The calculated and manufactured communal violence – and the resultant shutdown of the internet and social media – in Cuttack, Odisha during the immersion of Durga idols after Dussehra has shocked the entire city and state. The city, where Hindus form a majority, has for the past 30-35 years elected a Muslim representative to the Odisha Assembly, the current one being Safia Firdaus of the Congress.

Communal violence between Hindus and Muslims during Durga Puja was previously unheard of in Cuttack’s history. The city’s defining character has long been its bhaichara – a fraternal bond among residents of all faiths, whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or others.

Even as the Supreme Court recently upheld the Karnataka government’s invitation to author Banu Mushtaq to inaugurate Mysuru Dussehra – dismissing a petition that claimed non-Hindus could not perform Hindu rituals – Cuttack’s Muslims have always been integral to Durga Puja festivities. Hindus and Muslims together build Puja pandals, celebrating a shared and composite culture.

Yet, this spirit of coexistence was recently maligned by the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), who branded it “chhadma bhaichara” – a “false fraternity” concealing supposed animosity between the two communities.

For months before Dussehra, toxic and divisive messages circulated on social media claiming that Muslims lived in Cuttack only by Hindu sufferance and should either leave or live in subservience to the majority. These venomous narratives, spread by a network of Hindutva organisations, created the conditions for an explosive communal situation.

Kedar Mishra, who runs the YouTube channel Samata Live, told this writer that the deliberate creation of such a poisonous atmosphere made people apprehensive that something terrible was bound to happen.

An exemplary pattern of coexistence

Cuttack’s neighbourhoods have long embodied peaceful coexistence – a Hindu household beside a Muslim one, a Hindu-owned shop next to a Muslim-run establishment. This has been a defining feature of the city, not a recent trend.

Markets and localities with distinct Muslim names – Dargah Bazar, Mohamedia Bazar, Kadam Rasul, Kazi Patna, Bakhrabad, Idgah Maidan, and Pira Hat – remain untouched by demands for renaming. They stand as living symbols of Cuttack’s shared culture and harmony.

In 1942, the people of Bakhrabad in Cuttack organised a Quit India rally following Mahatma Gandhi’s call to the British to leave India. Decades earlier, in 1903, the first meeting of the Utkal Sammilani (Utkal Conference) was held at Idgah Maidan. Its founder, Utkal Gaurab Madhusudan Das – a converted Christian – sought to unify Odia-speaking regions into a single province based on language. His vision was realised on April 1, 1936, when Odisha was formed.

Madhusudan Das had declared that religion should have no place in the Sammilani’s deliberations, lest it distract from the goal of unifying Odisha. In doing so, he laid the foundations of a secular state in the early 20th century – a foundation now under assault by right-wing forces that control the state apparatus.

Against this backdrop, the communal violence during Durga idol immersion in Cuttack must be understood.

Mohan Majhi’s goal

Chief Minister Mohan Majhi’s record adds a troubling dimension. As a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA years ago, Majhi had staged a dharna demanding the release of Dara Singh, the Bajrang Dal activist convicted for burning alive Graham Staines and his two young sons in 1999 – a crime that horrified the nation.

After assuming office as Chief Minister, Majhi declared that he intended to “turn Odisha into another Uttar Pradesh.” That statement, coupled with his past support for Dara Singh, loomed large when Cuttack witnessed violence on October 5 during the Durga idol immersion near the Muslim locality of Dargah Bazar.

As the procession passed, blaring music and chants of “Jai Shri Ram” triggered protests from residents over the deafening volume. The resulting clashes left at least six people injured, including Cuttack’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rishikesh Khilari Dnyandeo.

The VHP’s defiance

The next day, on October 6, the VHP called for a Cuttack bandh, ostensibly to protest “attacks on Hindus.” In defiance of prohibitory orders, VHP supporters held a rally that quickly turned violent. The administration failed to act, and 25 people – including eight police personnel – were injured.

Since the BJP came to power in Odisha in 2024, Hindutva outfits have repeatedly targeted Muslims in Balasore and Christians in several other parts of the state.

What happened in Cuttack was the Majhi government’s abject failure to maintain peace. The deliberate attempt to destroy bhaichara is an attack on the city’s living tradition of fraternity.

The people of Cuttack, especially Hindus, have expressed anger at the Bajrang Dal and VHP. In a remarkable show of solidarity, they marched in large numbers against these organisations, declaring their resolve to keep Odisha as Odisha – and to reject Majhi’s bid to remake it in the image of Uttar Pradesh.

Odisha’s history offers lessons that the present must heed. Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das, one of Gandhi’s closest associates, urged in his poem Bandira Atma Katha (A Prisoner’s Self-Story) that the Vedas and the Quran be treated as equals, and he celebrated the legacies of Yudhishthira, Jesus, Akbar, and Christ alike. That message remains embedded in the state’s moral fabric.

When Jawaharlal Nehru visited Odisha in April 1948 to inaugurate the Hirakud Dam, he wrote to his fellow Chief Ministers:

“Two days were full of work and engagements, but I had a sense of peace there which I had not experienced for a considerable time. The atmosphere of Orissa was very different from the turgid, conflict-laden air in Delhi and of so many other places in India today.”

Odisha – and Cuttack in particular – have long stood apart from the conflict-ridden atmosphere of BJP-ruled states. It is now the duty of the Majhi government to protect that legacy with care and diligence.

S.N. Sahu served as officer on special duty to President of India K.R. Narayanan.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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