The scale of communal violence in Muzaffarnagar in August-September 2013 was unprecedented in the villages of western Uttar Pradesh after partition. It happened due to what Paul R Brass conceptualised as the institutional riot system, which until the Muzaffarnagar riot was understood to be primarily an urban phenomenon. The growth of the IRS, a post-green revolution phenomenon, that is, since the 1980s in western UP, was on account of the emergence of new classes in the villages, and changes in the nature of rural-urban relations. The Lok Sabha elections of 2014 provided a suitable context for the rural IRS to operate.
