“Like a fever, fear has spread across India this week, from big cities like Bangalore to smaller places like Mysore, a contagion fueling a message: Run. Head home. Flee,†Jim Yardley wrote in The New York Times. “And that is what thousands of migrants from the country's distant northeastern states are doing, jamming into train stations in an exodus challenging the Indian ideals of tolerance and diversity.
“What began as an isolated communal conflict here in the remote state of Assam, a vicious if obscure fight over land and power between Muslims and the indigenous Bodo tribe,†Mr. Yardley wrote from the northeastern village of Brajakhal, “has unexpectedly set off widespread panic among northeastern migrants who had moved to more prosperous cities for a piece of India's rising affluence.
“A swirl of unfounded rumors, spread by text messages and social media, had warned of attacks by Muslims against no rtheastern migrants, prompting the panic and the exodus,†he wrote.
The hysteria in several of the country's most advanced urban centers has underscored the deep roots of ethnic tensions in India, where communal conflict is usually simplified as Hindu versus Muslim, yet is often far more complex. For decades, Indian leaders have mostly managed to isolate and triangulate regional ethnic conflicts, if not always resolve them, but the public panic this week is a testament to how the old strategies may be less effective in an information age.
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