Communal consciousness of a person may become deadliest if he or she is employed in the law and order agencies. His communal prejudice is then expressed through the guns and the mutilation of powers in hands. If this tendency is overlooked again and again by the monitoring and other controlling agencies, then the riots are not only institutionalized but also occur into a Police war against the Muslims. The Gujarat riots are the manifestations of the communal consciousness of the police and their allied agencies, which show their complete disregards to the rule of law.25 The extensive media coverage has exposed the blatantly partisan role played by the law enforcement system. The police not only failed to protect the lives of innocent persons but on occasions aided and abetted the rioters. Ajit Bhattacharjea observed in his investigative report on the 1969 riots in Ahmedabad, that “the police failed to take firm action for the first three days and that this was not a matter of slackness but policy.”26 Iqbal Ansari, who is recognised for his scholarly contributions on the understanding of riots, finds partisan role of police in major riots in 1980s and 1990s.27 Justice Srikrishna observed in his report on the Mumbai Riots (1992-1993) that “there was a general bias against the Muslims in the minds of average policemen which was evident in the way they dealt with the Muslims.”28 Iqbal Ansari refers to V.N. Roy, senior police official who wrote several books on riots and police, for his views that in all the riots studied by him, the police acted more like a Hindu force. His fieldwork revealed that the negatively stereotyped image of Muslims was generally retained by Hindu policemen throughout their career.29

The report also says that "the response of police to appeals from desperate victims, particularly Muslims, was cynical and utterly indifferent on occasions, the attitude was that one Muslim killed was one Muslim less…police officers and men, particularly at the junior level appeared to have in built bias against Muslims…."30 The Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission report on Ahmedabad riots (1969) said that "half a dozen instances where Muslim religious places adjoining police lines or police stations were attacked or damaged. The argument advanced by the police…did not impress the commission. It made this observation because not a single case of damage to a Hindu place of worship near the police station was reported to the commission.31

It also indicted the Sangh (belonging to majority fanatic and militant outfits) leaders and workers of organizing violence against the minority. Justice Madon Commission on Bhiwandi, Jalgaon and Mahad riots (1970) said, "the working of the special Investigation Squad is a study in communal discrimination. The officers of the Squad systematically set about implicating as many Muslims and exculpating as many Hindus as possible irrespective of whether they were innocent or guilty."32 It said that "the police practiced discrimination in making arrests and concentrated upon Muslim rioters turning a blind eye to what Hindu rioters were doing."33 In almost all riots, mainly the members of the minority face injuries and deaths caused by the police firings. The courts have acquitted many persons from the majority, who were accused of involvement in riots, and many have remained unaffected from the rule of law. For example, the Bhagalpur lower court (Additional District and Session Judge) acquitted 39 accused in one of the cases related to the killing of 24 persons in Bhagalpur riots of 1989.34

Resorting to force against the members of the minority who allegedly had organised bandh on 23 August 2001, in Katipalla (Karnataka State) in response to the killing of a member of the minority, the police (hundred in number) also made communal remarks some of them are mentioned here: You Muslims deserve to be displaced to Pakistan. You have no place in India. Right now we need only men. We will come at night to pick your women. You Muslims have been spoiled by eating too much of cow meat. You beardys (alluding to the Muslim community in the District) are anti-nationals.35 Such kind of remarks have also been made when they deal with university students belonging to the minority community. Therefore communal remarks made by police in different states against the members of the minority also show many similarities in their specificity of categorising the Muslims as outsiders and undesirables. As a result, the minority members have been loosing confidence in the impartiality of the Indian Establishment.36 The Sixth Report of the National Police Commission (1981) looks into the communally prejudiced attitude and behaviour of the police and the problem of numerical social composition of the police force. A recent study of Paul Brass on riots in the Meerut city during 1961-1982 confirms from both Hindu and Muslim respondents that police played anti Muslim role in 1982 riots and the Maliana and Hashimpura massacres in 1987. He says that they (police) “took our their rage, embedded in Hindu minds since partition, and intensified during Hindu-Muslim riotous confrontations, upon Muslims in general. In a word …acted with impunity and deliberateness in slaughtering Muslims … without sustaining a single injury to themselves in this particular situation.”37

India has witnessed over thirteen thousands riots in which the Muslims have been the largest victims of the crime committed by the majority people and the police. India is also known for major riots and genocide. It was only in the case of recent Gujarat violence against the Muslims that the word genocide was used frequently by many. However, it is important to recall another genocide which occurred in Bhagalpur District of Bihar in October 1989 which is now a forgotten story. In this violence, role of police is quite shameful and criminal against the Muslims. Like Gujarat, police showed both inaction and also participation with the rioters. The year of 1989 is known for the BJP bloody Hindutva campaign through transport system against the Babri Mosque. Wherever the Hindutva campaigners led by L.K.Advani move through, it mostly led to communal tension and riots. It was a time of massive Hindu mobilization by the BJP and its associates with youths shouting at a high pitch of anti-Muslim slogans and wielding traditional weapons in hands. Communal clashes occurred in other districts like Munger, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga and Dhanbad. Only in Munger, Maulana Israrul Haque Qasmi, the then secretary General of Jamiatul Ulama Hind, who had visited Munger, had given the account of the burning of 3000 houses in villages.38

Communalism grew stronger mainly due to the fact that the Indian Establishment failed to remain a prejudice-free entity. It created the majoritarian image of the State. Rasheeduddin Khan noted in early 1990s that communalism had "acquired a most dangerous form and an alarming proportion"39 that endangered India's multicultural society. He found communalism in affront to India's nationalistic identity and "as enemy number one of our democratic polity."40 Now communalism is affecting all institutions effectively. This phenomenon has been supplemented by perpetuating violence, atrocities and neglect against minorities on the one hand and by providing them least space in public affairs.

S.M. Murshed,41a senior civil servant made the following statement :

In 1969, I was in the home department of the government of West Bengal. Jyoti Basu of the CPM was my minister and also deputy chief minister. One day I drew his attention to a copy of a circular issued by the centre which suggested that I should be removed from my post. It said, in effect that Muslims should not hold any sensitive post in government. There was a companion circular to the effect the Muslim applications for passports should be subjected to serve scrutiny. These were first issued in the 1950s and reiterated from time to time. The infamous circulars were obviously based on the premise that the integrity of Muslims in India was suspect. The same notion manifested itself in West Bengal in 1965 during the Indo-Pak war. Thousands of innocent Muslims were arrested and kept in detention without trial on no other ground than their religion.

There is a curious phenomenon which is little known outside the Muslim community. It is communalism in reverse. If any Muslim minister is approached by a fellow religionist for the redress of a wrong the supplicant is rebuffed because of the fear that any intercession in his case will invite the accusation of partisanship. Their presence is necessary in the prevailing scheme of things.

These three painful realities - communalism, violence (and discrimination) and exclusion vis-à-vis minorities particularly the Muslims in India seem to raise certain valid questions to Indian democracy. Their remedy could have given a constructive dimension to identity and consciousness in Indian society. Recognition of difference could have really achieved unity in diversity. But the control of few over many; from caste perspective and subjugation by minority by the majority from the community perspective has really brought them in a turbulent and unequal situation. Over decades differences have increased between majority and minorities. Indeed, social identity theory (which has influenced many psychologists concerned with theorizing identity as Social) suggests that even trivial differences between people will automatically lead to attempts to discriminate in favour of the 'in group' and against the out group".42 Imposition of one identity hegemon ones marginalised groups de-establise the democratic forces.

The following table, which are not updated, provides the account of the number of riots in different periods. After 1992-93, several major devastating riots occurred are not mentioned.