NON-INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT TO HINDUTVA: AN OVERVIEW OF GUJARAT

Prasad Chacko
Ahmedabad

Introduction

Gujarat is today the living illustration of a polity which has been constructed around the politics
of conflict. A state which always had the aura of the birth-place of Gandhi, where he founded the
Sabarmati Ashram, formulated his political and ethical strategies of non-violence and satyagraha
had thus the unique advantage of this strange mask. It masked the inherent contradictions
emanating from caste, violent and iniquitous growth, and communal polarization. The freedom
struggle, as elsewhere in the country enabled the dominant communities and the ascendant
peasant castes to shape their identities and culture in the context of the emerging nationhood. The
identity of Gujarat as a land of traders, of the ‘Mahajans’ of Ahmedabad, of the prosperous,
enterprising and hardworking Patel peasantry – has been part of this hegemonic distortion
mediated by the Gandhian aura that pervaded all over during the Independence movement. (It
would be useful to remember some simple demographics at this point of time – that Gujarat has
7% SC, 15% ST, 11% Muslim and over 52% OBC population, spread out over 5 geo-cultural
zones, with wide variations in culture, language, occupations and identities). The Dalits, the
Adivasis, the Muslims, the pastoral communities and the large mass of artisanal groups figured
nowhere in this consolidation of power by Patel-Mahajan-Brahmin axis for over three decades
following Independence.

The violence in 2002 has to be seen in the backdrop of this historical, sustained exclusion of the
‘backward’ communities from ‘progress’ and power sharing. It is noteworthy that unlike in other
states, particularly the south Indian states and Maharashtra, there were no serious social
renaissance-like movements in Gujarat. Even the Dalit awakening in Maharashtra, Dalit
literature and Ambedkar’s thinking had little impact on the Dalits of Gujarat. The Adivasis
remained literally untouched by any state efforts other than constant onslaughts on their habitat,
only to see a change in the oppressor in the form of the Forest Department of the Indian State
after Independence. For long after Independence the only influence in the eastern tribal belt was
through Gandhian Ashrams and Christian Missionaries; both institutions in their own way
brought in education, and some developmental programmes which were ameliorative and non-
political in nature. But unlike in other states (such as Jharkhand and the North East) the tribals in
Gujarat till recent years never got the political space to assert their identity and culture.

The presence of a strong liberal intellectual and cultural tradition is very important to keep the
secular ethos alive. There was perhaps a very limited influence of nationalistic poet Meghani and
certain others, but not to the extent that could be noted as social enlightenment. This has
certainly left a large void in the cultural sphere, restricting the evolution of a liberal, progressive
intellectual tradition and a body of literature and art that would normally emanate from such
traditions.

This paper would strive to locate ‘conflict’ in Gujarat in a much broader canvas. It traces the
roots of conflict to dichotomous growth, ‘exclusive’ development and a conspiratorial social
engineering process that clandestinely countered the political assertion of the ‘lower castes’
through communalization of the polity and violence.

Gujarat – a study in dichotomous growth

Gujarat has always stood close to the top among the Indian states in terms of economic growth.
From the sixties to the nineties, the rate of economic growth has catapulted from 3.33 % to 5.67
%; with per capita income in 2000-01 touching a high of Rs.19,228, which was higher than the
national average (Rs. 16,487). This could be attributed to a spurt in the development of capital
intensive industries, highly concentrated in the ‘Golden Corridor’ at the expense of the
development in other peripheral regions and previously industrialized pockets such as
Ahmedabad. As a consequence the vibrant textile mill industry collapsed in Ahmedabad, leading
to massive impoverishment and destitution.

The other dichotomy that was increasingly visible was between agriculture and industry. Bagchi
et.al (2005) in their study on growth and structural changes in the economy of Gujarat, spanning
a 30 year period upto 2000 observed that the economy of Gujarat grew in an unbalanced and
volatile fashion with no positive impact on the primary sector. This indicates a peculiar
disarticulation between the primary and secondary sectors. The total income originating in the
primary sector was Rs. 711944 lakh in 1970-71 and with severe fluctuations reached at
Rs.1214038 lakh in 2000-01, showing a trend growth rate at around 1 percent. The trend growth
rates in agriculture were negative in the 1980s and 1990. The liberalization of the 1990s had
hardly any significant perceptible impact on the growth performance of the primary sector in the
state.1

The analysis of data on broad industrial groups in the state domestic product further reveals that:
“The share of agriculture, the major constituent of the primary sector, has steadily declined from
45.2 % in 1970-71... to 13.4 % in 2000-01. In common with the experience of the other states of
India, the percentage of people employed in agriculture in Gujarat has declined much more
slowly than income generated by it… it continues to be the major source of employment”. The
change in the percent contribution of the primary sector in the NSDP from 1987-88 to 1999-00
was (-)21.7 percent, while the percent change in employment share over the same period was
(–)6.1 percent. During 2001 agriculture in Gujarat engaged 52 percent of the total workforce,
and 13 percent of the state domestic product originated from it. This is bound to have damaging
implications for the people engaged in it. This also indicates that the economy is witnessing
structural transformation”2.

Needless to say this has affected the vast mass of Dalit agricultural labourers, the Adivasis of the
eastern belt and the small and marginal farmers who are pre-dominantly from the OBCs. The
dream of prosperity that was constantly sold to the masses right through the 80s and the 90s
turned out to be a myth; and by the mid nineties there was discontent and hopelessness
simmering all over.

