Gujarat Revisited
-- Jean Drèze
So much has been written about
the recent massacres in Gujarat that further comments may seem
pointless. If I feel moved to share some impressions from a recent
visit to Ahmedabad, it is because what I saw and heard there was
quite different from the images I retained
from media reports. Briefly, I am convinced that the public sentiment
in Gujarat today is quite opposed to the kind of violence that
took place there from 28 February onwards.
Before elaborating on this, I would
like to comment briefly on some economic aspects of violence and
peace in Gujarat. Recent research on “ethnic conflicts” around
the world suggests that these conflicts often have crucial economic
roots, ranging from struggles for the control of primary resources
to the profits of the arms trade. It would probably be a mistake
to see the recent massacres in Gujarat exclusively in those terms,
yet it is important not to lose sight of the economic dimension
of these sinister events.
Consider for instance Naroda-Patia, widely considered
as the epicentre of the violence that swept through Ahmedabad
on 28 February. In Naroda, the worst violence occurred in Kumbharwas,
a Muslim neighbourhood located in a predominantly Hindu area,
which also happens to be a hotbed of RSS and VHP activism. According
to the survivors, the first building to be demolished was a large
house known as “Balochi House”, situated on prime land near the
main road. Four Muslim families used to live there. They were
paying very low rents (a few rupees a month), presumably due to
rent-control laws. The owner, a Patel, had tried for several years
to persuade them to move on, even going to court (unsuccessfully)
and offering to pay large sums to the occupants if they would
go. On 28 February, Balochi House was razed to the ground and
construction started the same day. Further, the first victims
of the violence were Alauddin and his father, two former tenants
of Balochi house.
Interestingly, there are two other
Muslim houses just across the road. According to one of the occupants,
the same people who torched Balochi House had also approached
the owner of these two houses (another Patel), and “offered” to
demolish them. But the owner, who was thought by them to be a
“good man”, politely declined, saying that he wanted none of this
business. The houses are intact.
In Patia, the worst violence occurred
in a working-class basti where close to 500 houses (including
about fifty houses belonging to Hindu families) were demolished
on 28 February. The surrounding neighbourhood is rapidly being
transformed into shopping complexes, affluent residences, modern
factories, and so on. Land prices have shot up year after year,
and it is not difficult to guess that many a property dealer must
have his eyes on that basti. There are, in fact, hushed accusations
that a local dealer, who is also a BJP leader, played a key role
in the massacres.
Aside from Patia and Naroda, a third place where
large-scale violence occurred on 28 February is Gulbarg Society
in Chamanpura. This is an enclosed compound, with about 50 flats
owned by Muslim families. All the flats were burnt and looted
that day, and more than fifty residents were burnt alive in horrendous
circumstances. The visit I made there was too brief for detailed
enquiries, but one ominous detail struck me. Unlike in Patia and
Naroda, the buildings there were intact. They had been burnt inside,
but the structures were in good shape. As it happens, this is
exactly how a property dealer would have wished things to be done.
Here, unlike in Patia and Naroda, the buildings are valuable.
They can be rented out as they are, at a very profitable price.
In each of these three neighbourhoods
(Patia, Naroda and Chamanpura), the Muslim families have decided
to leave. They are just waiting for an opportunity to sell their
plots and move to a Muslim-dominated area. It safe to predict
that the sites of these awful massacres will soon be bought and
“developed” by enterprising dealers.
In pointing out that some people make
large economic gains from communal “riots”, I am not suggesting
that these people have necessarily master-minded the riots. Yet
it stands to reason that hidden economic motives must have played
a part at various levels. The role of economic motives in communal
violence also helps to understand the mindless cruelty of the
attacks that took place in areas like Patia, Naroda and Chamanpura.
Personally, I find it very hard to understand how ordinary people
can be driven to slaughter babies or cut someone into pieces.
But if the objective is to terrorise entire neighbourhoods to
the extent that everyone leaves, then cruelty has a function,
and it is not difficult to imagine how trained goondas can be
mobilised for the purpose. This is indeed what seemed to have
happened in these neighbourhoods.
