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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Feb-2020
27-Feb-20 World View -- India's 1947 Partition War being refought as Delhi riots spread

Web Log - February, 2020

27-Feb-20 World View -- India's 1947 Partition War being refought as Delhi riots spread

The generational 'Democide Pattern'

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Communal Hindu vs Muslim violence kills 27 in India's capital Delhi
Delhi riots evoke memories of India's bloody 1947 Partition War
The generational 'Democide Pattern'

Communal Hindu vs Muslim violence kills 27 in India's capital Delhi

Aftermath of Hindu-Muslim ethnic clashes in Delhi on Wednesday (AFP)

Aftermath of Hindu-Muslim ethnic clashes in Delhi on Wednesday (AFP)

With all that's going on in the world today -- an increasingly explosive situation in Idlib, Syria, with al-Assad's army threatening full-scale genocide and Turkey threatening war with Syria, and a growing coronavirus crisis in multiple countries -- it's easy to ignore a growing ethnic conflict in India.

At least 27 people were killed and hundreds injured in three days ethnic riots between Hindus and Muslims in Delhi, India's capital city. In most cases, the violence was by Hindu nationalist mobs targeting Muslims, beating unarmed Muslim men, and destroying or burning Muslim homes and businesses. Muslims claim that the police did nothing to stop the violence, and Hindus claim that some Hindus were attacked as well. It's described as the worst communal violence in Delhi in decades.

The protests were triggered by a new law, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that became law in December. According to the Indian government, the purpose of the law is to protect persecuted ethnic minorities in neighboring countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh), by allowing members of the ethnic minorities to apply for citizenship in India. ( "17-Dec-19 World View -- India's Citizenship Bill riots evoke memories of the 1947 Partition War")

So that sounds perfectly reasonable, until you begin to understand its consequences. It applies to persecuted minorities -- Hindu, Christian, Jain, Parsi, Sikh or Buddhist -- but not to Muslims, since Muslims are not minorities in the neighbor countries. Opponents of the law point out that ethnic minorities that happen to be Muslim are also excluded, referring specifically to the Rohingyas in Bangladesh, as well as Ahmadis and Sufis in Pakistan.

Starting in December, there were large anti-CAA protests, and protesters included by Muslims and Hindus, complaining that the law undermines India's secular traditions.

However, as the weeks have passed, Muslims in the protests have been increasingly targeted by Hindutva (Hindu nationalists) with inflammatory speeches and expletives and mobs mouthing racist anti-Muslim slogans. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who heads the Hindu nationalist BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), are being accused by activists of inciting the violence against Muslim.

Hindu nationalism is controversial in India because opponents associate it with "Hindutva violence," where the Hindutva movement began in 1923, led by Veer Savarkar (Vinayak Damodar Savarkar), mostly as a movement against British colonization. (See "'Hindutva' terrorist violence against Muslims shocks Indians" from 2008.) Modi became associated with Hindutva violence in 2002, as Governor of the Gujarat province, when he allegedly looked the other way when a train with Hindutva activists attacked a group of Muslims, triggering sectarian violence that led to hundreds of deaths and displacing more than 150,000 people, mostly Muslim. ( "15-Sep-13 World View -- Hindu nationalist nominated as India's prime minister")

Many in the media are also comparing the current anti-Muslim riots to a major 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhin, in which more than 3,000 Sikhs were killed.

Delhi riots evoke memories of India's bloody 1947 Partition War

It's been 73 years since India's last generational crisis war, the 1947 Partition War that followed when the Indian subcontinent was partitioned into two countries, India and Pakistan. The idea was that Hindus and Sikhs would occupy India, and Muslims would occupy Pakistan. But unfortunately the partition wasn't "clean," in the sense that there were both Hindus and Muslims on both sides of the partition line. The result was one of the most massive and bloodiest battle of the 20th century, the 1947 Partition War.

The preceding generational crisis war, when India was a British colony and there was no Pakistan, was the 1857 anti-British rebellion, also also called India's First War of Independence from the British colonial power. What started out as protests related to the Hindu veneration of cows grew into an extremely bloody generational crisis war, resulting in the deaths of over 100,000 Indian civilians. ( "7-Aug-16 World View -- India's Narendra Modi finally hits out at Cow Protectors ('Gau Rakshaks')")

So the 1857 rebellion and the 1947 Partition War were the last two generational crisis wars, and India is overdue for a new one. The current communal violence in Delhi is extremely disturbing, and in this generational Crisis era, it is possible that the Delhi violence will escalate into war.

Dear Reader, if you get the feeling that the world is coming apart at the seams, you're right. That's what happens during a generational Crisis era. Winston Churchill referred to a similar period prior to WW II as "The Gathering Storm." We're seeing a "gathering storm" today, and it's possible that the growing Delhi violence in India will be the trigger for a much larger war.

The generational 'Democide Pattern'

As I've developed generational theory and Generational Dynamics, I've seen a particular pattern occur over and over in dozens of countries. I've decided to adopt the name "Democide Pattern" for this pattern, even though the original author of the term "democide," R. J. Rummel, used it to mean mass slaughter of a segment of a country's population by the government.

I'm using the same word in an expanded sense, to include things like torture, rape, jailings, executions, and discrimination targeting a segment of the population. This pattern occurs in countries in the decades following a generational crisis war which is also a civil war.

Regular readers know that I've written several times about the differences that depend on whether the preceding crisis war was an external war with another country versus an internal crisis civil war between tribes and ethnic groups. In the former case, when the war ends, the two armies each withdraw from the other country, and further contact between the populations is done diplomatically. But in the latter case, the two populations continue to live with each other when the war ends -- in the same country, the same villages and even on the same streets. This means that the hatred and the desire for revenge continue at a very personal level.

In the past I've described in general terms what happens, but now I'm using the term "Democide Pattern" to describe the particular behaviors that occur. After a generational crisis ethnic or tribal civil war ends, the winning side gets control of the government. There's usually some sort of peace agreement at the end of the war, where the winning tribe promises not to discriminate against the losing tribe, but that agreement always falls apart when the losing tribe begins to gain political power.

I'll write more about this at a later date, but here is a summary of the behaviors that we see in country after country:

Hate speech and inflammatory speeches
Job discrimination
Extrajudial jailinsgs
Torture, rape
Collective punishment for individual crimes
Goon squads attacking the losing tribe
Organized mobs attacking the losing tribe
Pogroms attacking the losing tribe -- police stand by an watch as members of the winning tribe attack the losing tribe.

India has adopted most of these behaviors targeting Muslims.

A standard technique is for the government to continually discriminate and incite violence against the losing tribe, in order to provoke some kind of violent or terrorist act in response. This provides the excuse for the government to collective punishment against everyone in the losing tribe.

The extreme example is Bashar al-Assad, whom I've described is the worst genocidal monster and war criminal so far this century. But I've also described the same phenomenon, with varying levels of violence, with Paul Biya in Cameroon, Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Joseph Kabila in DRC, or, outside of Africa, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hun Sen in Cambodia and Maithripala Sirisena in Sri Lanka.

Sources:

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (27-Feb-2020) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Feb-2020 27-Feb-20 World View -- India's 1947 Partition War being refought as Delhi riots spread

Communal Hindu vs Muslim violence kills 27 in India's capital Delhi

Delhi riots evoke memories of India's bloody 1947 Partition War

The generational 'Democide Pattern'

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 27-Feb-2020
27-Feb-20 World View -- India's 1947 Partition War being refought as Delhi riots spread