1
Mehta, Niti: ‘Performance of agriculture in Gujarat: some recent evidence’ , 2006
2
ibid
As Mahadevia puts it ‘…The state has lagged behind in human development and has remained
predominantly occupied with pushing economic growth at any cost, situating its development
ideology in the typical business ethos of the educated middle class. This has led to the neglect of
other aspects of development. The state therefore has very low capability to pursue human
development in a sustainable manner.’ This has become so visible in the low position that
Gujarat occupies among the 15 large states of India, in the Human Development Measures on
various indices such as education (5th), income & poverty (6th), health (9th), regional disparity
(9th), ecology and environment (13th), patriarchy (10th). The overall position of Gujarat is at the
5th position, primarily because Gujarat performs exceedingly well in two indices, namely housing
(2nd) and basic services (2nd).3

‘Development’ in Gujarat4

The present situation in Gujarat is a collage of contradictions – class disparities, inherent

casteism, apparent non-violence hiding an oppressive social order, under-development of large
sections hidden by the economic development of a few. Gujarat is a model state in more ways
than one. It embodies all the contradictions of Indian society mentioned above and yet manages
to remain in the frontline of the economically better-off states. The most compelling image of
Gujarat is that of wealth, business, and enterprise. Together with this is the myth of a non-violent
and peace loving, harmonious community. Gujarat is a classic case of how growth in certain
sectors of the economy has been equated with overall development of the state and its people, an
account which is not only misleading but evil in its intentions.

The image of Gujarat being highly developed is a partial truth being projected as the whole truth.
In reality, the development of Gujarat has, over two decades, been equated with the tremendous
strides it has made in industrial and infrastructural development. The mushrooming of small and
medium scale industries along the “Golden Corridor” has been taken note of at international fora.
This success gave further momentum to the establishment of a “Silver Corridor” and similar
projects in other parts of the state.

The pattern of this development reveals disturbing trends. It is becoming increasingly clear that this development
has been sans any long term planning as to its costs. The immediate visible impact has been the high level of land,
water (surface and ground) and air pollution that these industries have caused5. There has been no ethical or social
responsibility framework to guide this development (the High Court order asking the polluting chemical industries
in Ahmedabad to clean up or close down is being made a mockery of). The occupational condition of the workers
also has been known to be exploitative and hazardous. A study and visit by a Greenpeace (1996) delegation revealed
the shocking details of the “Chemical Time Bomb” that the Golden Corridor has now turned into. The land is fast
turning unfit for agriculture and cattle grazing due to slow poisoning; rivers with water polluted beyond recognition,
with no forms of life left; borewells yielding coloured water which people are forced to drink; the poor being forced
out of these regions due to destruction of their natural resources. All these are reduced into one economic category –
“growth”.

The overall development paradigm followed by the government has over-emphasized industrial
and infrastructure development to the detriment of crucial social sectors and ignoring the need
for equitable regional development. Similarly, agricultural development has been extremely
3 Mahadevia, Darshini: ‘Gujarat’s Development Experience and the success of Hindutva’, 2003

4 Chacko & Ginwalla: “The Myth of a ‘developed’ Gujarat”,1999, and “Development and Empowerment”, 2001 (unpublished papers)
5 Hirway and Mahadevia, 1999: 82-92.
skewed, with prosperity seen mainly around the irrigated regions. The irony has been that the
developed regions of Gujarat like Charotar (in Kheda and Anand Districts) and the irrigated
regions of South Gujarat have been getting more and more water, while other regions like
Saurashtra have been deprived of the benefits of development due to the absence of irrigation or
any other measures for water conservation/watershed development. The solution that the political
class has been advocating viz. “the lifeline of Gujarat” or the Narmada scheme, has itself
exposed the paradigm of development that the State has adopted. Displacement of tribal and
other communities, destruction of thousands of hectares of prime forest land, total lack of
transparency as to the real social, environmental and human costs of the dam and numerous other
problems have been thrown up by this model of development. The displaced population from
other irrigation projects like Ukai dam in South Gujarat has now become permanent residents of
slums in Surat city living in sub-human conditions.
The development of any state should be measured from the condition of the most vulnerable
communities/sections of the population of that state. The indicators of development usually are
averages that mask the pathetic conditions in which these communities live. In the context of
Gujarat, it is essential to look at its much-acclaimed progress from the vantage point of the
Dalits, tribals, the poorest among the OBCs, the minorities and women of these communities.
Empirical facts and observations at the ground level reveal that development in Gujarat has
eluded these groups.
 The degree of casteism and communalism in Gujarat is by far the highest in India but without
the visibility that these practices receive in some states like for instance Bihar6. These
phenomena are so all-pervasive that Dalits in most regions are not in a position to question
them. Unlike in Bihar and some other states, in Gujarat, the Dalits are only at the primary
level of the battle against caste ideology. In all spheres, public and private – at the village
well, in the village school, in the village Panchayat, in the village temple, and in public
transport buses – untouchability is practised. In several parts of Gujarat the dehumanising
practice of carrying human excreta manually and disposing it still continues. The most
oppressed of the Dalit community, the Valmikis are forced to do this job even in certain
talukas of Ahmedabad District7. What is more disturbing is the silent acceptance of this
injustice by the victims, which proves the seriousness of the situation. Wherever there is
dissent, protest, efforts to organise, atrocities are perpetrated without fail by the dominant
castes, mostly with the acquiescence of the local leadership (cases in point are Golana –
1986, Rampur Kampa – 1997, Pankhan – 2000, Morikha – 2000, Rantila-Lavana – 1998).
 While organised booth-capturing as in Bihar is absent in Gujarat it is done in a more
sophisticated manner – by terrorising the Dalits and systematically disenfranchising them,
preventing them from casting their votes.
 With indiscriminate industrialization and other “development projects” there is an increasing
pressure on land. Earlier the landless and the poor had access to natural resources /common
property resources; even the government granted them land for cooperatives or housing
which is no longer the case. Several atrocities on dalits in recent times in Gujarat have been
due to land disputes (Pankhan, Rantila-Lavana, Morikha). With the forces of globalisation

