ETHNIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA (India, 1990-1992)

Since India became independent in 1947, fighting has regularly flared up among the various religious and ethnic groups in its population. The lowest point in the ongoing conflict between Muslims and Hindus to date came in 1992. That was the year that about 150,000 Hindu fundamentalists destroyed the Babri Mosque in Ayodha, because they regarded the site on which it had been built to be the birthplace of one of their gods. That was followed in 1993 by a protest by the Sikh movement, seeking independence. A small demonstration caused by a shortage of drinking water and electricity in Punjab degenerated into an ethnic war that produced thousands of victims and cost the premier, Indra Gandhi, her life. Pablo Bartholomew documented the religious and ethnic violence in India. – The Sarbat Khalsa, near the Golden Temple in Amritsar.