1. Conflict in Urban Spaces The Case of Ahmedabad
Crisis States Programme, DESTIN, LSE
April 2009
Neera Chandhoke

2. Acknowledgements
Fieldwork was carried out in Ahmedabad in June July 2006, January- February 2007, September- October 2007.
I am grateful to the following organisations and individuals who helped our research team during the course of the research.
Hirenbhai Gandhi and Wilfred D’Costa (INSAAF),
Oxfam,
Darshini Mahadevia (University),
Ghanshyam Shah, (Social Scientist)
Ila Ben Pathak (AWAG),
Rajendra Joshi (SAATH),
Gazala (SAMARTH),
Kusum Girish Patel (Lawyer)
,Yasmeen Rehmani (SAATH)-
Zakia- (Action Aid),
Meera and Rafeeq- (C.F.D. and HUM-Hindu United Muslim Sangathan),

3. Acknowledgements Achut Yagnik (SETU),
Purushottam, (Ekta Yuvak Mandal, Berahmpura),
Nafeesa (UTHAN),
Zayed (Himmat in Vatva),
Pratham (Education for children),
Haneef Lakdawala (SANCHETNA),
Father Cedric Prakash (Justice for Peace),
Abida Ben (Sakhi Mahila Mandal in Saraspur),
Members of Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association or Majoor Mahajan,
Manohar Shukla (Secretary of ATLA),
Prof. B.B. Patel ( Gandhi Labour Institute),
Mujib Ahmad Awami (Gujarati Sarvajanik Welfare Trust),
Sallubhai (Gomatipur),
Mr. Rawal (Joint Managing Director, Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation),
Girish Patel (TLA),
Sarahben (AWAG),

4. Acknowledgements Hiren Bhai, Noorjehan (Action Aid), Faculty of IIM,
Ahmedabad Textile Industries Research Association,
SVIIPA, GLI- Gandhi Labour Institute,
SPISER- Sardar Patel Institute of Social and Economic Research,
Libraries of SETU, ATMA,GCC,
Shabnam Hashmi,
Apoorvananda,
Vijay Jani (ANHAD),
Rashidaben, Local activist,
Shehnaz and Hozefa,
Aman Samudaya
Families of Ekta Nagar, Faizal Park and Baghe Aman.

5. Acknowledgements Grateful thanks to James Putzel director of CSP
Jo Beall director of the Cities Component
Wendy Foulds
To my research team many thanks
Praveen Priyadarshi
Silky Tyagi
Neha Khanna

6. Communal Violence in Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad leads the country in the scale and intensity of communal violence, even when the rest of the country, including Gujarat, has not witnessed such violence.
The first riot in the city occurred in 1941 and then in 1946 on the eve of independence of India.
The first serious communal riot occurred in 1969 in which above 600 people were killed, and property worth millions was destroyed.
The next major riot took place in 1985
Minor riots occurred in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1977, 1980, 1981, and 1982.
In 1990 and 1993 another major riot occurred followed by minor riots in 1994 and 1996.
In 1999 a major riot was followed by riots in 2000 and 2001

7. Mapping Major Riots-1941 Cause: Aftermath of the Pakistan Resolution
Time Scale: 18 April to 16 May
Casualties:93 killed, 316 injured,
Damage:Shops and houses looted, arson, vehicles set on fire,
Affected Areas- Manik Chowk, Astodia, Panch Kuwas, Pankor Naka, Fawara, Khadia Charasta, Gol Linbda, Richey Road, Dhansutar’s Pol, Hope Market, Mandwis Polm Kalupur, Jamalpur, Raipur, Gomtipur, Saraspur, Shahpur, Dariyapur
State Capacity: Riots controlled by the government in a month

8. Mapping Major Riots-1969
Cause: Desecration of Hindu and Muslim holy books; fall out of the split of the Congress Party
Time Scale: 21 September to 28 September
Casualties: 660 people killed, 34 incidents of stabbing and murder on one day
Damage: Arson and stoning, 6742 houses damaged, loss of $40 million for the Textile industry
Localities Affected: Nadiad, Khulka, Khadia, Nagodiwad, Dariyapur, Jamalpur, Kalupur, Gondal, Chamanpura, Aswara, Gomtipur, Amraiwari.
State Capacity: Army called in. The Jagmohan Reddy Judicial Commission established to inquire into the riots.

