Riots: A State of Mind

Consider a few of the many assumptions about riots prevalent in our country: economicfactors, such as competition between groups for resources, are the underlying cause forethnic riots. A riot is motivated by an envy of prosperous ethnic groups, such as atrading minority, which are then selected as targets. A riot is organised by manipulativeleaders seeking political gain. Increasing prosperity following economic development willlessen the frequency of ethnic rioting.

All the available evidence demonstrates that these assumptions are hoary myths whichare likely to lead efforts at controlling ethnic violence seriously astray. There mayindeed be the involvement of economic rivals within the violence but such economicrivalries are not the cause of a riot. Similarly, politicians may use the riot after thefact and may try to organise it in advance but usually find that the rioting mobs will notact according to their plans. With few exceptions, the target group for violence meets oneor more of the following criteria: it has a history of a long-standing enmity with theother group even if the level of enmity is sometimes vastly exaggerated, it is perceivedas aggressive, constitutes a political threat or is one whose domestic strength appears tobe augmented by its extra-territorial affinities, as is the case with the Tamils in SriLanka, Bengalis in Assam and Muslims in much of India.

Looking at riots from around the world, it seems there are four indispensable elementsthat need to come together for the violence to occur: (i) a hostile relationship betweentwo ethnic groups; (ii) a response to events that engages the emotions of one group, aresponse dominated by the feelings of outrage or wrath; (iii) a keenly felt sense ofjustification for violence among the participants who generally view the riot asself-defence, a part of a long drawn out warfare or as punishment of the other group forwrongdoing; (iv) an assessment by the rioters that the violence carries minimal risk tothemselves; even violently angry people look for a low-risk enterprise.

In the long term, we can only hope that a declining legitimacy of ethnic hatred and ageneral disapproval of mass violence will reduce the hostility and sense of justificationneeded by the riot participants. In the absence of social support for ethnic animosity andviolence, the rioter is exposed to considerable risk since the authorities cannot becounted on for indifference and the targets cannot be counted on for passivity. In theshort term, though, the most effective strategy appears to be a preventive one that aimsto considerably increase the risk for riot behaviour. In practice, this means effectivedeployment of force by the authorities, especially during the "lull"— thatbrief period of 12-24 hours between the first isolated incidents and the major outbreak ofviolence.

Efforts to punish the rioters after the episode are not as effective asprevention. This is mainly due to the difficulties in identifying individual rioters andthe high political costs of punishment if the rioters are associated (as they often are)with powerful political parties or the regime. The failure to punish, in further reducingthe risk, will then only foster the recurrence of rioting. Programmes to increaseunderstanding between the groups through appropriate textbooks, use of mass media,inter-religious seminars, peace committees and sadbhavna yatras are laudable, as areefforts of dedicated men and women to bring rioters to justice. The major emphasis of riotprevention, however, at least in the near future, must be on reducing the rioter'ssense of personal risk.