Order of business

Nuh is a pointer to commercial impact of riots

The communal violence that broke out in Nuh district of Haryana and spread to Gurugram appears to have followed a familiar pattern — of intense political mobilisation and poor police intelligence, organisation, and response. It is hard to understand why the state police should have been caught unawares. The threat of violence loomed large during this year’s annual Shobha Yatra, a five-year-old annual procession. The fact that the procession is organised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal and travels through a predominantly Muslim district called for upgraded security arrangements as a matter of course, more so at a time of heightened communal tensions thanks to anti-namaz movements. The fact that a radical Hindu right-wing influencer and suspect wanted for the murder of two Muslim men in Rajasthan appeared to have openly declared on social media that he and his gau rakshak team would attend the Yatra demanded extra vigilance, especially when elements of the Muslim community had made it clear that they would look out for him.

The police failure to anticipate a clash when the two communities were publicly trading threats ahead of the Yatra points to a weak or complicit police information network. Indeed, both a Union minister and the state’s deputy chief minister, a member of a party allied to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Haryana, have pointed to apparent police ignorance that members of the procession would be armed with sticks and swords, which had been explicitly forbidden. As with north Delhi in 2020, which burned during the state visit of then US President Donald Trump, neither the security apparatus nor the political dispensation has acquitted itself creditably. Earlier, riots occurred mostly in areas outside the radius of the influential business elite gaze; it has been small and mid-size businesses owned by entrepreneurs with little wherewithal to absorb the consequences of the wanton destruction of life and property who suffered.

The Nuh-Gurugram riots are a rude wake-up call to the larger economic consequences of such law-and-order breakdowns. The area is the site of feted marquee global and domestic names in information technology, automobile, and services such as consultancy, accounting, and advertising. It is also emerging as a base for new-age electric-vehicle research and manufacture. It is bristling with factories and plush offices in Singapore-style enclaves. Accordingly, it is also home to large expat populations from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other Southeast Asian nations. The vibrant city yields the lion’s share of the state’s revenues. The consequences of law-and-order breakdowns — prolonged internet shutdowns, however limited in scope; indefinite work from home strictures; and school closures — are unlikely to enhance confidence.

This embarrassing display of social tensions and manifest police incompetence comes at an inopportune time. The government is hoping to make India the front-runner in the “China Plus One” investment decisions of big corporations as they pivot from the troubled Middle Kingdom. Gurugram, like Bengaluru and major industrial townships in Tamil Nadu, with its established manufacturing and services ecosystem, would have been a natural choice for investors. But capital is mobile and inherently risk-averse and could swiftly move elsewhere if it perceives a heightened law-and-order threat. This is the practical lesson that politicians of all ideological hues need to absorb rapidly.