1985 Gujarat Riots
The 1985 Gujarat riots began in February 1985 and lasted till August, in the Indian state of Gujarat. Most of the rioting occurred in the city of Ahmedabad; some other cities, including the state capital of Gandhinagar, were also affected. Between 220 and 275 people were killed in the violence, while several thousands of others were injured, and tens of thousands were displaced. The riots also caused widespread property damage. In January 1985 the Gujarat government of Chief Minister Madhav Singh Solanki announced a change in its policy of reservation that increased the benefits to people from "backward" classes. Resentment over this policy among upper castes led to an agitation against it that began in February 1985. The agitation initially took the form of boycotts and protest marches, but quickly turned violent. Government property and buses were targeted by largely upper caste protesters. Beginning in March, communal violence also began to occur, as the city's Muslim min ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Religious Violence In India
Religious violence in India includes acts of violence by followers of one religious group against followers and institutions of another religious group, often in the form of rioting. Religious violence in India has generally involved Hindus and Muslims. Despite the secular and religiously tolerant constitution of India, broad religious representation in various aspects of society including the government, the active role played by autonomous bodies such as National Human Rights Commission of India and National Commission for Minorities, and the ground-level work being done by non-governmental organisations, sporadic and sometimes serious acts of religious violence tend to occur as the root causes of religious violence often run deep in history, religious activities, and politics of India. Along with domestic organizations, international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch publish reports on acts of religious violence in India. From 200 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dalit
Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of ''Panchama''. Dalits now profess various religious beliefs, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam. Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits as per the Constitution of India. History The term ''Dalit'' is a self-applied concept for those called the "untouchables" and others that were outside of the traditional Hindu caste hierarchy. Economist and reformer B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) said that untouchability came into Indian society around 400 CE, due to the struggle for supremacy between Buddhism and Brahmanism (an ancient term for Brahmanical Hinduism). Some Hindu priests befriended untouchables and were demoted to low-caste ranks. Eknath, another excommunicated Brahmin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Patel
The Patel is an Indian surname or title, predominantly found in the state of Gujarat representing the community of land-owning farmers and later (with the British East India Company) businessmen, agriculturalists and merchants. Traditionally the title is a status name referring to the village chieftains during medieval times, and was later retained as successive generations stemmed out into communities of landowners, including Patidars, Kolis, Kurmis, some Parsis and Muslims. There are roughly 500,000 Patels outside India, including about 150,000 in the United Kingdom and about 150,000 in the United States. Nearly 1 in 10 people of Indian origin in the US is a Patel. Etymology The term ''patel'' derives from the word Patidar, literally "one who holds (owned) pieces of land called ''patis'', implying a higher economic status than that of the landless, ultimately from Sanskrit ''paṭṭakīla'', with the ending ''-dar'' (from Sanskrit "धार"—supporting, containing, h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Baton Charge
A baton charge is a coordinated tactic for dispersing crowds of people, usually used by police or military in response to public disorder. In South Asia, a long bamboo stick, called ''lathi'' in Hindi, is used for crowd control, and the expression lathi charge commonly employed to describe the action. The tactic involves police officers charging at a crowd of people with batons and in some cases, riot shields. They run at the crowd hitting people with their batons, and in some situations use riot shields to push them away. Baton charging is designed to cause pain or fear of pain, in the hope that they would be compelled to move away from the scene, dispersing the public who are crowded. South Asia In South Asia, notably India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, a long bamboo stick, or staff, called '' lathi'' is used for crowd control. Some Indian police forces use lathis around long, but in other places lathis are shorter. The term lathi charge is used by the Indian med ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to become the youngest Indian Prime minister at the age of 40. Gandhi was from the politically powerful Nehru–Gandhi family, which had been associated with the Indian National Congress party. For much of his childhood, his maternal grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister. Gandhi attended college at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He returned to India in 1966 and became a professional pilot for the state-owned Indian Airlines. In 1968, he married Sonia Gandhi; the couple settled in Delhi to a domestic life with their children Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. For much of the 1970s, his mother Indira Gandhi was prime minister and his brother Sanjay Gandhi an MP; despite this, Rajiv Gandhi remained apolitic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bandh
