Informal Institutions and Communal Violence in Western Uttar Pradesh : Identifying Enabling and Neutralizing Factors in the Policy Context

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand the role of informal institutions that are found at the village level in enabling and constraining the cases of communal violence in the context of the Jaat-Muslim riots of Muzzaffarnagar that took place in 2013. Informality refers to the collectives formed on the basis of non-formal associations like caste, occupation, class, gender or any other commonality. Formal institutions like Panchayats and block level administration is generally distant from day-to-day decision-making and maintenance of a social order that is specific to the local communities. Such informality is crucial in assisting or disrupting any endeavour carried out by the formal democratic institutions, as one requires compliance by the local communities. These communities function with a hierarchal structure of it’s own, quite often the manifestation of both feudal origins and class status. The case of the 2013 Muzzaffarnar riots brings out the involvement of state government along with informal institutions to aggravate and later work towards conflict transformation and peace building. The dissertation presents a case for identifying the measures to ensure that such informality is contained in the state structure to ensure the prevention of widespread communal violence in a highly polarized political atmosphere.