9. Mapping Riots 1985
Cause: Caste based violence on the issue of reservation for the scheduled and backward castes was transformed into a communal riot between Hindus and Muslims.
Time Scale: March-August; police recorded 743 communal agitations from February to July.
Casualties: 220 persons killed, 100 Muslims murdered and 400 were stabbed
Damage:2500 homes of Muslims were damaged and 1500 shops were burnt,1200 Muslims rendered homeless. Loss of property amounted to $1,75 billion.
Localities Affected: Dariyapur, Kalupur, and Bapunagar
State Capacity: Police involved in attacks on the minority community. Professional criminals were involved. Army was called in. The Dave Commission was established to go into the causes of the riot.

10. Mapping Communal Riots 1990
Cause: Advani’s chariot procession to mobilise people for building the Ram temple where the Babri Masjid stood. Whenever the procession passed through Muslim dominated areas the Hindu supporters shouted obscene and provocative slogans. Advani arrested by the Bihar state government in Samastipur. Passions were inflamed by the strikes and the closures called for by the VHP and the BJP. This led to attacks on Muslims in Ahmedabad.
Time Scale: April
Casualties” 60 persons killed,
Damage: Extensive loss and damage of property belonging mainly to Muslims
Localities Affected: Jamnagar, Kangdapeeth, Nawawadah, Sarangpur, Chakla, Kalupur, Dariyapur, Gomtipur, Juhapura, Shahipur, Khanpur, Paldi, Satellite Road, Astodia, Maninagar
State Capacity: Failure to control the riot in time, army had to be called in

11. Mapping Major Communal Riots 1993
Cause: Aftermath of the demolition of the Babri mosque on 6 December 1992
Time Scale: December-January
Casualties: 292 persons were killed
Damage: Loss of property
Localities Affected: Daryapur, Wadigram, Naginapol, Charval, Dholka, Khambher, Ankleshwar, Nabipur, Patan, Shahpur, Kalupur, Bapunagar, Kakadbita
State Capacity: failure to control the riot, army called in

12. Major Communal Riot 1999
Cause: Kite flying, animal slaughter, the annual Jaganath temple procession and the fall out of the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan
Time Scale: January, March, and July
Casualties:19 people killed, 99 injured, 92 incidents of stabbing
Damage: Loss of property, 20 vehicles set on fire, 25 buildings set on fire.
Localities Affected: Kalupur, Dariyapur, Shahpur, Gomtipur, Bapunagar, Karang, Saraspur, Khadiya, Panch Paldi, Relief Road, Gandhi Road
State Capacity: Failure to control riots, army called in

13. Communal Riots 2000
Causes: A Bajrang Dal and VHP mob of about people attacked a newly constructed building owned by a Muslim, and shouted provocative slogans. Tension occurred during elections.
Time Scale: February, May, July, August, September, December
Casualties: Unaccounted dead,
Damage: Property worth $ 100,000 destroyed. A Muslim shrine opposite the Amdapur police station was razed
Localities Affected: Madhepura, Dudheshwar, Kalupur, Dariyapur, Jamalpur, Shahpur
State Capacity: failure to control riots, army called in

14. Provocation
The immediate provocation for the riot can range from minor squabbles such as eve-teasing, Indo-Pak Cricket matches, kite flying incidents, religious festivals and processions, and alleged desecration of holy books, to reservations for lower castes in the government and in educational institutions. Caste riots have been transformed into communal riots in a shockingly short span of time as in 1985.

15. Time Scale
The time scale of the riot has varied from one week (1969) to one year (2000).
The police has been ineffective and even complicit in the violence.
The army has to be called in repeatedly.

16. Communal Violence in 2002
The 2002 case was different, because violence was one sided.
Riots presuppose two parties to the violence, but in 2002, mobs of the Hindu Right led often by members of the political party then in control of the state government: the Bharatiya Janata Party, wreaked brutal violence upon the Muslim inhabitants of the city.

17. Provocation
Communal violence unleashed by Hindu mobs against Muslims after 58 people, mainly Hindu, were killed when a bogie of the Sabarmati Express was burnt by some alleged Muslim miscreants on 27 February.

18. Distinctiveness of 2002
According to all reports the government gave its supporters a free hand, and even encouraged them in the witch hunt of the members of the minority community.
The report by an independent fact finding mission stated that the police commissioner in Ahmedabad commanded a total of 10,000 men including 3000 armed men and 16 companies of the SRP. Yet mobs of about 5000 could run amuck, loot, rape, attack, and murder, while the police stood by, when it did not actively abet the mobs.

