After reading this article you will learn about the riots that took place in Rourkela.
Chatterjee (1967) investigated the Rourkela riots of 1964, six weeks after the incident. Following the disturbances in East Pakistan, refugees started flowing into Calcutta and from Calcutta to Rourkela on their way to Dandakaranya in Madhya Pradesh. At Rourkela railway station they were served lunch. Large crowds from Rourkela mixed with the refugees. Soon after, various kinds of rumours floated and a strong suspicion and hatred of the members of the other community spread leading to communal tension and disturbances.
Data was collected with interview schedules from 200 persons—31 Muslims, 38 Adivasis and 131 Hindus. It was found that there was a close relationship between the spread of rumour and the acts of aggression and destruction of property and life. Most of the Adivasis (73 per cent) believed the rumour that a large number of Muslims were coming to attack the Hindus and nearly two fifths of the Muslims believed that Hindus want to take revenge on the local Muslims for what happened in East Pakistan.
The results did not reveal any such trend in the Hindu responses. Further, two thirds of the Adivasis said that they heard that the Muslims have attempted to bomb the steel plant and one third said that they heard that a sum of Rs. 200 would be paid for each Muslim head. The results clearly showed that the Adivasis were afraid of Muslim attack, they showed hostility to Muslims by believing that they might bomb the steel plant and that they believed that they could get a bonus of Rs. 200 for each Muslims killed.
The Muslims were afraid that the Hindus would attack them. It was also found that two-thirds of the Adivasis reacted with fright to these rumours and were alert. But nearly two fifths of the Hindus said that they were indifferent to the rumours. When they were asked “Did you feel that the riots were inevitable?” most of the respondents replied in the negative, irrespective of the community to which they belonged.
About 70 per cent of the Muslims believed that preparation for the riot must have been going on for a long time while two thirds of Adivasis and 90 per cent of the Hindus replied in the negative. In spite of all the horrors of the riots 77 per cent of Muslims, 80 per cent of Adivasis and 87 per cent of the Hindus replied in affirmative to the question “Do you think that the Hindus and the Muslims can live in harmony?”
For studying the psychological determinants of inter communal attitudes and tensions, four different sets of scaled questions were devised. Nearly 90 per cent of the Adivasis and 40 per cent of the Hindus showed extreme hostility to the Muslims. The Muslims showed a very high sense of security and pronouncedly favourable attitudes towards the other communities.
In conclusion it is pointed out that “the comparatively simple but volatile nature of the Adivasis played a crucial role in forming a peculiar alliance between the Hindus and the Adivasis against the Muslims in Rourkela.” It is the refugee trains which halted at Rourkela that played a significant role in exciting mass hatred and spontaneous aggressive acts.
The role of rumours in spreading hostility is not quite clear. Thus, the perception of the suffering of the refugees was more responsible for aggressiveness than the rumours. However, the gruesome experience undergone by the Muslim community did not leave any permanent sense of insecurity or deep-rooted mistrust among the Muslims; all the three communities studied felt that they could continue to live in harmony.