6 In states like Bihar the level of violence has gone up because land and wages have become major issues.
7 This has been documented by an NGO called ‘Navsarjan’, Ahmedabad, in a video documentary titled “Lesser Humans”.
 and liberalisation gathering momentum, we are increasingly witnessing that there are very
few options left for these communities.
 The tribal community, which has been literally marginalised along the eastern mountainous
belt of Gujarat, has land, but which is fast degrading due to deforestation and concomitant
soil erosion. This has now been compounded by the depletion of water resources due to
excessive run-off. Slowly but steadily the landholdings of the tribals are becoming
unsustainable and less productive and they are already migrating to the prosperity pockets or
cities where they spend almost half the year engaging in public works or agricultural labour.
Implementation of development programmes for the tribals is a story of neglect and
corruption. All the major dams have been built in the regions inhabited by the tribals without
their deriving any perceptible benefits form them. They have rather earned the dubious title
of PAPs (Project Affected Persons). Ultimately, this community is left struggling for
existence and fighting to retain its identity and culture.
 The condition of women in Gujarat has deteriorated over the decades. A glimpse of two
parameters, viz. the sex ratio and VAW reveal the serious situation that is emerging.
Gujarat's female-male child sex ratio is 883:1000, compared to the national average of
927:1000 in the 0-6 age group. Ahmedabad district was even lower: just 813 girls, according
to the 2001 Census. Ironically, districts like Mehsana (797), Gandhinagar (816), Rajkot (843)
and Ahmedabad enjoy a female literacy rate of above 60 per cent. But it is the backward and
tribal districts of Dangs, Dahod and Narmada, with below 40-35 per cent female literacy
rates, that have reported child sex ratios of 950 and above.The national sex ratio is 927
females per 1000 males, but in Gujarat it is 919.Worse, in future this ratio is likely to be
lower as sex ratio in children below six years is 878.
 The rate of death of women by burning and suicide is one of the highest in Gujarat. The
number of deaths of women by burning (within the age group of 14 -30 years) is very
revealing.

Year Deaths Average

per deaths
year per day
1987 2220 6.08
1988 4116 11.27
1989 4245 11.65
1990 3986 10.92
1991 3862 10.58
1992 4016 11.00
1993 4521 12.38
1994 4838 13.25
1995 5112 14.00
1996 5164 14.15
1997 5525 15.14
1998 6349 17.39
1999 6135 16.80
2000 5583 15.03
 In the given table, 57% of deaths are due to burns, 18% by poisoning, 6% by other causes
and only 15% are deaths due to accidents proper. With an average of 8 to 10 deaths due
to burns everyday, it is not difficult to imagine the unhappiness of any family in having a
dowry-less daughter-in-law.8
Similarly, according to the figures of 1995, 1523 women died by committing suicide out
of which, 175 women are from Ahmedabad alone. Out of 100 attempts to commit suicide
all over Gujarat, 17 are from Ahmedabad alone. In the matter of deaths by suicide,
Gujarat ranks the highest in the country. In Gujarat, one of the most developed states of
India. Here 99% of the abortions done are of female’s foetuses.9
 Our experience has revealed to us the extremely high level of unemployment and disguised
unemployment in the rural areas, and the constant migration to urban or semi-urban areas.
This poses a significant problem of sustainable livelihood options for the poor who belong
mainly to these communities. With increasing landlessness, land alienation and degradation
the traditional options are dwindling. The Government is busy inviting high profile
multinationals and Information Technology is becoming the buzzword now. The Non-
Resident Gujarati investors who come from the miniscule well-off communities of Gujarat
like the Patels and the Vanias are conjuring up an image of a progressive and forward-
looking Gujarat. The mainstream economy and polity seems to convey a message that
development can now take place in an insulated system where the poor communities no
longer matter. Even the pro-poor rhetoric of the political parties is a thing of the past now.
There are no programmes to equip these displaced labourers with skills or competencies to
survive in an increasingly market-driven economy. There are no credit facilities available to
the poor anymore and the banks, in any case, have stopped lending to the poor, since they
have to be ‘profitable’ in a competitive market10.

It is quite clear then that the term ‘development’ is, even now, an exclusive term, excluding the
large section of our society. The concerns of these groups and communities are thus not on the
national agenda and receive minimal attention. The vulnerable sections remain vulnerable, and
the present development paradigm leaves them even more so.