19. Distinctiveness of 2002 II
The attacks on Muslim households, shops restaurants, and business establishment were executed with brutal precision and foreknowledge.
Gujarati Media was involved in listing Muslim establishments

20. Explaining Communal Violence
Proposition I
In a plural society primary identities can only be mediated by other identities, such as citizenship and class, when people come together across communities in
Mixed neighbourhoods
Participation in political struggles
The work place

21. Proposition I
Unless primary identities are mediated by other identities, communities turn into themselves and poise themselves against other communities. This leads to the development of communal sentiments

22. Explaining Communal Violence
Proposition II
The state should be able to control the means of coercion and justify use of violence
The state should not permit any of its own officials to wreak communal violence on groups of citizens
The deployment of violence by organisations other than the state should be punished.

23. Explaining Communal Violence
Proposition III
The development of communal sentiments however does not easily translate into violence inflicted by one community on another
The translation from communal prejudice and discrimination to communal violence requires a trigger

24. Explaining Communal Violence :The Trigger
The Trigger is normally provided by a political group that:
Mobilises a constituency on the axis of oppositional identities;
Constitutes primary identities into a state making project

25. The Case of Ahmedabad
According to Varshney the Congress party and the Textile Labour Association were two civil society organisations that provided sources for the integration of the two communities till the point that they began to decline and degenerate.

26. Our Research Findings I
Our research has shown:
Hindus and Muslims lived in segmented spaces from the medieval period onwards. Violence between the two communities was not unknown either in the eighteenth century or in the middle of the twentieth century.
The reach of the Congress in Ahmedabad was limited, and a majority of the Muslim community ceased to partner the Congress in political agitations after the 1920s
The Textile Labour Association was itself organised on the basis of caste and religious units.
Therefore, it was unable to transcend either segmented identities, or provide a radical working class identity that could subsume particularistic identities often poised against each other.

27. Our Research Findings II
With a few exceptions the state has not made serious attempts to control violence against the Muslims.
The state making project of Hindutva since the mid 1980s has worsened the situation.

28. Our Research Findings III
With the coming into power of the BJP the police and increasingly government officials and politicians belonging to the religious right have been involved in the infliction of violence on minorities

29. A Brief History of Ahmedabad
The geographical area which subsequently came to be known as Ahmedabad is of some geo-political significance because it is located at the intersection of the caravan routes to Rajasthan, Delhi, Malwa, Sind with its port of Tatta (Lahari Bandar) and the ports of Cambay, Surat, and Broach.
The place was profitably situated in a cotton growing belt.
These two factors motivated Sultan Ahmad Shah of the Gujarat Sultanate to establish a city, close to where an earlier trading centre namely Asaval or Karnavati stood.
In 1411 a walled city was constructed, and given the name Ahmedabad after its founder.
The city, which was built on the banks of the Sabarmati river; fifty miles from the mouth of the river, and 173 feet above mean sea level, replaced Karnavati as a major
1532, settlements began to proliferate within the walled area. Subsequently, the city expanded spatially to include Puras (suburbs) outside the walled city.

30. A Brief History of Ahmedabad II
Ahmed Shah encouraged merchants, weavers and skilled craftsmen to settle in Ahmedabad, so that the city could develop as a flourishing weaving and trading centre.
For a hundred years the city grew in wealth and splendour.
With the decline of the Gujarat Sultanate, and the passing of trade into the hands of the Portugese, This period of growth of Ahmedabad was followed by sixty years of decay.
Ahmedabad recovered some if its reputation and prosperity in 1572 after it became a part of the Mughal Empire, and more importantly the seat of the Mughal Viceroy of Gujarat.

31. A Brief History of Ahmedabad III
With the decline of the Mughal Empire, the city declined once again.
The city was ruled jointly by the Muslims and Marathas from 1738 to 1753.
In 1757 it came completely in the hands of the Maratha Kings.
Till 1817, when it was annexed by the East India Company, according to all records the city was almost deserted and was in a deplorable state.
The city revived under the control of East India Company, and was transformed into a modern industrial city

32. Community Histories
During the period of Mughal rule, the officers of the court and the skilled weavers were Muslim.
The financiers and traders were generally Hindus and Jain, who controlled the wealth of the city.
The only exception to this rule was the Bohra Muslim community which traded in silk and other goods.

33. Community Histories II
Once the city fell into the hands of the Hindu Maratha kings, Muslim officials lost their power. Thereafter, Muslims remained mainly weavers, and control over trade and commerce, finance, and later administration, remained with the Hindu and Jains.
Clearly the fortunes of the Hindu and the Muslims waxed and waned according to the religious persuasion of the elite that controlled the city.

34. Residential Segregation I
The first precondition for the mediation of primary identities is mixed neighbourhoods.
In Ahmedabad however, the residential pattern of the city was characterized by two distinct kinds of housing types for the Hindus and for the Muslims. The Hindus lived in a cluster types known as the Pol and the Muslims in Mohallas.
The word pol is derived from the Sanskrit word pratoli, which means entrance to an enclosed area. This entrance or gate was generally known by the name of the community living in the enclosed area.
Pols themselves were organized largely on the basis of caste.
Till the late nineteenth century, the owners of the pol would sell land within the area to people of their own caste.

