The spectacle of justice in the Delhi riots case is cover for polarisation and violence

The capital of India, Delhi is no stranger to political violence. But the Delhi riots of 2020 set a new benchmark. The violence not only ended lives and livelihoods, it also transformed the city’s social and political landscape for the worse.

Six years on, the Delhi riots have sharpened polarisation and appear to be part of a wider pattern of orchestrated violence that is increasingly engulfing Delhi and the National Capital Region: from the demolition of Muslim working-class settlements to the riots in Haryana’s Nuh and the targeting of Bengali-speaking migrant workers following the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025.

This makes it vital to understand how the Delhi riots actually happened, which is only possible through a full and fair investigation and punishment of the perpetrators.

Instead, the seemingly endless incarceration of young leaders like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam on terror charges now masquerades as the effort to fix accountability for the riots.

Imam and Khalid are among the several young leaders of the movement against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, and the proposed National Register of Citizens. Months of protests and counter-protests in the winter of 2019 and early 2020 spiralled into violence and rioting in the national capital.

Though five others were granted bail by the Supreme Court on Monday, Khalid and Imam have languished in jail for years without bail or a trial in sight. The spectacle of incarceration hides the gaping hole created by an improper investigation into the riots and the lack of a fair trial. This has allowed the forces of violence and polarisation to steadily infiltrate the body politic of India’s capital city.

A ‘conspiracy’

The courts have already cast aspersions on the Delhi Police’s investigation based on which young protestors were accused of terrorism. Fact-finding reports by statutory commissions, civil society organisations and journalists have pointed out that the violence was not spontaneous but organised: the homes, shops and places of worship of Muslims were targeted.

The Delhi Police has accused the protestors, especially young leaders such as Khalid, Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, Meeran Haider and others for conspiring to destabilise the government through violence.

Again, journalists, intellectuals and civil society leaders have suggested otherwise: that the violence was orchestrated to crush the agitation against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, to make scapegoats out of its young leaders and to send a chilling message to dissenters of all hues and colours.

The act introduced a religious criterion into India’s citizenship law. It offers a fast track to Indian citizenship from members of minority communities from three countries in the region, except if they are Muslim.

The allegations of a conspiracy behind the riots overlooked the series of hate speeches and provocative statements by leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the weeks preceding the violence. It also ignored the wider support for and solidarity with the anti-CAA movement from several sections of society tired of the BJP government’s ceaseless religious polarisation.

The movement was led by Muslims but it was too broad to have been hijacked by a few young men and women with the intention of provoking violence.

Sharp polarisation

The shadow of the Delhi riots has loomed large over the national capital. In the Delhi assembly elections in 2020, the BJP weaponised rhetoric against the anti-CAAmovement for its election campaign, using the protests as propaganda.

Following the riots and the arrest of the anti-CAA leaders for conspiracy and terrorism, polarisation in the national capital sharpened further. A series of incidents followed, which drew upon this schism and strengthened it in the process.

Between 2022 and 2024, there were targeted demolitions of the settlements of migrant and working-class Muslims in Jahangirpuri, Mehrauli and Okhla. Some sections of the media created the impression that the evicted residents were undocumented Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants. This anti-immigrant sentiment later helped justify the citizenship verification drive targeting Bengali-speaking Muslim migrant workers in Delhi and Gurugram in the summer of 2025 after the Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir.

In August 2023, there was massive communal violence in Haryana’s Nuh, which stretched into parts of Gurugram. Communal tensions were systematically escalated through deliberate misuse of the Haryana Cow Protection Act. During the violence, Muslim homes and shops were targeted by organised groups. The government instead blamed “infiltrators” and demolished the homes of several Muslims.

Similarly, on January 22, 2024, the day the Ram Mandir was inaugurated in Ayodhya, there were low-key communal disturbances in various parts of Delhi: threats to Muslim shop owners in Malviya Nagar, stray attacks in Mithapur and Jaitpur, aggressive displays of Hindutva triumphalism in the apartment blocks of Vasant Kunj.

In response to these acts of aggression, there has been a silent but steady relocation of Muslims into areas where they felt safer, resulting in further segregation in an already segregated city.

Other less prominent incidents further highlight the atmosphere of mistrust and tension. On January 31, 2024, the Akhundji Masjid, a 13th century mosque and madrasa in Mehrauli, along with a few nearby graves, were demolished without due notice. The Delhi Development Authority, which carried out the demolition, claimed that the action was aimed at removing “illegal encroachments”.

Though the demolition of the mosque was reported by the media, it is less known that a temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali, situated in the Dalit colony of Mehrauli Ward number two, had been bulldozed the same morning without prior notice.

I interviewed local residents soon after the demolitions. According to Shastri, the priest of the Kali temple, some Muslim residents who were agitated about the demolition of the mosque and the madrasa were brought to the demolished temple and assured that all “illegal” structures – be they temples or mosques – were being targeted. This seemed to be a case of compensatory demolition, a rather unfortunate response to citizens’ demands of following due process in all demolitions.

Repressing dissent

The climate of division, polarisation and suspicion has made it difficult for citizens to voice any kind of dissenting opinions. Only weeks ago, the Delhi Police accused members of student groups, which had organised protests in November against the hazardous air quality in the national capital, of terrorism and shouting pro-Maoist slogans.

It shows the extent to which religious polarisation, violence and the masquerade of justice have erased the space for meaningful interventions by citizens. Opinions on the political positions espoused by Khalid and Imam may vary, but there is little doubt that the cases against them have helped perfect a template of pitting citizens against one another.

As Delhi chokes on air pollution and desertification looms large on the horizon with the possible destruction of the Aravallis, the national capital can ill afford further division, violence and the fear of state repression of dissent.

Akash Bhattacharya is a historian, trade-unionist and political activist based in Delhi.