The shaping of the politics of hatred

The decline of the Congress and weakening of the social coalition

The deterioration of the Congress and the inability to deal politically with the rising discontent of
every section of the society was already laying the basis of alternative forms of political
mobilization. The electoral management of the Congress heavily depended on calculated co-
option of caste panchayats and intelligent ‘sharing’ of power with the regional and rural elites
through the PRIs and Cooperatives which were formed in Gujarat much earlier than in many
other states. By the mid seventies the aspirations of the ascendant middle classes led by the upper
castes found belligerent expression in the Navnirman movement in 1974. Although post
emergency there was a revival of the Congress vote bank politics through the ingenious KHAM
8
Source- AWAG (Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group). This is the data compiled in the year 2000.
9
ibid
10 This is notwithstanding the fact of huge overdrafts given to the big industrial houses, regular defaults on loans by these units which are ultimately written-off as bad-debts or non-performing assets.
(Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim strategy crafted by Jinabhai and Madhavsingh, it did not
take long for the contradictions to surface. Populist politics was at its best, reservations quotas
were being enhanced post Mandal; but it only served as a dangling carrot which provoked an
unequal struggle for resources which were already cornered to a great extent through the
iniquitous growth and low human development that we have already referred to. Right through
the 80s we could observe the social churning happening in Gujarat. While the Congress seemed
to be safely ensconced in power through the KHAM alliance all through the 80’s, ensuring an
almost complete rout of the upper castes and Patidars from significant ministries, the upper caste
concerns where slowly getting consolidated. Reactionary political strategies were already in
play.

The anti-reservation stir which began in 1981 questioned the basis of a social justice based
welfare state. Anti-dalit and backward caste rhetoric and violence were unleashed on the streets
with impunity; students of reserved categories in professional colleges had to face untold
violence from their fellow-students and gross discrimination from their upper caste teachers that
ruined the careers of many students. “The Dalit Panthers” a Dalit activist organization promoted
by a group of committed Government employees gathered strength during this period and
managed to put up a stiff resistance to the anti-reservationists. However this was a short-lived
resistance; the politics of the state was to take a turn which would make all other forms of
mobilization irrelevant. The Sangh Parivar was already active at every level in Gujarat.

The weakening of the Congress was visible even in the heydays of the KHAM strategy even
though it did bring in electoral dividends. The social coalition had already started breaking up as
was evident in the anti-reservation agitation, and the right-wing forces were already preparing
ground for a new form of social engineering. The anti-reservation agitation of 1985 already took
its toll; Madhavsingh Solanki had to be removed as CM in the face of the wrath of the Patidars
and upper castes, fuelled by dissidence within the Congress, which reflected the same conflict.
This agitation which would eventually sound the death-knell of the Congress regime in Gujarat
under Amarsinh Chowdhary, the first tribal chief minister of Gujarat, had to be diverted in some
way since it had the potential of uniting the backward castes, SCs and STs against the upper
castes. It was not surprising to see the anti-reservation agitation being converted into communal
riots. Any social dynamic that pitted the numerous ‘lower’ castes against the ‘upper’ castes had
to be neutralized. The anti-reservation agitation was dangerous for the ‘upper’ castes themselves;
their interests had to be protected without arousing the wrath of the ‘lower’ castes. Hence, in the
context of the weakening KHAM social coalition, a changed the logic of mobilization had to be
applied. There had to be a common enemy, there had to be an ideology that cut across caste
lines, there had to be a single unifying symbol.

The rise of Hindutva

The politics of Hindutva strengthened itself with each phase in history when the upper caste -
middle classes had an opportunity to unleash reactionary politics. It should be noted that
communal riots were occasions where the Hindutva activists (Hindu Mahasabha and Jana Sangh
activists) managed to shape their cadres. The most prominent of all communal riots was the 1969
riots, where their role has been clearly identified by the Reddy Commission of Inquiry. They had
a historic opportunity again during Nav Nirman in 1974, and what happened thereafter is well
known. It is significant that the Jana Sangh was also part of the Janata Morcha Government that
came to power in 1975. The Rightist forces had already garnered up to 10% of popular votes by
then, and had won almost 18 seats in the assembly. The opportunity was the anti-reservation
agitation phase mentioned above, by which time the BJP had been formed, and the VHP and
Bajarang Dal had already taken root in Gujarat.

The religious sects such as Swaminarayan and Swadhyaya Parivar played a major role in
nurturing the societal base of Hindutva. These sects, while being controlled by middle class and
‘upper caste’ elite, ostensibly ‘reached’ out to Dalits, Adivasis, fisher-folk and many other
excluded groups across Gujarat right through the 80s and the 90s with a reformist Hindu agenda.
These sects gave a socio-spiritual meaning through attractive events and charismatic preaching
which emulated the Christian TV evangelism of the West. Asharam Bapu, Morari Bapu,
Pandurang Athavale – all have contributed to this process of laying the social foundation of
Hindutva. Through these sects came the involvement of the Gujarati Diaspora; they responded to
their perpetual quest for identity and meaning in alien lands where they never felt they belonged.
The Diaspora was to become the economic backbone of the politics of Hindutva, particularly in
the 90s.

The politics of ‘Yatras’11 had much to do with the consolidation of Hindutva in Gujarat.
Beginning with the Gangajal (Ekatmata) Yatra, in 1983, there were a series of Yatras that the
Sangh parivar had organized, culminating in the 1990 Somnath to Ayodhya Rathyatra of Advani.
Needless to say it resulted in an electoral success that catapulted the BJP to power in a coalition
with the JD(G), under the chief ministership of Chimanbhai Patel. Then there was no turning
back. This politics of Yatras took Hindutva to the masses, bridging the divide among the castes
through potent religio-cultural symbols (Ganga Jal, Ram Shila Pujan, .Each yatra kept
incrementally building up two dimensions, the sense of ‘Hindu hurt’12 through distortion of
history (particularly Somnath and Ayodhya), and the stereotype of the ‘Muslim’ as anti-national
and as the enemy within. These formed the bases of the newly emerging Hindutva assertion.