It is worth adding that economic motives
can be on the side of peace as much as on the side of violence.
Among the reasons why calm prevailed after Akshardham, one frequently-cited
factor was that the business community was very concerned to avoid
“trouble” at the beginning of the Diwali season. Indeed, by all
accounts the earlier wave of riots in Ahmedabad has been disastrous
for business. In Surat, I am told that the business community
anticipated this problem early on, and played an important role
in preventing an outbreak of violence after the Godhra incident.
Another economic aspect of the Gujarat
situation that interested me was the call for an “economic boycott”
of Muslims. I was curious to learn whether the boycott actually
worked, or whether it was just rhetoric. I was very pleased to
find that almost everyone dismissed the economic boycott as nonsense.
Some caution is required in interpreting these responses, because
people would naturally hesitate to admit that they approve of
such a thing. But even the Muslims I spoke to generally said that
the boycott did not actually work. It seems that a phase of economic
boycotting did happen earlier on, in the charged atmosphere of
intermittent violence, but that it has largely faded away. Several
businessmen, including some who had clear VHP sympathies, explained
to me with great clarity that it is impossible to be a successful
businessman if one starts “thinking that way” (that is, discriminating
between different clients). “Business is business”, they said.
It seems that the VHP has over-extended itself in asking traders
and businessmen to shoot themselves in the foot.
One important qualification is that
I did meet Muslim workers who had lost their job, and who saw
this as an act of discrimination. But most of them had gone back
to work after several months in the camps, and it is hard to say
whether discrimination was indeed involved or whether a Hindu
employee would have met the same fate. In some cases, there was
fairly convincing evidence of discrimination, suggesting that
the economic boycott is not without a sharp edge. However, these
cases were few, and they were generally attributed to pressures
from right-wing Hindu outfits on the employers rather than to
spontaneous discrimination.
The fact that the economic boycott
(such as it was) has apparently fizzled out, at least in Ahmedabad,
illustrates what appears to be a more general pattern, namely
that the earlier anti-Muslim rage has considerably abated. When
I left for Ahmedabad on 26 September, I expected to find a society
engulfed in an inexplicable wave of barbarity. As it turned out,
however, this visit was an uplifting experience and even revived
my faith in humanity.
I spent three days cycling around Ahmedabad
and talking with as many people as possible about the recent “riots”.
To broach the subject, I often asked people why the city had been
so calm after the Akshardham massacre, in contrast with the waves
of violence that followed the Godhra incident in February. Most
people, whether Hindu or Muslim, were quite clear on this: they
said that this time the government was keen to avoid trouble,
in contrast with the previous situation when the violence had
the full support of the authorities. Few people were blind to
the complicity of the state in the earlier massacres, and indeed
the evidence on this was overwhelming.
There is no doubt that the Modi government
was anxious to avoid trouble in the aftermath of the Akshardham
incident, and that this played a major role in averting a new
wave of violence. Yet, state vigilance on its own does not really
explain the remarkable calm that prevailed in Ahmedabad at the
end of September. On 27 September, when I reached, there was little
police or army presence in the streets, and nothing to prevent
isolated incidents of looting or murder. What seemed to prevent
such incidents was a kind of spontaneous collective restraint.
This collective restraint appeared
to spring from a deep longing for peace. “People here are tired
of violence” is how many respondents put it. Indeed, an overwhelming
majority of the people I met had nothing positive to say about
the earlier massacres. Typically, these massacres were attributed
to political intrigues, or to “katarpanthis”. Most people felt
that Hindus and Muslims were quite capable of living in peace,
and blamed political leaders for fomenting trouble. The public
aversion of politicians was striking. One respondent, an upper-caste
Hindu, told me: “I wish those terrorists in Akshardham had trained
their guns on the politicians”. His feelings appeared to be widely
shared.
