The tensions have demonstrated how right-wing Hindu leaders and organisations in India are exploiting historical grievances to fuel modern tensions.
A call by a radical Hindu group to demolish the tomb of a 17th-century Mughal ruler has sparked tensions with Muslims in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, leading to communal violence and a curfew.
This week's violence in the city of Nagpur took place around the tomb of Aurangzeb, India's Muslim emperor who was vilified by Hindu nationalists as a tyrant who mistreated Hindus.
The violence had been contained by midweek, and demands to demolish the tomb went unheeded. But the outbreak showed how the Hindu right has seized on India's long history of Muslim rule to stoke grievances against the country's 200 million Muslims today.
The trouble began on Monday, which, according to the Hindu calendar, is the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the famed Hindu king who fought Aurangzeb. The Nagpur unit of the right-wing Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or VHP, called for Aurangzeb's tomb to be removed from the state that was the seat of Shivaji's empire.
The tomb is located nearly 300 miles from Nagpur, in the district of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar. Once known as Aurangabad, a name derived from the Mughal emperor, the district was renamed after Shivaji's son in 2023.