35. Residential Segregation II
In 1714, violence between Hindus and Muslims accelerated the move towards separate living.
Violence precipitated by the festival of Holi.
The Ahmedabad riot of 1714 according to Haider, was the only incident of its kind in the recorded history of the city from 1411 AD to 1761.
Confined to a particular locality
Cause of the riot could be traced to professional commercial rivalry.
Violence contained because the local administration stepped in to calm the situation and terminated the violence.

36. Residential Segregation III
Whereas within the walled city the pol and the mohalla bred intense interaction among the community, these spatial forms also served to pre-empted social interaction with the members of the other community living in their own spaces.
Residential segregation bred both suspicion and hatred among the two communities.

37. Residential Segregation IV
The first textile mills were established in the late nineteenth century within the walled city.
Subsequently mills were located outside the walled city in the eastern part beyond the railway line. This became an industrial area.
The population of the city swelled with the entry of non-Gujarati speaking migrants from other parts of the country.

38. Residential Segregation V
In the eastern part of the city, the working people lived in group housing units or chawls built by the mill owners in villages like Saraspur, Rakhial, and Gomtipur. Subsequently, the boundaries of the city were expanded to cover these industrial villages.
A chawl, which consisted of a one room housing unit, common toilets, and a common playground, was generally under-serviced.
In these chawls caste Hindus lived in clusters; and other residential clusters consisted of low caste Hindus and Muslims.
The Muslim chawls were located close to the dalit chawls and both the communities were excluded from upper caste houses.
Outsiders were prevented from entering caste pols through the raising of rents, and stringent conditions of sale.

39. Residential Segregation VI
By the middle of the twentieth century, congestion in the walled city prompted out migration
The wealthier inhabitants began to migrate across the river to the western part of the city.
By the late 1960s three Ahmedabads were established.

40. Residential Segregation VII
A majority of the Muslims continued to live in the old city, across the railway line and in the walled city
These areas under sustained civic neglect rapidly degenerated into slums.
Dariapur, Kalupur, Gomtipur, Behrampur, Bapu Nagar, Jamalpur, and Shahipur.
It is precisely in this areas that the worst communal riots have taken place. Narrow streets, congestion, and clusters of Muslim families living together, have enabled rioters to target closely packed houses, by, for example throwing petrol bombs over the walls, and setting fire to one house.

41. Residential Segregation VIII
In the newly developed western part of the city, housing societies bought land, subdivided it, and developed residential accommodation for individuals and families.
Members of housing societies belonged mainly to a particular religious and caste group. Thus other communities and castes could be excluded
Segmented housing clusters in the old city were spatially reproduced in the new city.

42. From Residential Segregation to Ghettoisation I
By the late 1960s even Muslim families were forced to leave their homes and places of work.
The major riot of 1969 riot earmarked the onset of ghettoisation.

43. Ghetto of Juhapura
Juhapura is one of the largest settlements of the Muslim community, containing about 300,000 people or about 46 percent of the total Muslim community in the Urban Agglomeration. This includes affluent Muslims
Juhapura borders Vejalpur area which is Hindu dominated. The road between the two areas, which is ritually typed as the ‘border’, and Juhapura as Pakistan, has become the site of massive confrontations.
Juhapura falls outside the boundaries of the Municipal Corporation.
Most of the land is agricultural land, and lacks infrastructure and services.
As an unauthorized colony, Juhapura is not entitled to health facilities, power supply, roads, drainage, and street lighting.
Infrastructure created in the area with private funds given by Muslim philanthropic organisations.
Juhapura is not connected to the city by public transport since it is located on the highway. The location of the ghetto has therefore, deprived people of employment, access to good schools, and health facilities.

44. Ghettoisation II
After the 2002 violence, relief camps were closed down, the state government refused to help the victims of the 2002 violence
A few predominantly Islamic organizations such as the Tabligh Jamaat, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiaat-el-Ulema-e-Hind, and the Islamic Relief Committee, along with some NGOs such as Action Aid, stepped in to help these people to rebuild their lives.
Some land was acquired on the outskirts of the city, and the victims were resettled in four pockets- Juhapura, Ramol, Vatva and Dani Limda.

45. Ghettoisation III
The 729 households that have been relocated in 15 such colonies in Ahmadabad have been displaced from eastern Ahmedabad:Naroda Patia, Gomtipur, Daria Pur, Gomti Pur, Saraspur, Bapu Nagar Jamal Pur, Rakhial, and other inner city areas that have repeatedly suffered from periodic outbursts of communal violence since 1969.

