India ‘Most Peaceful’ in 50 Years, Riots on Steady Decline, Shows NCRB Data

India has been at its most peaceful in 50 years as riots have been on a steady decline. An analysis of data from the National Crime Records Bureau of riot cases registered between 1970 and 2021 showed that the rate at which riots occur in the country was at its lowest in 2021.

Prof Shamika Ravi, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, tweeted a graph that showed a steady decline in riot-related complaints after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. The graph also demonstrates that riot-related violence was at its peak in the 1980s following which it started registering a steep decline from the 1990s and through the time the first BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was in power.

The graph shows that there was a slight uptick in riot-related cases again when the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government was in power and then a drop as Modi took charge. The data analysis of riot cases comes at a time when the opposition is hitting out at the BJP-led central government for spreading communal hatred.

Ravi put out the latest data as a continuing thread from May 2019, where she had put out a graphical analysis of riots in India between 1953 and 2006. She had then said “maximum riots were in 1981 at 1,10,361”. This was in response to an opinion article published by The Washington Post during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which claimed that India’s democracy was “broken” as people were waiting for the results in “fear”.

“Anecdotes (however powerful) are not substitute to careful objective data analysis. And the data tell us that riots and tensions in India have been falling and very sharply from 1998 onwards. (The maximum riots were in 1981: 110361!) #KnowIndia #NewIndia” she had tweeted.

In the last 10 years, however, India has witnessed two major riots – the Muzaffarnagar riots in Uttar Pradesh in 2013 and the riots in the national capital in 2020. In fact, there has been tension in the northeast for over a month as a result of ethnic violence in Manipur, which was triggered by a solidarity march by tribal groups protesting scheduled tribe status to Meitei community.