History of Communal Violence in Gujarat

Crime Against Humanity 
Volume I An inquiry into the carnage in Gujarat 
List of Incidents and Evidence 
By Concerned Citizens Tribunal -Gujarat 2002

History of Communal Violence in Gujarat

“There are many religions as there are individuals; but those who are conscious of the spirit ofnationality do not interfere with one another’s religion. If Hindus believe that India should bepeopled only by Hindus, they are living in a dreamland. The Hindus, the Mahomedans, theParsees and the Christians who have made their country are fellow countrymen and they will haveto live in unity if only for their own interest. In no part of the world are one nationality and onereligion synonymous terms; nor has it ever been so in India.”

— Mahatma Gandhi, quoted by Jagmohan Reddy andNusserwanji Vakil in the Judicial Commission Report on the Ahmedabad Riots, 1969.

To no state of the country could these warning words apply better than to Gujarat,the birthplace of the Mahatma, where the misuse of religion for political ends re-sulted in the worst carnage against a religious minority post-Independence. Between 1961-71, 16 districts inGujarat were rocked by communal violence, recordingsome 685 incidents in urban and 114 in rural areas. Of the 685 incidents in urban Gujaratrecorded for the decade, 578 occurred in 1969 alone, during the worst riots in that ten yearperiod. Starting with Ahmedabad, the worst affected city, violence spread to several otherplaces including Vadodara. The description of one instance of rioting in Ahmedabad, as re-counted before the Tribunal by a prominent human rights activist from Gujarat who was aneyewitness at the time, epitomises the malaise of inter-community relationships in the region:

“A gruesome episode in the afternoon (September 20, 1969) brings out the depthof animosity against the Muslims. A young Muslim, enraged by the destruction of hisproperty said he would take revenge. Upon this the crowd seized him, showered blowson him, and tried to force him to shout ‘Jai Jagannath’. Staying firm, the youth refusedeven if that meant death. To this, someone in the crowd responded that he mightindeed be done away with. Wood from broken shops was collected, a pyre prepared inthe middle of the road, petrol sprinkled on the pyre as well as on the youth, and hewas set alight with ruthless efficiency. What is remarkable is that there was no resis-tance from any Hindu. The wails of the Muslim inhabitants of the area were drownedin the celebration of the incident by the Hindus.”

This was Gujarat’s first major bout of communal violence involving massacre, arsonand looting on a large-scale. The violence took over 1,100 lives and property worthseveral crore rupees was destroyed. (Vengeful slogans on the streets shouted by Jansanghis– the BJP in its former incarnation — basically called the violence a reprisal or revengefor 1946. (Before Partition and Independence, the Muslim League had a significantpresence in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation). Planned riots took place for the firsttime in Vadodara in 1969. Shops of Muslims, marked out in advance for easy identifica-tion were systematically destroyed, suggesting pre-planning and organisation.

In the period, 1974-1980, other issues preoccupied Gujarati society. The 1981 anti-reservation agitation, a reaction to the KHAM policy adopted by the ruling Congressat the time, was re-channelised into a major communal conflagration, in a shrewd bidto check the sharp polarisation taking place among Hindus along caste lines. Con-ceived as a vote bloc of some OBCs, Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims, KHAM, (K as inKshatriya – not to be confused with the upper caste Kshatriyas —, H as in Harijan, Aas in Adivasis and M as in Muslims), the logic of numbers rendered KHAMunmatchable in terms of electoral arithmetic.

This fetched the Congress huge electoral dividends; defying the anti-incumbencyfactor, the party swept the polls in the 1985 polls, winning many more seats in theAssembly than it had in 1980. But apart from the upper castes, KHAM outragedPatels, the intermediate caste with real economic muscle and immense political clout.As the Patidars (Patels) took upon themselves the task of dismantling KHAM, theCongress leadership, which had discovered the magic electoral formula was eitherunwilling or unable to evolve a political programme to sustain the onslaught. AndMuslims, the last link in the chain, proved to be the weakest link.

The issue of reservation quotas for backward castes and communities became thefocal point for the hostile political mobilisation of the upper castes, which turned vio-lent. Communal riots between Hindus and Muslims now began to follow on the heels ofcaste violence as the former served the cynical purpose of diverting attention awayfrom the growing cleavage within caste-Hindu society. Fortuitously for the caste-Hin-dus, the caste struggle in Gujarat coincided with the establishment of the VHP andsoon thereafter, the Bajrang Dal in the state. These RSS outfits were conceived with aspecific agenda – wooing of the ‘lower’ castes with a programme of ‘Hindu unity’.