46. Ghettoisation IV
In these bare, stark, inhospitable areas, some civil society organizations constructed rackety one room tenements, without water supply, without electricity, without access to internal roads because there were none, and without sanitation and sewerage for families.
Some of these colonies have been constructed in the shadow of a mountain of garbage [Dani Limda]
The land upon which these tenements have been constructed is illegal land
No connectivity to the city, no schools, no hospitals.

47. Consequences of Ghettoisation I
Children have been forced to drop out of school and take to daily wage labour, because of distance and expensive
Most families are reluctant to send their daughters to school outside the neighbourhood, after the sexual violence that Muslim girls had been subjected to after 2002.
An entire generation of children of Muslim families is less educated than their parents.
People forced to abandon their previous vocations. Most of them now work in informal and petty jobs, and are known as chhuttak mazdoors.
A universal decline in income, which has dropped to less than half to what people used to earn before the violence and relocation.

48. Consequences II
The land on which victims have been relocated was mostly purchased by Islamic organizations. But the land deeds remains with the Islamic Relief Committee, even after families have started to live in these colonies.
As no land entitlement has been given to the victims, people believe with good reason that they live in semi-permanent relief camps, that they are dependent upon other agencies, and that they have not really been rehabilitated.
There have also been instances where Islamic Relief Committee has put its own set of conditionalities on people.
Residents told us that the IRC prefers the construction of mosques to health clinics, madrassa’s to schools, and that the organization insists on dress codes for women.
Whereas the residents are more concerned about incomes, health, and education for their children.

49. Implications for the Project of ‘Living Together’I
The spatial marginalization of the Muslims is the most powerful symbol of their economic, political and social exclusion from the city life.
Children of one community have absolutely no interaction with the children of the other community, no mixed schools, no playgrounds in which children of both communities can interact, no extra curricula activities that can form the basis of a future solidarity, and no personal friendships that involve visiting each other’s homes, and dining.
The inhabitants of the ghetto are subjected to rank and vicious stereotyping and abuses by the majority community.

50. Implications for the Project of Living Together II
These developments carry serious implications for communal harmony.
Residential segregation narrows the cultural and the political horizons of communities, closes off options, pre-empts creative mingling of perspectives, and prevents the forging of other sorts of identity.
The twcommunities remain both the unknown and the unknowable, demonised and alienated from each other.
It is infinitely easier to target the lives and the properties of a community when it removed from the mainstream of social life both spatially and symbolically.

51. First Precondition for Negating Communal Tension
The first precondition for the negation of communal tension between communities- mixed neighbourhoods, was simply not set in place in Ahmedabad.

52. Second Precondition of Negating Communal Tension
The second precondition for the mediation and the modification of primary ethnic identities is shared participation in political processes such as political movements.

53. Participation in Political Movements I
Ahmedabad according to all historical accounts was active in the freedom struggle against colonialism, but the majority of the Muslim community does not seem to either have participated in the freedom struggle, or participated only partially.

54. Participation in Political Movements II
In 1920 Gandhi launched the famed non-cooperation movement as a back to back movement with the Khilafat movement initiated in 1918 by Maulana Abdul Bari and the Ali brother. This supported the independence of the Ottoman Sultan as the Khalifa of all Muslims, and aimed at ensuring his suzerainty over holy places.
Gandhi felt that unity between Hindus and Muslims on this issue would lead to greater unity in general.

55. Participation in Political Movements III
The movement overlapped with the census operations in the city. The 1931 census reported that in 1921 Gandhi recommended that no hindrance be offered to census operations, because this was a work of great importance.
The census operations were, however, boycotted by the Hindus and the Jains but not by the Muslims. “As a general proposition it may be safely stated that the Muhammadans nowhere joined the boycott, in fact throughout the Presidency, the leaders rendered freely any assistance that was asked of them.” And again ‘the boycott movement was confined to the Hindu and Jain elements in the city. So far as the Muhammedan community was concerned, it was wholly ineffective.”

56. Participation in Political Movements IV
Reasons for the non-compliance of the Muslim community with nationalist politics
Tension between Hindus and Muslims in the rest of the country, for example the Moplah rebellion in Kerala.
in December 1921 the Congress met in Ahmedabad for its annual session but differences broke out between the Hindu and the Muslim participants
Gandhi had called for a peaceful boycott of the official welcome to the Prince of Wales who arrived on 17 November That evening a large number of Hindus and Muslims attacked people who had attended the official reception. The riots continued for four days. Gandhi took responsibility and went on a three days fast, but before that he admonished Muslims for being the main perpetrators of the violence.

