Monday, July 28, 2008

Why there was no India riot repeat

By Soutik Biswas
BBC News, Delhi

When serial explosions ripped through the city of Ahmedabad in the western Indian state of Gujarat over the weekend, a fear of sectarian riots gripped its people.

After all, nobody has forgotten the horrific riots in Gujarat in 2002, when more than 1,000 mostly Muslim people died in violence sparked by an attack on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims - killing 59 of them.

Also, independent studies have shown that Gujarat has the highest per capita rate of deaths in communal rioting and clashes among all states in India, at around 117 per million in urban areas.

The same studies also show that the cities of Ahmedabad and Baroda accounted for more than 75% of these deaths between 1950 and 1995 alone.

And in a blow to supporters of secular politics, the vote share of Hindu nationalist parties in Gujarat shot up from a mere 1.4% in 1962 to 47.37% in 2004 - while the share of votes for the centrist Congress party dipped from 50.8% in 1962 to 43.86% in 2004.

Nothing much has changed fundamentally since the last bout of rioting in 2002, which triggered off international condemnation of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - which led the state government then and continues to do so now.

Sectarian divide
Narendra Modi, its controversial chief minister, has been accused of failing to protect Muslims in the 2002 riots. He still heads the government and has been chief minister for the past six years.
The sectarian divide between the Hindus and Muslims has widened. The latter make up 10% of the state's population and live almost entirely in ghettos.

Yet the state continues to perform exceedingly well economically - a quarter of India's revenues come from Gujarat.
But this time Mr Modi took the lead in taking charge of the situation, calling the army out to hold marches in potentially volatiles areas and appealing for calm.

"My friends and I were very angry with the people who exploded the bombs, but we agreed with our leader that violence begets more violence," said a local resident, Bharat Bhai, who was wounded in one of the blasts.

It also helped there were no incendiary statements from Hindu nationalist leaders, despite the fact that many of the areas targeted were dominated by Hindus.

"The stakes are too high for Narendra Modi this time. He aspires to become a prominent leader in India's national politics. He does not want to give a slur to Gujarat's reputation as a favoured business destination," says social scientist Achyut Yagnik, who has written extensively on the state.

"That is why he took control immediately, unlike the last time when the riots were clearly engineered."

A police inspector in the predominantly Muslim-dominated area of Shahpur said his force had been working hard to avert a repeat of 2002 since Saturday's blasts - a far cry from that year when the police looked the other way in many areas when the rioting continued.

"There was tension between Hindus and Muslims here following the blasts. We sensed that and held a meeting with members of the two communities," said PN Joshi.

This definitely helped in preventing reprisal attacks - after all the people behind the explosions, say police and analysts - knew the "social geography" of the places they targeted.

Maninagar, which was rocked by three explosions, is the assembly constituency of Narendra Modi.
A blast in Bapunagar took place close to a private hospital run by the firebrand leader of the radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Praishad (VHP) Pravin Togadia.

Sarangpur, another blast site, is the constituency of senior BJP leader and speaker of the state assembly Ashok Bhatt.

Climate of fear
Upscale neighbourhoods, thriving shopping malls and government premises were left alone. The people responsible were targeting areas where prominent BJP leaders have support bases.

Analysts say those responsible for the blasts were sending out two messages - that they could strike at will despite the state machinery; and that they were capable of creating a climate of fear.

But, at the end of the day, the explosions will only end up helping the BJP politically as the fearful majority Hindus gravitate towards the party.

"More people will now rally around the BJP. It will lead to consolidation of the BJP in the urban areas. A fear psychosis among Hindus only helps the BJP," says Achyut Yagnik.

Analysts insist Ahmedabad remains a tinderbox, with relations between Hindus and Muslims strained and polarisation between the two communities complete.

A lot of people feared reprisal attacks from disgruntled Muslim groups after the 2002 riots, but that never happened.
Some 145,000 Muslims became homeless after the riots - the majority of them in Ahmedabad - and ended up living in fetid refugee camps.

Sectarian positions have hardened: when a prominent Mumbai-based civil right activist who has been fighting for justice for the victims of the 2002 riots and an actor arrived at the civil hospital in Ahmedabad over the weekend to meet the wounded, family and friends of the victims hounded them out of the place.

They called the civil rights activist "a mouth piece of the terrorists".

So the fact that there was no rioting in what is arguably India's most polarised city is principally because the state machinery under Narendra Modi decided to be firm this time.

"The only other saving grace is that the economic relations between Hindus and Muslims have held strong in the context of the economic boom that Gujarat has enjoyed," says Achyut Yagnik.

In which case, Gujarat's economic boom has come as a blessing in more ways than one.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:08 PM

    On a related topic, there's this article in the NYTimes: here)

    They take quite a different spin on it though - like they just realized attacks were occurring in India...

    ReplyDelete
  2. nah i dunno if its that sort of perspective. the numbers between india and iraq are veryy interesting. as was this quote, which lightened things up:

    Puneet Gupta, 23, said he was trying to avoid crowded markets, but his girlfriend, Jyotsna Malhotra, 21, said she was determined not to let it get in the way of her fun. “We are not sure what is going to happen tomorrow,” she said. “Better to live today, shop, get him to spend some money on me.”

    :)

    ReplyDelete