huh? Send
in the Rapid Action Forces, well after the time when rapid action was required.

(Gratuitous-cheap-shot-at-Bombay alert: Revenge for all those snooty
anti-Madras barbs I have received from Bombay-based cousins.)
Heck, I thought Bombay was a "cosmopolitan" city. The scales are falling, and
fast. Madras, the city of my birth and breeding, where all prospects please
and only the Govt. is vile, never looked so good to me. (memo to the
Almighty: Puhleeeeeeeze, don't screw up Madras as well now.)

I have a theory: This is part of the anti-poverty program of the Govt. They
have decided that it's no use trying to make the poor well-off, and have
decided to solve the poverty problem by killing them off instead. They are also
saving bullets by letting them kill each other. To divert attention from 
conspiracy-theorists (like me, a la Oliver Stone), they made some of them
attack the high-class districts as well.

Look to see a virtual halt on foreign investments (memo to Satya: Do IGF-
holders sell now?). 

-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these views, I'd be most surprised.
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