57. Participation in Political Movements V
By mid 1922 the unity between Hindus and Muslims had collapsed and henceforth the Muslims were to play a negligible role in the nationalist movement in the city.

58. Participation in Political Movements VI
Other Reasons for the Hindu Muslim Divide
Practices of religious mapping by the census
Separate electorates in local government bodies such as the Municipality

59. Participation in Political Movements VII
Before the late 1930s the Muslim community had not been outright hostile to the Congress, but divisions between the Hindus and Muslims widened when the Muslim League was kept out of government formation in the Bombay Presidency
The tension between the two parties filtered to the Ahmedabad municipality. The members of the League refused to acquiesce in the decisions taken by the Congress, whether these decisions pertained to the renaming of bridges across the Sabarmati, wearing of hand spun and hand woven khadi, or the celebration of Gandhi’s birthday.

60. Participation in Political Movements VIII
Mohammed Ali Jinnah launched his own mass contact movement in the mid 1937 and established branches of the League in Gujarat. Soon the Muslims of Gujarat began to view the Congress ministry in Bombay, and Congress controlled local authorities with profound suspicion.
In February 1938 the Bombay Presidency Muslim Association met in Ahmedabad and passed a number of resolutions expressing complete lack of confidence in the Congress ministry.
The Muslim community became aggressive, and between 1938 and 1940 there was tension in Ahmedabad.
In April 1941 some Muslim miscreants launched a massive attack on the Hindu localities of the city. After four days of furious rioting, 76 lay dead and more than 300 were injured; with most of the casualties being mainly Hindu.

61. Participation in Political Movements IX
The District Magistrates report on communal riots in the city:
“Since 1937, relations between the two communities have deteriorated rapidly. The Mahomeden community felt that they could not get justice in the time of the Congress ministry. They considered that they must organize themselves strongly to protect their rights .The Muslim League became very powerful in the city and practically all Mohammadens of note, except a few Congressmen became members of it. The Muslim League formed a small but united and clamorous opposition in the Ahmedabad Municipality, nearly all the other members of which were Congressmen. The Municipality instead of confining itself to its proper activities, reflected the atmosphere of the time, and in consequence in the last four years there have been many ‘scenes’ between the Congress and the league members at Municipal meetings. The local Mahomeddans were also getting more and more irritated with other Hindu organizations. Of recent months, the Pakistan scheme of Mr Jinnah has made a wide breach between the two communities. The local Hindu Mahasabha was particularly bitter against the scheme and constantly exhorted Hindus to adopt more vigorous actions.”

62. Participation in Political Movements X
David Hardiman argues that the city formed the centre of the 1942 Quit India Movement against the colonial government.
Notably absent from these demonstrations were the Muslims who at that time made up twenty percent of the population of the city. Evidently the Muslims did not have any sympathy with the Quit India movement in Ahmedabad.
In April 1942, the 12 Muslim members of the municipality were the only one’s who refused to support a motion condemning the arrest of the Congress leaders.

63. Consequences
Shared and widespread participation in political struggles does not appear to be a constitutive feature of the anti-colonial struggle in Ahmedabad.
Thereby, a process that has the potential to construct solidarity and camaraderie across identities, and to counteract the exclusive development of identity producing and reproducing schemes, was aborted.

64. Third Precondition of Negating Communal Tension
The other way in which different communities can be brought together in a shared project, is the work place.
Ahmedabad provided a particularly felicitous environment for this because of the development of the textile industry since the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Remarkably the industry was entirely financed by indigenous capital

65. The Textile Industry I
The establishment of the textile industry provided economic incentives and opportunities to all castes and to all religious communities in the city and beyond.
However, whereas some castes in the Hindu hierarchy were able to take quick advantage of the opportunities provided by the new industry, Muslims, with the exception of the Bohra community, generally lost out.
During the period of Mughal rule, Muslims had acquired positions in the court as soldiers and as high officials.
With the coming of the British, the Muslim community, largely non-literate, was simply not in a position to take advantage of proffered opportunities

66. The Textile Industry II
In 1912 the first Muslim owned mill was established in 1912 by the Taiyabali family, which was originally involved in chemicals.
Generally in the city the textile industry was dominated by Hindus with the other communities playing a minor role.