Bandh (Devanagari: बंद) (literally: shutting down) is a form of protest used by political activists in South Asian countries such as India and Nepal. It is similar to a general strike. During a bandh, a political party or a community declare a general strike. For example, a ''Bharat bandh'' is a call for a bandh across India, and a bandh can also be called for an individual state or municipality. The community or political party declaring a bandh expects the general public to stay at home and not report for work. Shopkeepers are expected to keep their shops closed, and public transport operators are expected to stay off the road. There have been instances when large cities have been brought to a standstill. A bandh is a form of civil disobedience. Ban The Supreme Court of India banned bandhs in 1998, [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birds Eye View Ahmedabad Old City
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside .... Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the Common ostrich, ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1969 Gujarat Riots
The 1969 Gujarat riots involved communal violence between Hindus and Muslims during September–October 1969, in Gujarat, India. The violence was Gujarat's first major riot that involved massacre, arson, and looting on a large scale. It was the most deadly Hindu-Muslim violence since the partition of India in 1947, and remained so until the 1989 Bhagalpur violence. According to the official figures, 660 people were killed, 1074 people were injured, and over 48,000 lost their property. Unofficial reports claim as high as 2000 deaths. The Muslim community suffered the majority of the losses. Out of the 512 deaths reported in the police complaints, 430 were Muslims. Property worth 42 million rupees was destroyed during the riots, with Muslims losing 32 million worth of property. A distinctive feature of the violence was the attack on Muslim chawls by their Dalit Hindu neighbours who had maintained peaceful relations with them until this point. The riots happened during the chief mi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Patidar
Patidar (Gujarati: ) is an Indian landlord and agrarian caste found mostly in Gujarat but also in at least 22 other states of India. The community comprises at multiple subcastes, most prominently the Levas and Kadvas. They form one of the dominant castes in Gujarat. The title of Patidar originally conferred to the land owning aristocratic class of Gujarati Kunbis, however it was later applied en masses to the entirety of the peasant population who lay claim to a land owning identity, partly as a result of land reforms during the British Raj. History The Patidars of Central and North Gujarat were agricultural labour on the lands of Koli landlords or Koli chieftains but after Independence of India, Patidars enchraoched the lands of Kolis through land ceiling act of Independent India and reduced the Kolis in social status. after that, Kolis thought that they ruled the area but have no rights, so Kolis often plunders the Patidar villages in midnight in gangs. The Rajputs of G ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bania (caste)
__NOTOC__ The Bania (also spelled Baniya, Banija, Banya, Vaniya, Vani, Vania and Vanya) is a Vaishya community mainly found in Indian states of Gujarat, and Rajasthan, but they are also found in Madhya Pradesh. Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, Traditionally, the main occupations of the community are merchants, bankers, money-lenders, and in modern times they are mostly White-collar and Knowledge workers and owners of commercial enterprises. The community is composed of several sub-castes including the Agarwal Banias, Porwal Banias, among others. Most Banias follow Hinduism or Jainism, but a few have converted to Sikhism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. Most of Hindu Banias are Vaishnavas and are followers of Vallabhacharya and Swaminarayan Swaminarayan (IAST: ', 3 April 1781 – 1 June 1830), also known as Sahajanand Swami, was a yogi and Asceticism, ascetic, who is believed by follo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brahmin
Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests ( purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (guru or acharya). The other three varnas are the Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. The traditional occupation of Brahmins is that of priesthood at the Hindu temples or at socio-religious ceremonies, and rite of passage rituals such as solemnising a wedding with hymns and prayers.James Lochtefeld (2002), Brahmin, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A–M, Rosen Publishing, , page 125 Traditionally, the Brahmins are accorded the highest ritual status of the four social classes. Their livelihood is prescribed to be one of strict austerity and voluntary poverty ("A Brahmin should acquire what just suffices for the time, what he earns he should spend all that the same day"). In practice, Indian texts suggest that some Brahmins hist ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Other Backward Classes
The Other Backward Class is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are educationally or socially backward. It is one of several official classifications of the population of India, along with Forward caste, General castes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs and STs). The OBCs were found to comprise 52% of the country's population by the Mandal Commission report of 1980, and were determined to be 41% in 2006 when the National Sample Survey Organisation took place. There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBCs in India; it is generally estimated to be sizable, but many believe that it is higher than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey. In the Indian Constitution, OBCs are described as socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC), and the Government of India is enjoined to ensure their social and educational development — for example, the OBCs are entitled to 27% res ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |