1924 Kohat riots
The 1924 Kohat riots happened in Kohat town in the North-West Frontier Province, British India in 1924. In three days (9–11 September) of rioting, official statistics state that the total casualty-count was 155, of which the number of casualties among Hindus & Sikhs was more than three times higher than the number of casualties among Muslims. Almost the entire Hindu population which was living in the town at the time, a total of 3,200 people, was either evacuated or fled.
Background
In the 1921 census, Kohat had a population of about 5000 Hindus and Sikhs[lower-alpha 1], and 12000 Muslims.[1] Much of the bureaucracy was composed of Muslims.[1] Despite, the Hindus were economically dominant: income tax records of the same year note indicate they paid four times as much as Muslims.[1] Prior to the twentieth century, says Patrick McGinn, relations between the two religious communities were peaceful and exhibited multiple instances of cooperation.[1]
However, with the turn of the century, waves of religiopolitical consciousness swept Kohat.[1] With the Indian Nationalist Movement being extensively Hindu-ised, subcontinental Muslims sought out faith-based avenues for political aspirations.[1] After the disintegration of the Khilafat Movement, local Ulemas had themselves rebranded as defenders of Islam.[1] Aggressive efforts by Arya Samaj stirred communal tensions in no insignificant manner either — in 1907, Provincial Commissioner H. Deane held the Samaj to be primarily responsible for the sudden rise in religious antagonism and a minor riot broke out in 1909.[1]
In August 1924, the editor of Guru Ghantal—a Hindu Newspaper, based in Lahore and having a large audience in Kohat—was prosecuted for publishing inflammatory articles attacking Islam.[lower-alpha 2][1] This was part of a months-long bipartisan tirade in press where Hindus claimed to be speaking out against forced conversions[lower-alpha 3] and Muslims against dishonor of their religion.[1] In June, the son of Sardar Makan Singh eloped with a Muslim girl and the affair was communalized.[1] In August, Muslims lodged protests against the proposed construction of a bathing ghat for Hindu women in the vicinity of a Muslim neighborhood; the government adjudicated the dispute in favor of Hindus on 2 September.[1] Overall, in the opinion of Patrick McGinn, the dominant discourse in the town on the eve of the riot smacked of competitive communalism.[1]
Riot
Prelude
The immediate trigger of the dispute was Jiwan Das—secretary of the local branch of Sanatan Dharm Sabha—publishing a pamphlet of poems, titled Krishan Sandesh.[1] One particular poem, allegedly written by a poet from Jammu, gave calls to evict all Muslims to Arabia and construct a Vishnu Temple at Kaaba.[1] McGinn contends the publication to have been a calculated strategy to provoke the Muslim community and attract Hindus to their fold.[1] The poem was brought to broader public attention by Shah J. Wakeel and Sheikh A. Rahman on the occasion of a Muslim funeral, on 1 September.[1] Enraged Muslims held meetings in mosques against the "gross defamation" of Islam, and fanatical preachers from outside arrived in Kohat.[1] With tensions escalating rapidly, the Sabha argued the poem to be a response to an anti-Hindu poem, published in the May issue of Lahaul, where Muslims were urged to desecrate holy texts and shrines of infidels, and obliterate their existence.[1] However their justifications pacified none.[1]
Finally, on 2 September at a public meeting in Town Hall, Hindu leaders offered apologies blaming the young-turks and sought pardon; a resolution was published to the same effects and dispatched to the government as well as Muslim leaders.[1] While the meeting had ended in an amicable resolution, certain Muslim leaders—Maulvi Ahmed Gul,[lower-alpha 4] Qazi Miraj Din et al—did not approve of the resolution.[1] They moved demonstrations before Police Superintendent Lillie and Asst. Commissioner S. Ahmed Khan, forcing the latter to take Das into preventative detention.[1] Khan assured the irate crowd of Das' prosecution and ordered a public burning of all copies of Krishan Sandesh.[1]
While no significant developments transpired till 8 September, the situation was rapidly deteriorating — on 6 September, Hindus had sent a letter to the Chief Commissioner and Dy. Commissioner Reilly about the precarious situation.[1] Two days later, in what is perceived as a baffling move by McGinn, Das was let off on bail subject to the conditions that he might not enter the district until the trial started.[1] This led Muslim clerics to spread rumors about how Das has been acquitted and accordingly, everybody was asked to attend the evening congregational prayers wherein preachers gave incendiary speeches about the need of protecting Islam from enemies and threatened to engage in tunes with Islamic Law unless their demands were met by next morning.[1] The crowd was invigorated and some attendees even promised to divorce their wives and give up life, if they failed to avenge the honor of Islam.[1] Armed contingents of Muslims paraded in the city across the night.[1]
Events
The morning of 9 September, a Muslim crowd, exceeding a strength of thousand and mostly composed of young boys, demonstrated before Reilly and compelled him to accept all demands.[1] While returning through a Hindu neighborhood, a fracas ensued —probably with the crowd pelting local shops and torching Makan Singh's property— and in retaliation, a Muslim boy was shot dead and several others were wounded as Hindus opened fire from roof-tops.[1] Fights waged on till about 7 PM, when the local police finally managed to exert itself and drive away the crowd.[1]
The next morning, thousands of Muslims from neighboring regions infiltrated into Kohat and by afternoon, the Hindu neighborhood was surrounded from all sides.[1] Most of the Hindus decided to leave their homes—often with assistance from the administration—and take shelter in the main temple, allowing the Muslim mob to have a free run in torching the entire neighborhood and decimate whatever feeble resistance was offered by those who had refused to leave.[1] McGinn notes that the infiltrators engaged in extensive looting of the entire town without according any special favor to Muslim shops and they were cleared, only around late evening.[1] The town was witness to unprecedented arson and it took a week to douse the flames.[1]
Aftermath
Official records pegged net casualty at 145 — Hindus bore the disproportionate share.[1] By 15 September, almost the entire Hindu population had been escorted out to Rawalpindi with only 155 choosing to stay.[1] Mahatma Gandhi insisted in particular that the Hindus shall not return to Kohat, until the Government compensated them for damages incurred in the riot and assured safety.[1][lower-alpha 5]
It would be January 1925 before Hindus started trickling back in — a resolution adopted by "representatives" of Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh community on 19 January agreed to return all property to their rightful owners, restore all desecrated shrines, withdraw all ongoing cases (incl. against Das), and ensure harmonious conduct in future.[1] The government stood steadfast on refusing compensation but disbursed voluminous loans to the afflicted.[1][lower-alpha 6]
| Dead | Injured | Missing | Net | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hindu | 12 | 86 | 13 | 111 |
| Muslim | 11 | 23 | 0 | 34 |
Notes
- Army garrisons stationed in the city were counted too. The resident population was lower.[1]
- One such poem (published 7 July) mentioned the days of Islam to be numbered, that it was a false religion.[1]
- In an interview to Gandhi, Kamal Jailane estimated that about 150 Hindus were converted every year in Kohat for the last four-five years.[1]
- Gul was the Secretary of the local Khilafat committee, when it was disbanded.[1]
- To Gandhi, the Kohat situation was emblematic not only of the British Government's errors of omission and commission that fanned religious riots but also of the cruel treatment met out to refugees on a pan-India basis. Visiting Rawalpindi in December, he lashed out at the local bureaucracy for exhibiting rank callousness and incompetency in its disregard for Hindu insecurities, as lodged on the 6th; the administration's refusal to arrange for food of the refugees in Rawalpindi drew ire too.[1]
- The loans would be remitted in 1938.