The Subjugation of Identities

The situation in Gujarat is, in many ways, a reflection of the national and international trends.
The aspirations of the burgeoning middle class in India have not been fully answered by the new
economic mantra, while the old caste and class based struggles have become sharper, brutal and
more violent with each passing day. Polarisation on religious and communal lines has been used
as a ploy to suppress the real social and economic contradictions in Indian society. A uniform
religious identity is sought to be constructed and is being posed as the ‘national’ identity which
works on the principle of exclusion; excluding an ‘anti-national’ minority which poses a constant
threat to the integrity and security of the nation. It is the Brahmanical order which seeks to
propound an exclusivist pan-Hindu nationalist identity, directing all simmering discontent and
frustrations at the ‘anti-national’ minorities and diverting attention from the centuries old caste
and gender contradictions and preventing the assertion of any other identity which might
disprove this ‘homogeneous, Pan-Hindu’ identity. Expectedly, we see strategies being used such

11
Yagnik & Sheth, ‘The shaping of Modern Gujarat’, 2005
12
ibid
as ‘cultural invasion’ leading to the decimation of ethnic identities and cultures, rewriting and
misrepresentation of history and introduction of cultural and religious symbols as national
symbols so as to shape the psyche of a whole generation. This phenomenon has been so well
articulated by Yagnik and Sheth in their work ‘The shaping of modern Gujarat’. “The Savarna
Gujarati middle class consisting mainly of upper castes began to find security within the
ideology of Hindutva through which they thought they could regain some measure of power and
control. Full of apprehension and anxiety in the face of the fast changing political economy in
the rapidly urbanizing Gujarat, they first tried to cling to caste organizations. When caste
identities could no longer give them the power they wanted, they turned to Hindutva. For the
dalit and tribal middle class consisting of government servants, teachers and petty contractors,
the journey to Hindutva was propelled by their quest for a meaningful and overarching identity
beyond the traditional one offered by caste and community. In the swiftly changing socio-
economic environment of Gujarat, they sought to throw off the stigma associated with their
traditional identity by joining the larger ‘Hindu brotherhood. The two groups took different paths
depending on their social origin but converged and Hindutva.”13

The Hindutva agenda essentially had to decimate all forms of Dalit and Adivasi assertion. Not
surprisingly tremendous investments were made through the Parivar organizations to work with
the Dalits and Adivasis. These were the weakest links in the conception of the pan-Hindu
political identity; the dalits were always avarnas, outside the Varna system, while the Adivasis
were never Hindus. The Dalit identity, which was essentially a political identity, as conceived by
Ambedkar, was essentially antithetical to Hindutva, and hence had to be subjugated. This
concern is seen in the efforts of the Hindutva forces to appropriate the Ambedkarite discourse, in
their effort to bring about a subtle shift by renaming the Adivasis as Vanvasis and in limiting the
freedom of choice of women by excessively glorifying their traditional roles. The role of the
Diaspora in making financial resources available for this project through the ‘Vanvasi Kalyan
Kendra’, Saraswati Shishu Mandirs’ and Sewa Bharati is very significant.

This ideological onslaught took place in a socio-economic milieu of the complete

impoverishment of the Dalits and Muslims in Ahmedabad. The closure of over 50 textile mills
by the 80s pauperized the Dalits to such an extent that they had to compete for the meager casual
labour and informal economy space that was to a great extent occupied by the Muslims. While
during the first anti-reservation agitation in 1981 the Muslims had given unstinting support to the
Dalits, it was because the camaraderie of being co-workers in mills or the shared pain of being
retrenched from the mills still existed. But by the late 80s, the space had shrunk, continued
impoverishment and pauperization also resulted in lumpenisation. Communal riots became
primarily Dalit-Muslim conflicts. As Anand Teltumbde describes the overtures made by the
Pariwar throughout this period: “……battered in two successive riots, the overtures of the Sangh
Parivar offering them a notionally sanskritized Hindu identity therefore was welcomed by the
Dalits. It solved their existential problem insofar as it saved them from the ongoing conflicts with
the powerful high castes that were becoming quite oppressive; it gave them a sense of elevation
in the social hierarchy and provided a hope of certain material gains through the relationship
with powerful and rich Brahman-Bania-Patidar people….”14 The process of the formation of
Dalits as the foot soldiers and canon fodder of Hindutva had begun.

13
Yagnik & Sheth: ‘The shaping of modern Gujarat’, 2005
14
Teltumbde, Anand: ‘Gujarat Carnage, Facsist Hindutva and the role of Dalits’, 2003
In the Adivasi areas the process was one of cultural invasion as mentioned earlier. The strategy
was two-fold. The Pariwar organizations focused creating a fissure along religious lines, in areas
where there were substantial numbers of Christian Adivasis. The other strategy was to persuade
the adivasi communities to slowly adapt to mainstream Hindu festivals such as Navaratri and
Diwali and in the process impose an alien cultural form on the tribals. This was accompanied by
installation of Hindu Deities beside the ancestral stones and totems of the Adivasis, and
subsequent replacement of the totems with the alien deities. Violence has been an integral part of
this strategy; all of us are familiar with the violence that was unleashed in Dangs during
Christmas time. There were attacks on small village ‘chapels’ of the Christian tribals. Every year
during Christmas this threat is repeated. The other important dimension of building conflict has
been through high profile “Ghar Vapasi” programmes. This is a potent symbolic event of
Hindutva, where the Adivasis who have converted to Christianity are forced to ‘return’ to the
‘Hindu’ fold. It is implicit that the adivasis are assumed to be Hindus.