67. The Textile Industry III
Within the industry, workers from different castes and communities were assigned different tasks within the textile industry.
The workers in the spinning department were dalits, belonging mainly to the Vankars and the Dheds or weaver castes, the Chamars. The weaving department consisted mainly of Kanbis and Muslims whose traditional occupation had been handloom weaving along with a few castes.
Residential Segmentation originated in the Work Place

68. The Trade Union I
Gandhi’s resolution to the problem of capital-labour confrontation resulted in a new model of trade unionism the Majoor Mahajan or the Textile Labour Association.
Based on partnership between the mill owners and the workers, culture of social work
TLA was a part of Congress politics and through the party participated in the municipality and then the corporation right uptil the late 1960s.
With the split in the Congress the TLA withdrew from city politics

69. The Trade Union II
Though the union secured for its members higher salaries, shorter working hours, non-employment of children below 12 years of age, and bonus, it failed to institutionalize a radical working class culture.
After 1923, no strike was called except for 1985 when the Hindu Defence Society called for a closure of the mills

70. TheTrade Union III Reproduction of Caste and Communal Identities
The TLA was an umbrella organization, which brought together 8 separate craft based unions on separate occupations within the industry.
Workers became members of the organisation through their own unions: frame, card and blow room workers; ring spinners, reelers, winders, weavers, warpers, and sizers, jobbers, clerks, power plant mechanics and workers.

71. The Trade Union IV
There was little attempt to transcend caste barriers and to forge unity at the workplace.
The net result was the consolidation of caste and religious barriers.
Since the Muslim workers were largely based in departments that had few workers from other groups, these workers set up a separate organisation on the ground that the Gandhian union was under the influence of the mill owners. “They felt more at home here than in the TLA, with its dominant Hindu style.” [Breman]

72. The Trade Union V
In 1937, mill owners cut the wages of weavers by 25 percent.
The trade union was associated with the Congress and maintained a silence but the Lal Vavta Mill Kamgar Union established by the Communists assumed leadership and about 50,000 mainly Muslim workers went on a strike. This continued for three weeks after other workers had joined.
The Congress government imposed prohibitory orders banning all meetings and processions, and arrested several communist and socialist leaders and workers. When the Congress and the mill owners failed in their tasks, Gulzarilal Nanda the Majoor Mahajan leader who was in charge of the labour portfolio of the government, brokered a settlement and reduced the wage cut by 7 percent.

73. Segmented Work Place Politics
The Royal Commission on Labour observed that ‘Ahmedabad is almost unique among the industrial centres of India in that the employers and the larger proportion of the workforce belong to the same part of India and share not merely the same religion but the same mother tongue. Most of the Musalman weavers are outside the labour union’

74. Consequences of Segmented Work Place Politics I
Dinkar Mehta one of the leaders of the striking workers and a pioneer of the Communist party in the state wrote in his biography, “Almost all the workers of the weaving sections participated in this strike and a sizeable number among them were Muslim. We realized through experience that although Muslim workers had respect and sympathy for Lal Vatva, their political consciousness had not broken out of the confines of the Muslim League. This ambivalent attitude persisted among Muslim workers for a long time.”
After the strike, some of the textile mills discharged a large number of workers who were Muslim and thousands lost their jobs. Neither the ministry nor the Majoor Mahajan took steps to reinstate the workers. On the other hand the Muslim League leadership condemned the action of the mill owners and held the Congress ministry responsible.
The workers turned to the League.

75. Consequences of Segmented Work Place Politics II
In 1940 when Muhammed Ali Jinnah visited Ahmedabad he addressed a crowd of 35,000 mostly Muslim inhabitants.
On 18 April 1941 a bloody Hindu Muslim riot occurred in the walled city, which continued for 10 days. 80 people were killed and 400 injured. Textile mills were closed for a week and one lakh people left the city in a panic.
During the first three days the Hindus were at the receiving end and could do little except closing the huge wooden gates of their pols and obstructing the rioters by barricades.
In the second phase the Hindus organised and attacked Muslim residential areas though in all Hindus suffered heavily and their loss of life and property was far more than the Muslims. The local police force remained inactive.

76. The Trigger
Ahmedabad is clearly a segmented city. This is reflected in residential patterns, in political participation, the structuring of the textile industry, and trade union politics.
Yet these background conditions are not enough to propel bloodletting of people simply because they are considered the ‘other’.
The translation of prejudice, discrimination, and hatred into acts of violence that target populations and seek destruction of property and livelihoods, requires a trigger.
In Ahmedabad this trigger was provided by the cadres of the religious right.

77. The Trigger II
In the late 1960s Justice Reddy’s report on the 1969 riot makes the role of the religious right explicit. “Another noticeable feature to which we must make a reference is the definite part played in various districts which were affected by the workers of the local Jana Sangha and Hindu Mahasabha organisations or by persons having leanings towards them.”