People in affected areas of Ahmedabad (which led the way for Vadodara and othercities) firmly denied any build up of hostilities prior to the riots. More telling was theway in which the burning of shops was balanced out, arithmetically as it were, betweenthe Hindus and Muslims in the initial stages. It took some time before rioting gatheredmomentum on its own. Retaliation and counter-retaliation sent waves of violence acrosscities, its virulence manifest in the fact that for the first time stones and crowbars weregiving way to guns, petrol bombs, and other explosives. This was ‘progress’ of a nastykind. The caste war had dovetailed into a communal conflagration.

A striking new feature of the 1985 anti-reservation stir was the mobilisation ofupper caste women in support of their men folk. They stood like a buffer between the agitating mob and the police. Facing insults and brickbats, the police was effectivelyprevented by these women from taking any strong action against the mob. In April1985, the police revolted and participated in the violence. They burnt down the officeof Gujarat Samachar in Ahmedabad. In the course of the communal riot engineered toquell the caste war, it was under police supervision that 400 Muslim houses were setablaze and reduced to ashes all over the state.

To bring the difficult situation under control the army had to be called in. It soonfound itself in the midst of extremely trying circumstances. The VHP, hardly a forceso far, launched a vicious campaign charging the army with pro-Muslim bias. Thereason: its commanding officer happened to be a Muslim. The Muslims, on the otherhand, complained of a pro-Hindu bias. In order to win civic confidence the army evenhad to undertake a poster campaign.

Unlike 1981-82, by 1985 the lower castes were better organised, often with aggres-sion. The last phase of the agitation saw an Adivasi backlash. Huge rallies wereorganised in tribal areas sending warning signals to the upper castes. In Bhiloda, atribal pocket in Sabarkantha district, armed young tribals went on the rampage. Patelsliving in the neighbouring village of Takatunka were attacked and robbed. Within afew minutes, 26 shops were devastated.

The nexus between anti-social elements (of both communities) and politicians,which was started in 1969, when Hitendra Desai was chief minister, and encouragedunder Chimanbhai Patel’s rule from 1969-1970, got a further boost in the ’80s whenMadhavsinh Solanki was chief minister. The patronising of liquor mafia dons belong-ing to rival communities, Hindu and Muslim, by different factions of the Congress inAhmedabad and Vadodara led to the criminal-politician nexus behind communal vio-lence surfacing with a vengeance.

In 1982, in Vadodara, there were riots around a Ganesh Chaturthi procession. In1983, there was the first political mobilisation by the Sangh Parivar around the ‘GangaJal ’ (‘Holy water from the Ganges’) and the ‘Bharat Ekta Yatra’ symbols. In 1985, itstarted with anti-reservation riots again, the issue being a hike in quota for OBCs bythe Congress government. Communal riots were then engineered by the party in powerto defuse the explosive caste conflict.

Between 1987 and 1991, 106 communal incidents took place in Gujarat. Politicalrivalry and conflicts during elections were responsible for triggering around 40 per-cent of these riots. Tensions related to ‘religious processions’ were responsible foranother 22 percent of these clashes.

It was from Gujarat, in September 1990, that LK Advani launched his Somnath toAyodhya rath yatra leaving a nationwide trail of violence in its wake. In 1990 itself,there was major violence in Gujarat because of Advani’s rath yatra. Starting fromSomnath, the yatra traversed through the heart of Gujarat. The chief architect of thatyatra was Narendra Modi. During the years of communal violence in 1986, 1987,1989 and 1990, Modi was general secretary of the BJP. That is when the Ramjanmabhoomicampaign became a central issue in Gujarat. Men, women and youngsters from Gujarat, constituting possibly the largest contingent from anywhere in the country, partici-pated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. Surat, a town withan unblemished record of communal harmony, joined other centres in Gujarat whichhad a more fractured history of inter-community relations. Violence spread to ruralareas that had hitherto been largely unaffected.

In September 1990, on the occasion of Ganesh Visarjan, Vadodara saw the worst-ever riots in the walled city. Shops belonging to Muslims in the walled city and Raopurawere broken open with the aid of gas cutters, looted and burnt. During the GaneshVisarjan procession, the destruction took place in broad daylight, in the presence ofthe police. Elected leaders of the BJP directed well-planned attacks on the propertyof Muslims on the main road. The Jumma Masjid near Mandvi was also attacked. Itwas soon after this riot in Vadodara that Advani’s rath yatra began. Stray incidents ofviolence continued for months after this incident.

