It’s a city where embers of hatred never die. They glow ceaselessly, fanned by the winds of ‘change’ sweeping our newly freed markets. And once in a while they flare up, like a raging brush fire, destroying everything around. If you thought that unbridled laissez-faire spelt unbound prosperity, Ahmedabad could paint quite a shocking picture for you.
A survey - part of oxfam’s Violence Mitigation and Amelioration Project, meant to trace the roots of conflicts in South Asia - intends to unravel what ails Gujarat, particularly its communally sensitive second capital Ahmedabad. Sophia Khan, an independent researcher based in the city, headed the team that conducted this oxfam-supported study, tracing the demographic, historic and socio-economic roots of Ahmedabad’s communal sensitivity. It blames recent acts of communal violence on globalisation’s destructive impact on the industrial and social fabric of the city.
That Ahmedabad has been transformed into a communal battlefield can be gauged from the almost regular periodicity of riots there. The last one being in July 1999 - a Hindu-Muslim riot in which five people were killed. A casual look at the chronology reveals the relentless progression of violence: 1965, 1969, 1981-82, December 1984-July 1985, July 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997 and 1998-99. The blame has often been laid on the Sangh’s doors, but the study tries to get behind that mere statement of facts and delineates the causes responsible for the successful mobilisation conducted by the vhp and the Bajrang Dal.
According to the report, East Ahmedabad, which is outside the old Walled City, has developed over the past 50 years. The textile industry, for which the city was called the Manchester of the East, mostly developed in this area. This led to the mushrooming of chalis (communes) of one-room pucca houses with common toilets and water taps for the labourers, mostly migrants from Uttar Pradesh. States the survey: "In 1980, the century-old textile industry started crumbling and by 1982 around 50,000 workers became jobless. Two-thirds of them were Muslims and Dalits."
Consequently, many who had lost their livelihood joined the unorganised sector, and the children of out-of-work families were drawn into "the expanding underworld of the city, with its close links with the police and the politicians". This burgeoning underworld provides ready recruits for anti-social groups. Says Khan: "The people in these parts, engaged in activities like bootlegging during periods of peace, readily participate in violence during riots."
The study explicitly states: "East Ahmedabad has nothing noteworthy in terms of industries and employment and, therefore, its localities like Bapunagar, Rakhial, Sarangpur, Gomtipur, Dani Limda, Shah Alam, Khodiyar Nagar etc are considered communally sensitive next only to the Walled City." Not that the survey blames communal animosity entirely on the migrant population. The study of the Walled City is meant to address the local dimension of the problem. States the report: "It’s an old-city scene with caste Hindus, Muslims and Dalits living cheek-by-jowl." The Walled City is the heart of the traditional wholesale and retail markets.The Ahmedabad stock market was also situated in this area before being shifted to its present location in West Ahmedabad. This perhaps indicates why the area lives up to its "fame for instigating riots since 1750".
The study notes that the new educated class and entrepreneurs are reluctant to begin any economic activity in this part of the city. This spurred underworld activity resulting in the caste and communal riots of 1981-82 and 1985-86. These riots kickstarted a triangular polarisation of Hindus, Muslims and Dalits and led to the emergence of Abdul Latif, an underworld don. He won the local municipality elections in 1987 and became a ‘messiah’ of Muslims in the Walled City area. This shocked the local Hindus and they became willing subjects for the vhp’s anti-minority propaganda.
Thus, the communalisation of the city is actually the consequence of a struggle for social and economic mobility, exacerbated by the decline of a once-powerful industrial centre. That’s how the communalisation of the ‘Industrial City’ is also explained. According to one of Khan’s team-members, after the fall of the textile industry, small-scale industries developed here. "The mill workers, mostly migrants, who had been pushed to the unorganised sectors settled down in this part," and therefore, the logic for East Ahmedabad’s communalisation holds true for this Industrial City as well.
The industrial decline of East Ahmedabad and the consequent coming up of the unplanned Industrial City, coupled with the Walled City’s stagnation explains the phenomenon of internal migration. Affluent sections of both Hindus and Muslims, in search for safer environs, have moved to the posher and modern West City and the "Eastern" and "Western Peripheries". But it has turned out to be an elusive quest. The virus of communal hatred they wish to escape from is not endemic to any particular region of the city but is, by now, implanted in their psyche and, therefore, transmitted to the supposedly sanitised portions of the city. This, according to Khan, explains why Muslims living on campuses of institutions like the iim, isro and the nid in the West City, were targeted during the 1992 riots. So, the ‘search’ for safety has led to re-ghettoisation.
For instance, Juhapura, an urban locality in the Western Periphery, has acquired the name ‘Mini Pakistan’ because of its high density of Muslims. Similarly, the neighbouring Vejalpur locality is a modern Hindu ghetto. K.K. Sahstri, a local vhp veteran, in his interview to the survey team said: "Juhapura has come up with the help of haram money being poured in from Saudi Arabia."
Does that mean that Ahmedabad’s vulnerability to communal violence can be blamed on Muslims flush with foreign funds? Statistics speak otherwise. Most of those who migrated to the city did so in order to get a better economic deal. The study found that a "majority of the migrants (36 per cent) are Muslims and 22.3 per cent are from UP". They mostly belong to the poor weaver caste. It was also found that in migration for socio-economic reasons Muslims lead at 33 per cent.
UNFORTUNATELY, Ahmedabad failed to be their land of deliverance. The Hindus are economically better off in the city, while a majority (80 per cent) of those who earn below Rs 4,000 per month are Muslims. Even in terms of living space Hindus have a clear lead - 89 per cent own a house, whereas almost 48 per cent of Muslims live in rented accommodation. Their economy is also intimately linked to their lowered educational status - 56.5 per cent have no formal education. Also, while 18 per cent of the Hindu respondents were post-graduates, for Muslims the figure was only 1 per cent.
Thus, their diminished educational and socio-economic status breeds resentment against the better-off - who are incidentally Hindus - and expresses itself in communal terms. The usual Hindutva logic, however, is that Muslims have none but themselves to blame for their uneducated status.
But the study delves into the city’s history to debunk this dubious claim. The report tells us that the Britishers, who annexed Ahmedabad in 1817, displaced the Muslims who had till then been its virtual rulers - the short Maratha period from 1753 to 1817 notwithstanding. Says Khan: "It was natural for the Britishers to feel more insecure about the Muslims as they had captured power from them. Therefore, Muslims were kept away from the government sector." Khan and her team cite this piece of historical evidence to drive home the point that the distancing of the local Muslims from jobs they had held during the Mughal period (1573 to 1753) and even after that, was responsible for their gradual economic decline. This, according to them, also effected the local Muslim’s alienation from the education system put in place by the English rulers. History also contributed its bit to further stir this simmering cauldron.
Will the vessel ever cool down? Will vapours of hate stop emanating from it? Only if the future rights the wrongs of Ahmedabad’s chequered past.