78. The Trigger III
In the 1940s the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS] the linchpin of the sangh parivar set up shop in Gujarat.
Ten years later, in 1951 the political wing of the sangh parivar, the Jan Sangh [JS], established organisations in the state.
Both organisations set out to mobilise the support of the upper castes.
In 1968 the Hindu Dharam Raksha Samiti or the society for the protection of Hinduism was established in the city.
Crucial turning point was the estabishment of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal in the mid 1980s

79. The Trigger IV
Jan Sangh fared poorly in the elections to the state assembly
1974 Navnirman movement against the authoritarian rule of P.M Indira Gandhi gave to the RSS and the JS legitimacy
1975 assemly elections JS won 18 out of 40 seats contested

80. The TriggerV
In the 1990 assembly elections BJP captured 56.2 percent of the vote and shared power in a coalition with the Janata Dal.
Made substantial gains in the 1991 general elections winning 20 of 26 seats
Since 1995 when the party got 122 out of 182 seats, the BJP has dominated Gujarat politics
Significantly there is no regional party in the state

81. The TriggerVI
The Congress began to decline in the mid 1980s, largely because of the policy of KHAM adopted by CM Madhav Singh Solanki and Dinabhai Darji to offset the defeat of the party in 1977.
Preferential treatment for the lower and backward castes led to caste riots.
These were converted into communal riots by the cadres of the Sangh Parivar

82. The TriggerVII
The cadres of the religious right had one objective-forging unity among the caste and subcastes in the Hindu community, and bringing the adivasi’s into the community.
The Samajik Samrasta Manch, the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, and the Vanvasi Hindu Sangam reached out to the dalits and to the adivasis.
For this purpose they needed an external enemy.
This they found in the Muslim Community

83. The Trigger VIII
BJP began to largely control the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation from 1987 onwards
Organisations penetrated local power structures in the 1990s
In power in the Gujarat Assembly since 1998

84. Conclusion I When the state does not wish it, riots do not happen.
In July 1986 a riot broke out in Ahmedabad on the occasion of the rath yatra procession. Eighty people were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands were rendered homeless.

85. Conclusion I
The Union Minister of State P. Chidambaram in charge of internal security flew to Ahmedabad and after consultation with the CM Amarsinh Chaudhry declared that the situation would be brought under control in 24 hours.
Fifty four companies of the state reserve police, central reserve police, border security force, and other security forces were brought in to patrol the city.
Curfew was rigidly enforced and key instigators, particularly the leaders of the Pradesh Hindu Mahasabha were arrested.
3401 persons were arrested many under the National Security Act.
Religious processions were banned.
Chidambaram announced that the Home Ministry would hold District Collectors and Police Superintendents directly and principally responsible for any communal violence.
The police and the administrators were to report to their own chain of command

86. Conclusion I
Direct contrast to the six month long riot in 1985 when politicians of both parties were held responsible for instigating the communal riots to divert attention from the anti-reservation protests that had pitted caste against caste.
The central government under P.M Rajeev Gandhi supported CM Solanki,
The police participated in the violence on the citizens particularly Muslims.
On 23 April between 17 to 50 people were killed, 85 injured, hundreds of houses and huts were burnt, and 5000 people were rendered homeless.

87. Conclusion II Violence just does not happen
The necessary preconditions of the outbreak of violence is lack of any substantial social and political interaction.
In Ahmedabad social interaction between religious communities was preempted by
Segmented residential patterns
Lack of substantial participation in political movements
Work place politics

88. Additional Factors
The Closing Down of the textile mills in the mid 1980s has created a class of informal workers
Bred competition for jobs
Huge pool of underemployed and unemployed that can be tapped by the cadres of the Hindu right

89. Conclusion III The Presence of Background conditions is not enough
The translation of communal sentiments and prejudice into acts of violence requires a trigger.
This trigger was provided by the cadres of the Hindu Right

90. Take over of the State Government
The Chief Minister of the state Narendra Modi is a member of the RSS and the minister of state for home Zadaphia was a member of the VHP. The governor of the state was also a member of the RSS. “As a result,” concluded the Fact Finding Mission, “the Gujarat Government functioned not as a constitutionally bound, non-partisan and independent body, but one controlled by, and answerable to the Sangh Parivar.”

91. Necessary Preconditions
Preconditions for Communal Harmony
State-Neutral Arbiter
Transgressions of basic rights by state officials, party officials and civil society organisations should be penalised
Access of minority to system of checks and balances to be enhanced

92. Necessary Preconditions
It is difficult to regulate social transactions or force associational life
But in the last instance the political context of these interactions has to show the way
When the state is communalised prospects for communal harmony in society remain dim