Dousing the Fire: Nonviolent Intervention in Communal Standoff: Narayanpur, Dist Bhagalpur, Bihar, Gandhi

Shanti Mitra Shri Krishna Kinkar and Ranjit Mandal effectively intervened in an armed stand-off between vegetable vendors of one community and 50-60 of the other community and averted what could have turned into a violent Hindu-Muslim communal clash. It all started when a customer objected to vegetable vendor’s faulty weights. Verbal quarrel lead to a brawl, the vendor hit the customer with a piece of solid iron weight injuring him on the head. The injured came back with 50-60 in his tow, as the vendor too got his group collected. Both came face to face at which time Shri Krishna Kinkar and Ranjit Mandal rushed to the spot with some responsible citizens, stood between the two parties, intervened and pacified the parties. They made both the parties to resolve that henceforth they will not allow any communal and any such clash not only in Narayanpur but also in the neighboring area. Narayanpur is a market town. What happens there spreads in the entire neighborhood villages.