Clarification/Follow-up by Dark_Crow on 12/12/06 8:23 pm:
1. Hinduism, Islam
India (Bhiwandi and Bombay): “Tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India exploded into some of the worst communal riots since independence. Riots in Bhiwandi and Bombay in May and June [1984] left more than 300 people dead.”—Encyclopædia Britannica, 1985 Book of the Year.
2. Hinduism, Sikhism
India (Punjab): In 1984 India’s prime minister, Indira Gandhi, a Hindu, authorized a “punitive raid on the most sacred shrine of the Sikh religion, the Golden Temple at Amritsar” in the Punjab, “where Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale [a militant Sikh leader] . . . was martyred by government troops.” In quick retaliation Gandhi’s own Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. “Tension and violence between Hindu and Sikh communities in India continued into 1985.”—Encyclopædia Britannica, 1985 and 1986 Book of the Year.
3. Catholicism, Protestantism
Ireland: “Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, agreed to consult the Irish Republic in addressing the grievances of Ulster’s 600,000 Roman Catholics. But leaders of the North’s million Protestants have vehemently rejected the . . . accord. . . . If they prevail, . . . a savage conflict is likely to rage into another century.”—The New York Times, November 15, 1986.
4. Shiite Muslim, Christendom, Druze
Lebanon: “[Nominal] Christians killed Muslims without quarter. Muslims killed Christians with a ferocity unknown since the Crusades. Druze [members of a Syro-Lebanese religious sect originating among Muslims] and Palestinians entered the dark fray, until at any one time there were as many as 53 ‘irregular’ armies fighting in Lebanon. Indeed the ‘Lebanon syndrome’ became the metaphor for irregular warfare and purposeless killing in our times.”—Encyclopædia Britannica, 1985 Book of the Year.
5. Hinduism, Buddhism
Sri Lanka: “Among the traditional Buddhist nations, Sri Lanka had become the bloody scene of renewed violent conflict between the Hindu Tamil minority in the north and the Buddhist Sinhalese majority.”—Encyclopædia Britannica, 1986 Book of the Year.