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Of dark clouds and silver linings
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If the tense peace that prevailed in Gujarat after the attack on the Akshardham temple is a sign of better times to come, perhaps the present illusion of normality will become reality sooner rather than later. However, considerable anger and animosity, fear and insecurity remain just under the surface of daily life, says AMMU JOSEPH.
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Gujarat's Muslims are now living with the illusion of normality.
SURPRISINGLY, the situation in rural areas is reportedly worse than they are in urban centres, traditionally viewed as the hotbeds of communal strife. According to Achyut Yagnik of the Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (SETU), just as the focus was almost exclusively on Kutch after the earthquake, this time the spotlight has been on Ahmedabad and Vadodara, despite the fact that the myth of pastoral felicity was disproved by the violence witnessed in February-March in several districts, especially in north and central Gujarat.
The continuing crisis in the countryside is not always visible because all the camps in which people took refuge have been closed down. But in many villages on — or even in the vicinity of — the route of the Gaurav Yatra in September, most Muslims opted to stay indoors for the duration in the hope of avoiding trouble. Social and economic boycotts continue to isolate and cripple many members of the minority community, with some villages making it plain that long-time Muslim residents who fled for their lives earlier in the year are not welcome to return.
In fact, when a team of expatriate Indians on a Sadbhavna Mission to Gujarat in mid-September tried to persuade the residents of Delol village in Panchmahals district — where 37 Muslims had been killed and at least one woman allegedly gang-raped — to allow the 400-odd surviving Muslims of the village to return home, a large crowd gheraoed them, stoned their cars and threatened the leader of the team, Srikumar Poddar, with death if he ever returned to the village. The pregnant woman from Randhikpur village in Dahod district who had filed a police complaint naming the men who had allegedly gang-raped her (and other women of her family) besides killing most of her relatives, and now lives in Godhra with her few surviving family members, including a two-month-old baby, has also been warned not to return to her village.
According to Subhasis Bhadra, who coordinates the psychosocial support team of Aman Samudhay and has been helping organisations working in the rural areas with training and other inputs, attitudes in the countryside seem more rigid and resistant to change than they are in the cities.
"The problem is not yet over — things are still going on; they may be more invisible but also more frightening and depressing. A process of social and economic phasing out is under way — cutting off the economic lifeline, on the one hand, and no provision of proper, secure rehabilitation, on the other," stated Svati Joshi, who recently toured several violence-affected districts as a member of a People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) team researching a follow-up report on issues of rehabilitation, compensation and prosecution, which has since been published.
According to her, while some victims have received compensation for death, hardly anyone has been compensated for the loss of economic assets, including tools of their trade. Similarly, people whose houses were not burnt but were totally ransacked have yet to receive compensation. The PUDR team also came across many instances where businesses ranging from vegetable and milk vending to watch repair and paan shops, once run by Muslims, had been taken over by Hindus after the former fled the violence.
In Ahmedabad, too, tales abound of the loss of jobs and other means of livelihood suffered by countless Muslims. While some employers are probably motivated by prejudice, others may be just fearful of attacks from those who have called for an economic boycott of the minority community. At another level, people who once made a meagre living from tiny businesses have been warned by those who took them over in the chaos following the intense period of violence against any attempt to reclaim their handcarts or petty shops.
To make matters worse, said Pathak, the disbursement of compensation even for survival needs has been far from satisfactory. According to her, while at least some people did receive the State Government's small allowance for household expenses, very few people managed to get the matching amount announced by the central government. Similarly, although the state government had announced a three-month supply of provisions for people returning home from the camps, many among those eligible for the assistance have waited in queues all night only to be told in the morning that supplies had run out.
M.H. Jowher of the Society for the Promotion of Rational Thinking (SPRAT) — a management consultant by profession — puts the economic loss suffered as a direct result of the violence at Rs. 1300 crores, pointing out that only a fraction of the amount will be covered by the Rs. 313 crores allocated by the Central and State Governments put together. In any case, he said, the official policy on compensation remains inadequate and unfair even though the "clerical error" that resulted in the ridiculously low amounts disbursed some months ago had been corrected at least in Ahmedabad. Meanwhile, existing roads to justice seem prone to blocks at every turn, according to human rights activists. For instance, if the First Information Reports reluctantly registered by the police in the weeks following the violence were flawed to begin with, subsequent chargesheets are apparently being weakened through distortion. Having done extensive documentation of the destruction and devastation in Ahmedabad within the first weeks of violence, Sheba George of Sahr Waru and Citizen's Initiative is dispirited, wondering if justice will ever be done. Of the 44 affidavits they have filed before the Justice K.G. Shah Commission, 22 detail police atrocities during the violent period and the remaining half describe the sexual abuse suffered by women in the course the violence.
Meanwhile, a number of non-governmental organisations are working in different ways and at various levels to deal with the range of difficult situations arising from the violence as well as the polarisation. A variety of relief and rehabilitation efforts are underway, although far more obviously needs to be done, especially in the rural areas.
The construction and reconstruction of destroyed and damaged buildings is a major task that is apparently being undertaken largely through a coalition of intra-community organisations. Smaller groups are helping victims to secure daily necessities (for instance, many have been left with nothing to cook in or eat out of even if they are supplied with rations), to claim compensation for losses, and to rebuild livelihoods through the replacement of lost tools of trade or training in the use of new ones and the restoration of ruptured links between home-based workers and the suppliers of raw material as well as traders in finished goods. Others are focussing on psychosocial care and counselling, creating spaces for children to recover from their experiences through play and learning, helping children and adolescents to re-enter the educational process, and assisting people to move beyond their traumatic experiences in order to restart their lives.
Several individuals and organisations are working on the long-term goal of rebuilding bridges between the polarised communities in the hope of sustainable peace. Some see their work with children as part of this process, while others are initiating work with youth to encourage dialogue among "a generation that has seen only riots," as Yagnik put it. Some are hoping that cultural reclamation and reformation will pave the way to a better future.
A Kavi Sammelan (poetry recital), organised by Prashant (a Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace) and the Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), in Ahmedabad in June brought together poets of different communities from Gujarat and other parts of the country, who recited poems expressing their anger and pain over the violence as well as their opposition to communal propaganda. A play by Saumya Joshi, an Ahmedabad-based poet and playwright, has been performed several times in the city over the past couple of months, including a ticketed show on September 15.
In May, when the post-violence crisis was still intense, Darshan, an Ahmedabad-based progressive cultural group, began work with college students belonging to the "sukhi Hindu middle class," as Saroop Dhruv, a poet and member of the group put it, in the hope of making them more sensitive to what was going on around them. Although three of the students dropped out after the first day of rehearsals for a play (written by Dhruv and directed by Hiren Gandhi), a number of the others went on to visit and work in the relief camps, giving meaning to the play titled "Dil me hein ek ash" (There is hope in the heart).
According to Svati Joshi, a ghazal by poet Hemen Shah, recited by Raju Barot during the SAHIT programme, summed up the feelings evoked by the event. Perhaps it also speaks for the state of Gujarat today: "They are spreading darkness everywhere. It is a wonder that light still breaks out." That it does surely says more than any rath yatra ever can for Gujarati asmita (identity) and gaurav (pride).
Here on the slopes of the hills,
Facing the dusk and canon of time
close to the gardens of broken shadows
We do what prisoners do
We cultivate hope.
Mahmoud Darwish
(Concluded)
The first part of the article appeared in The Hindu Sunday Magazine issue dated October 20, 2002.
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