Slowly and steadily the Pariwar organizations had managed to create the contradictions they
desired in the Adivasi communities. The foundation for 2002 had already been laid.

The Muslim Predicament

Impoverishment apart, the travails of the Muslims were directly proportional to the rise of
Hindutva. The communal violence that followed the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition completed
the process of segregation of Muslims in all the parts of the city. The ghettoisation of the
Muslims was complete. The exodus of Muslims to Muslim majority areas and Hindus to Hindu
majority areas was a traumatic ritual that used to occur during every riot. The tragedy was that
the elite Muslims always considered themselves as being in the same league as the Brahmanical
Hindu elite. But Hindutva had to create the other, the enemy; the Muslim had to be anti-national,
criminal, terrorist, not to be trusted. In 1990-92 this process was concluded. The entire western
Ahmedabad was ‘purged’ of all Muslim presence. All remnants of the elite bondage disappeared.
The upper caste Hindu elite in Ahmedabad and other urban centres remained remorseless and
unapologetic about this forced exodus. By the end of the century, a generation of Hindu youth
had been shaped without ever having interacted directly with Muslims. All anti-Muslim
propaganda of the Pariwar, through pamphlets, CDs, and venomous literature could be ingested
without an iota of doubt. The segregation of residential settlements was followed by an almost
complete segregation in educational institutions. There are very few schools which today have
Hindu and Muslim students studying together.

The 1992 communal violence that followed the Babri masjid demolition was in many ways the
rehearsal for 2002. The basic principles of a genocide-like carnage were visible even then,
particularly in Surat. Over 190 people were killed in Surat. The brutality of the killings including
those of children, the gang rapes, the complicity of the police, the remorselessness and jubilation
that followed – all these constituted what could be construed as experiments in a micro-lab, the
findings and learnings of which were to be applied in 2002. The potent mobilization around
Hindutva and the political dividends that violence could bring was already visible in the
complete rout of the Congress from Surat, in the Assembly elections of 1990. Congress lost all 4
assembly constituencies in Surat, 3 of them to BJP. This was repeated in the 1991 Lok Sabha
elections where BJP won a landslide victory; which to this day the Congress has not regained.

The profiling of the ‘other’, the enemy, was nearing completion; the manner in which the
‘enemy’ was to be treated was also being rehearsed; the political value of violence and hatred
had been understood and experienced; the only challenge that remained was securing complete
state power, and that too state power divorced from its constitutional obligations.

BJP in power -The saffronisation of the state

The BJP finally had swept the elections and assumed full state power from 1995. From an
electoral point of view it was a major breakthrough, but the dynamics of state politics had not
fully converged with the socio-cultural goals of Hindutva. This is borne out by the constant
dissidence, the struggle between the requirements of state politics, the imperatives of law and
order, the power needs of various caste groups, business interests and the bureaucracy. But the
ideologues of Hindutva had already ensured the success of one important strategy – the
saffronisation of the bureaucracy, the police and the judiciary. Key officers in each institution
were placed strategically at the cutting edge level, especially at the interface with the public at
the local levels. It was ensured that the vice-chancellors and top functionaries of every university
owed allegiance to the RSS and Hindutva. This would serve as a crucial step towards the
subversion of the constitutional process and the rule of law.

The Genocide-like carnage of 2002

The middle class driven economic policies and programmes which pre-dated the BJP rule still
had to continue; they kept on reviving the social and economic contradictions which had
potential to subvert the fundamental Hindutva agenda. The Dalit and Adivasi assertion had been
kept at bay, and powerful sections among them were already co-opted. But the fast growing
economic disparities began to take its toll. BJP was completely routed in the elections to the
local bodies in 2000. Narendra Modi revived the key lessons of Hindutva mobilization based on
violence and hatred which had already been rehearsed over the years. But this time it was going
to be through an unprecedented subversion of the rule of law. It would be the ‘Final solution’.
What happened thereafter is well known. It would not be necessary to go into the entire sequence
of the Godhra train burning and the subsequent carnage that held Gujarat under siege in 2002.

Genocidal Violence

The nature and utility of violence had evolved; the time was ripe for deploying the ultimate form
of violence, i.e. genocide. It would be pertinent to look at the nature of the violence perpetrated
on the Muslims in 2002. It definitely had genocidal characteristics:
 It was pre-planned. All fact finding reports15 pointed to a prolonged phase of hate speeches
across the districts that the violence had been unleashed from 28th February 2002. This
coincided with the VHP Kar Sewak mobilization in the context of the Ram Janambhoomi
issue. The immediate reaction of the Government on the Godhra killings as a pre-meditated
terrorist attack.
 The diabolic and false reportage of vernacular media that aroused intense public rage which
has been subsequently reprimanded by the Press Council of India.
 The announcement of the CM to bring the bodies of the Kar Sewaks to Ahmedabad much
against the specific warning of the Intelligence Chief of the state.
 A meeting of the top brass of the government where the CM had clearly mentioned that the
‘people of Gujarat would be allowed to vent their feelings’- a complete mandate for mob
violence with state support.
 The VHP sponsored Bandh on the 28th of February 2002 was completely supported by the
State Government. Marauding mobs engaged in mass murder, rapes in public, loot and arson.
Naroda, Gulbarg, Best Bakery, Pandarwada, Limbadiya Chokdi, Sardarpura, Visnagar,
Ghodasar, Anjanwa, Eral, Delol …the list is long and the modus operandi of the mobs have
been well known by now.