I also noticed many signs of continuing
tolerance and understanding between Hindus and Muslims, especially
among the working classes. The enduring mutual respect for religious
places is one example. In Patia, right in the middle of a Muslim
neighbourhood where horrendous violence too place on 28 February,
I found a tiny temple. The local residents could have demolished
it in a few minutes, but the temple was intact. The thought occurs
that perhaps it is the fear of retaliation that restrains the
Muslim neighbours. Maybe. But if you listen to the neighbours
and credit them with a shred of sincerity, you will dismiss this
thought. They are not demolishing the temple simply because it
does not occur to them to do this kind of thing. “Why should we
demolish it?”, asked Jahara Bibi, one of the neighbours. “God
is one.”
Some of the most moving testimonies
I heard were from Hindu residents in Patia who had been victims
of the violence on 28 February. They were well placed to see the
pointless and abhorrent nature of this violence. Consider for
instance Mahesh Sharma, a young Brahmin who nearly lost his life
that day. His house was destroyed and the goondas spared him only
after checking that he was not circumcised and making him recite
some Hanuman chalisa. Now he works with the Islamic Relief Committee,
rebuilding the houses of Patia residents, both Hindu and Muslim.
Like other people in this neighbourhood, he is emphatic that Hindus
and Muslims there used to live in peace, and that the violence
on 28 February was the job of “outsiders”. “They have broken our
houses”, he said, “and we can rebuild them. But they have also
broken our hearts, and that cannot be repaired.”
In short, I found no evidence of generalised
communal hatred in Ahmedabad. Having said this, two qualifications
are due. First, it is often difficult to interpret people’s responses
on these matters. To illustrate, even persons who were directly
implicated in the massacres may have their own reasons to claim
that the violence was perpetrated by “katarpanthis”. Yet, the
coherence and consistency of the responses gives me some confidence
in the fact that the public sentiment in Ahmedabad is quite opposed
to communal violence.
Second, I did encounter disturbing
communal attitudes in some circles. One was that of high-caste
traders and businessmen. In the Naroda-Patia area, especially,
many of them greeted my enquiries with reticence if not hostility.
There was a gloomy atmosphere of collective guilt. I also found
aggressive communal attitudes among a section of the youth, particularly
the unemployed or under-employed. The worldview of some of these
youngsters was a morass of confusion, and fertile ground for VHP
propaganda. On the positive side, many of them were receptive
to different views.
On 28 September, I joined a rally against
communalism organised by a wide coalition of communist, socialist
and Gandhian organisations. More than a thousand people walked
through the streets of Ahmedabad, shouting bold slogans calling
for the dismissal of the Modi government. I am told that a few
months ago, such a public display of opposition to the Modi government
would have been impossible. Here was a further indication that
the earlier climate of intolerance in Gujarat had begun to subside.
Another train of thought entered my
mind during this demonstration. I am sure that many of the people
I had talked to earlier were VHP sympathisers. Does this mean
that they were deceiving me in speaking the language of peace?
Perhaps some did, but I believe that most did not. The VHP, as
we (its opponents) see it, is first and foremost a terrorist organisation,
but that is not how it appears to most of its members. For them,
the VHP stands for “Hindu ekta”, and this, in their mind, need
not be antithetical to peace. They are either unaware of the role
of the VHP in fomenting violence, or they rationalise it in one
way or another.
This idea may sound ridiculous. It
is indeed difficult to accept the idea that many people support
the VHP without necessarily endorsing communal violence. But as
I walked with the crowd, thinking about these matters, it occurred
to me that many of the demonstrators were communists who admire
Stalin. This did not detract from their commitment to democracy
and human rights. They had their own way of reconciling themselves
with Stalin’s crimes (like the comrade who explained to me that
“Stalin had to deal with the capitalist elements in society”).
And if well-intentioned communists can admire Stalin, what stops
a peace-minded person from supporting the VHP?
To avoid misunderstanding, let me clarify
that I regard the present situation in Gujarat as extremely dangerous.
The nexus between state institutions and extremist Hindu organisations
is frightening, and if it continues, what happened earlier this
year could happen again. Yet there is hope in the fact that human
values are alive and well among large sections of the population.
That, at any rate, is the impression I retain from this brief
visit.
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Jean Dreze is Honorary Professor
of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics. He has made wide-ranging
contributions to development economics, with special reference
to India. He is also active in India's social movement, including
the right to food campaign, the peace movement, and the national
campaign for the people's right to information.
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