'Communal violence is instigated by religious fanatics, initiated by anti-social elements, supported by political activists, financed by vested interests.' Comment.

The four actors named in the line

• Religious fanatics supply the sermon, the pamphlet, and the rumour that a festival, a slaughterhouse, or a loudspeaker is an existential insult; without that framing, a street fight stays a street fight.
• Anti-social elements — known riot specialists, liquor and land mafias — convert the sermon into the first stone, the first fire, and the looting of a particular mohalla, which is why inquiry commissions repeatedly find the same local names.
• Political activists provide protection, selective outrage, and the promise that cases will weaken; communal polarisation has been an electoral tactic from the late colonial riots through post-independence urban clashes.
• Vested interests finance processions, arms, and bail: real-estate clearing of mixed neighbourhoods, smuggling routes, and contractor rivalries often sit behind a ‘religious’ clash, so the last clause of the quote is not cynicism but political economy.

What the quote leaves out — and the reply

• The state is not only a victim: delayed FIR, partisan posting, and refusal to use riot-control manuals turn a spark into a pogrom; Paul Brass’s ‘institutionalised riot system’ describes this production, not a spontaneous crowd.
• Neighbourhood peace committees, mixed mohallas, and fast-track courts under ordinary IPC sections 153A, 295A, and 302, plus the 2005 amendments on hate speech practice, are the legal middle; special statutes fail if the local thana will not act.
• Uttar Pradesh’s own record — from older city riots to Muzaffarnagar 2013 — shows the four actors, but also displacement, gendered violence, and social media rumour, which the 2018 wording does not yet name.
• The comment therefore accepts the quote as a correct division of labour in many riots, and insists that secular law, police accountability, and mixed economic stakes must be added or the formula becomes an alibi for the administration.