 The nature of sexual violence was visibly to humiliate the Muslim community. The Muslim
women have suffered the most unimaginable forms of sexual abuse during the Gujarat
carnage. “Women’s bodies have been employed as weapons in this war – either through
grotesque image-making or as the site through which to dishonour men, and yet women are
being asked to bear all this silently”…… “Before and after the assembly election of 2002,
rapists swaggered about and threatened their victims with the repetition of their act. They do it
to this day. The act itself is seen as one which brought glory to them, and obscene songs are
sung to keep its memory alive. Even the police, staunch defenders of a law perverted beyond
recognition, use the threat as a means of keeping Gujarat’s Muslims cowed and silent”.16

 In cities all commercial establishments with Muslim partnership or ownership were identified
on the basis of official lists and destroyed.
 The desecration and demolition of a large number of Muslim places of worship
 The complicity of the Police also has been well documented; in almost all cases the police
moved ahead of the mobs, protecting them, and firing at the hapless Muslims defending
themselves. The frontline officers were in most cases taking orders from the BJP-VHP leaders
and not from their line superiors.

15
There are a number of important fact finding reports which question the legal truth in every detail. The
complicity of the state in violence emerges in painful detail in reports such as the Citizen’s Tribunal Report,
Syeda Hameed et. al., How has the Carnage in Gujarat affected Muslim Women, (A National Women’s Panel
Investigates), Kamal Mitra Chenoy et.al. , Gujarat Carnage, 2002, Communalism Combat March – April 2002,
Year 8, No 77-78, PUDR Delhi, Maaro! Kaapo! Baalo! , Report of the visit by CPI(M) and AIDWA to Gujarat,
2002, SAHMAT, Ethnic cleansing in Ahmedabad: A Preliminary Report., The NHRC Report.the Tehelka telecast
on Aaj-Tak news channel.
16
Citizens’ Initiative: ‘Survivors Speak’, 2002
 The following excerpt from a working note on genocide in Gujarat prepared by a group of
lawyers and activists17 captures the genocidal nature of the violence that was perpetrated in
2002 and derives further corroboration through the subsequent actions of the State:

“ 7.11 The Gujarat carnage was especially coloured by state complicity in the violence, premeditation and planning
behind the attacks on the lives, dignity, livelihoods, businesses and properties of a section of the population —
Muslims — and a selective assault on their religious and cultural places of worship. Muslim women were targeted as
objects of their community. Economic and social boycott of the community was openly encouraged and continues in
many parts of Gujarat, to date. Agricultural land holdings of Muslims, small and large have been taken over by
dominant community and caste groups. Livelihood for Muslims has been snatched away and there is a clear-cut and
ongoing design to economically cripple the community.
7.12 The following actions done by the state or with the complicity of the state go on to establish state responsibility
for genocide18.
a) A number of statements and pamphlets from the VHP and the BD and its leaders in the past, which
establish that they have been consistently against the Muslim community, making them the target of verbal
and physical attacks and have been provoking people to economically and physically attack Muslims and,
thereafter, subject them to economic and social boycott.
b) That the carnage in Gujarat was led by theVHP and the Bajrang Dal.
c) Physical destruction of a part of the community; economic destruction; sexual violence and rape of a large
number of Muslim women; cultural and religious destruction; resistance to rehabilitation; publicly declared
desire to physically and morally destroy the Muslim community of Gujarat.
d) Refusal to take any preventive measures and protect the lives and properties of Muslims;
e) No action against erring police officers or party functionaries who were named by victims;
f) Persistent threats to close down privately run relief camps;
g) Abusive comments that qualify as Hate Speech;
h) Refusal to comply with the NHRC recommendations;
i) Total failure in the provision of relief and rehabilitation;
j) Absence of punitive action against provocative press and other organisations;
k) Influencing criminal investigation — the omission of the names of VHP/RSS/BJP functionaries from
charge-sheets although their names appear in FIRs.
7.13 The carnage in Gujarat appears to qualify as genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide, 1948, (`the Genocide Convention'). Indeed, the genocidal tendencies of the fanatical
groups will need to be urgently tackled at various levels — social, political, legal, and even religious”. (See
Annexure)

Consolidation of Hindutva mobilization

The ultimate strategy also had its ancillary strategies. And these strategies are essential to
consolidate the mobilization that has been done so far. The state cannot fulfill its neo-liberal
economic commitments when society is in a state of siege. Hence the memories of the
‘masculine’ victory have to be revived through living symbols and localized conflicts.

Whenever the liberal, democratic, secular tradition raises its head it has to be suppressed. The
VHP attack on the fine arts faculty exhibition in 2007 and the mob violence to prevent the
screening of ‘Fanaa’ or ‘Parzania’ are strategies which keep the Hindutva victory alive.
Monitoring Hindu-Muslim marriages and intimidating the Muslim community or engineering
conflicts around such issues also have increased of late. (It would be pertinent to note that any

17
Somnath Vatsa, Arvind Narain, & Priya Pillai, ‘Breaking through the culture of impunity: Making
the state accountable for mass crimes’, Unpublished note, 2007
18
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/novdec02/genocide.html accessed on 22nd October 2007
possibility of inter-caste (dalit-‘upper’ caste) marriages was already ruled out in the socio-
cultural scenario of Gujarat, much before the wave of Hindutva took over. The caste boundaries
have only hardened; perhaps there were more inter-caste marriages in the 70s than we have
today. However, as of now it would be difficult to corroborate this with data).

