I once lived in a city plagues by Hindu-Muslim Riots. They inevitably happened every year during a Hindu Festival when large groups of Hindus get out onto the streets. Some instigators would do something to instigate the Hindu mob (like say throw a stone on a religious idol), and then a riot would follow causing 100s of deaths. The govt only response was to “educate” the Hindus, teach them to be more respectful of the Muslims etc. And so we got propaganda-ish civil education, constantly praising Muslim rules from 100’s of years ago, promoting muslim spokesman etc and none of it worked. Inevitable every year riots happened. Some times it was Hindus that instigated and Muslims who retaliated, sometimes vice versa. This was probably when even I was resigned to this as an aspect of Indian life and simply decided to avoid the streets on specific days.<p>Then we got lucky with a new chief minister. He had no patience for riots, he did the simple act of placing police at regular locations in extremely large numbers and savagely beating any instigators/ rioters with sticks (“Lathi Charge”). This happened a few times and the riots completely stopped, never happened for the next 2 decades and counting. Turns out it’s not educating the population/ winning the hearts that works. You just need to have strict laws and brutally enforce them, the population will learn on their own. It helps if the law is applied fairly and just, but honestly even that is not as important as actually applying it with force