Sustained and systematic efforts were made by organisations like the BJP and itsSangh Parivar affiliates to communalise Gujarati society, through large-scale distribu-tion of hate literature and other means. Hinduism was given more and more aggres-sive interpretations with a conscious design to promote a feeling among Hindus thatthey, the majority community, were being treated unjustly through ‘appeasement’ ofMuslims by various ‘vested interests’. The view that Muslims were fundamentalist,anti-national, and pro-Pakistan was systematically promoted. In some cases, Hinduswere even exhorted to take up arms to defend their interests.

After 1992, there was a relative lull punctuated by stray incidents of violence againstMuslims. From 1997 to 1999, especially in south Gujarat, a new trend was visible.The Sangh Parivar managed to create a divide, turning Hindu tribals against Christiantribals. In ’98 and ’99, Christian institutions – churches, schools, hospitals were sys-tematically targeted particularly in Dang, Surat and Valsad districts. This divided thetribal community into two camps — Hindu and Christian.

The BJP first came to power in Gujarat in the mid-nineties. But, since 1998, withthe coming of the Keshubhai Patel government, and more so with Narendra Moditaking over as CM in September 2001, public space and atmosphere has been com-pletely vitiated within the state. In recent years, the unending barrage of hate litera-ture helped create a state of mind, even as persistent communal tension contributedto the perpetuation of violence as a way of life. Steady state support was extended tothe activities of organisations such as the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and the organisationsit spawned. Anti-Christian propaganda and violence were initiated. Posts within thebureaucracy at various levels, police and Home Guards and educational institutionshave been steadily filled with persons wedded to a communal worldview.

Sustained efforts have been made to penetrate the tribal belt, where the influence of the BJPwas earlier limited. Trishuls, swords and other weapons have been distributed during ceremo-nial and religious functions. Training campaigns were organised to spread hate-ideology.Contrived ‘aggressions’ by the Muslim community (‘abduction’ and ‘forced mar-riage’ with Hindu girls), and Christians (‘forced conversions’) have been used to whip up local sentiments to a fever pitch. The utter failure of the law and order machineryand other wings of the state to check such blatantly unconstitutional behaviour aretruly worrying for the future of secularism and democracy.

In the past four years alone, an atmosphere of threat and intimidation has deeplyaffected the social fabric of Gujarati society. In 1999, during the Kargil war, violenceerupted in Ahmedabad city when Gujarat’s Muslims were subtly and not-so subtlyprojected as being pro-Pakistan and anti-India. In 2000, Muslim property runninginto crores of rupees was looted or destroyed all over the state in ‘retaliation’ to thekilling of Amarnath yatris by terrorists in the Kashmir valley. The activities oforganisations like the VHP, RSS and BD have become more and more brazen as theydefy the law, confident that with ‘our government’ (BJP) in power, they need have nofear of any censure or penal action.

It is under this political dispensation that the ground for the present carnage wascarefully laid and at any appropriate moment, ruthlessly implemented. If the letterand spirit of the Indian Constitution are to be redeemed and reaffirmed, that exercisemust begin with Gujarat -the land of the Mahatma. Let every man or woman guiltyof base crimes, however highly placed they be and irrespective of the short-termpolitical consequences, be tried speedily and punished. India and its Constitution arecrying out for redressal. As are the souls of the victims massacred in gruesome fash-ion. And the plaints of the traumatised survivors of the Gujarat carnage.

Judicial Commissions on Communal Violence in GujaratThe Jagmohan Reddy and Nusserwanji Vakil Commission of Inquiry was institutedin 1969 in the wake of the violence that claimed 1,100 lives. Unfortunately, irrespec-tive of their political affiliation, successive governments in power have shown nointerest in punishing the guilty, or in initiating the systemic changes recommended tocheck the recurrence of unbridled violence.

In 1986, the Dave Commission was appointed, but the Congress(I) governmentunder Chimanbhai Patel found its recommendations politically inexpedient. Hence, itsimply did not accept the findings that were made. In between, the Kotwal commis-sion also investigated bouts of communal violence in Ahmedabad city. Again thereport was not implemented.

The Chauhan Commission was set up after the brutal violence in Surat in 1992, inthe course of which, too, women were gang raped. This commission had completedits report and needed barely a 15-day extension for finalisation of the document,when the Congress-supported Vaghela government disbanded it. As a result, the find-ings of this commission could not even be made public, let alone the issue of itsrecommendations being acted upon.