The jubilation of the ‘victory’ over the ‘enemy’ has to be sustained over a long period of time.
The internally displaced Muslim families (over 5000 in number) have to be left to languish in
relief colonies, not allowed to return to their villages and settlements and thus would remain a
living symbol of the ‘victory’ that relegated the Muslims to second class citizenship. The Gujarat
Government never announced any package for these displaced people. There never has been any
expression of remorse; it would go against the logic of this diabolic strategy to even attempt any
form of reconciliation. So Gujarat continues to revel in the new-found ‘Gujarati Asmita’ which
then feeds on constructs such as ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ and ‘Nirmal Gujarat’.

The State also had to keep the public under a constant fear psychosis. An ISI conspiracy theory
was made out to explain the Tiffin bomb blast in Ahmedabad and Haren Pandya murder cases.
POTA was applied on over 200 Muslims to keep alive the fear of terrorism. Even after the repeal
of POTA, and the exoneration of many of them (particularly of the Godhra accused) all these
Muslims are still incarcerated through various litigations which have managed to keep the many
of the POTA detenues still in jail. The most significant technique that has been used is
‘encounter’ killings of several Muslim youth who were allegedly involved in conspiracies to
eliminate top BJP leaders including the CM. The Sohrabuddin encounter case and the admission
of the Gujarat Government in the Supreme Court that it was a fake encounter reveals a lot about
the conspiracy to keep the Gujarati society in fear and hence perceive Hindutva as the only
solution.

Conclusion

This paper has tried to trace how over the decades Gujarat has become a state which has
institutionalized conflict in its politics. The challenge in politics has been to evade and divert
attention from the real conflict that has emerged over and over again due to systemic exclusion
of the majority. The challenge to ‘upper’ caste domination has always been countered in a
variety of ways: populist politics of the KHAM years which essentially masked disparities
thrown up by rampant industrialization and urbanization; anti-reservation agitations which
countered the electoral advantage the excluded communities gained in the 80s; and Hindutva
mobilization which ultimately changed the logic of caste based mobilization with its inherent
danger of backward caste assertion, into a pan-Hindu identity in conflict with a created ‘enemy’.
Apparently, the Hindutva logic has worked wonders in terms of electoral victory as has been
proved in 2002. But the contradictions still remain festering in the background. The challenge in
politics still remains to carry out the neo-liberal agenda packaged in benevolent and exciting
terms as ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ while selling a pipe dream of ‘development’ to the masses. The 2007
elections revealed an even more evolved strategy of consolidation of Hindutva mobilization with
cultural encoding of violence and masculine ‘victory’ over the ‘enemy’ while the rhetoric was
mainly around a ‘vision of development’. And this had to be achieved by a near total elimination
of the proponents of pure Hindutva ideology such as the RSS and VHP. And now, post elections
the contours of a new rhetoric seem to be visible; Modi has started re-defining Centre-State
relations. His recent statements on how the Central Government should stop taxing Gujarat and
in return Gujarat not taking any grant from the Centre, should not be seen as a casual remark. It
indicates the post-Hindutva stage of Gujarat’s political economy. It would require many more
volumes to analyze this strategic ‘sophistication’ of the Modi regime!

Perhaps it is becoming increasingly clear that the neo-liberal agenda cannot be implemented
without instituting conflict, internal as well as external, as a strategy. At different levels Modi
and Bush converge!!

June 2008

ANNEXURE

The famous 8 (Eight) stages of Genocide 19:

In 1996 Gregory Stanton the president of Genocide Watch presented briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of
Genocide" at the United States Department of State. In it he suggested that genocide develops in eight stages that are
"predictable but not inexorable".

The Stanton paper was presented at the State Department, shortly after the Rwanda genocide and much of the
analysis is based on why that genocide occurred. The preventative measures suggested, given the original target
audience, were those that the United States could implement directly or use their influence on another governments
to have implemented.

Stage Characteristics Preventive measures

"The main preventive measure at this early stage

1. People are divided into "us and
is to develop universalistic institutions that
Classification them".
transcend... divisions."

"When combined with hatred,

2. symbols may be forced upon "To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be
Symbolization unwilling members of pariah legally forbidden as can hate speech".
groups..."

3. "One group denies the humanity of "Local and international leaders should
Dehumanization the other group. Members of it are condemn the use of hate speech and make it
equated with animals, vermin, culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite
insects or diseases." genocide should be banned from international

19
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide accessed on 23rd October 2007.
 travel and have their foreign finances frozen."

"The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on

"Genocide is always organized...
4. governments and citizens of countries involved
Special army units or militias are
Organization in genocidal massacres, and create commissions
often trained and armed..."
to investigate violations"

"Prevention may mean security protection for

5. "Hate groups broadcast polarizing moderate leaders or assistance to human rights
Polarization propaganda..." groups...Coups d’état by extremists should be
opposed by international sanctions."

"Victims are identified and

6. "At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be
separated out because of their
Preperation declared. ..."
ethnic or religious identity..."

"At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming

"It is "extermination" to the killers armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe
7.Extermination because they do not believe their areas or refugee escape corridors should be
victims to be fully human." established with heavily armed international
protection."

"The perpetrators... deny that they "The response to denial is punishment by an

8.Denial
committed any crimes..." international tribunal or national courts."