As a result of a series of deadly and destructive “riots” between Hindus and Muslims, the state of Gujarat, and especially its largest city, Ahmedabad, have earned a reputation as among the most violent sites in India. In each of the two most devastating outbreaks, in 1969 and 2002, some 1,500 people were killed.
Among the many analyses of the violence, Ornit Shani's contribution is especially useful because she pays careful attention to ground realities. She focuses on 1985, when about 220 people were killed and $1.75 billion worth of property was destroyed in several months of intermittent violence. She spent months interviewing victims, perpetrators, observers, and investigators and then juxtaposed their statements with the official Judicial Commission of Inquiry report to present a finely nuanced interpretation of the violence. This research forms the subject of Shani's Cambridge doctoral dissertation and the core of the present book.
The 1985 rioting began with attacks by upper-caste Hindus against lower castes in response to a government decision to expand reservations—affirmative action programs—for the lower castes. It then mutated as Hindus began attacking Muslims, a group outside the purview of the reservation issue. Shani argues that the two attacks were related: “[B]oth caste and communal conflicts, despite the potential contradiction between them, stem from similar social processes, and that caste is inextricably linked to the rise of communalism since the 1980s” (p. 12). Caste rioting was one aspect of a hierarchical society that was losing its moorings, adrift, and in need of a new direction. The scapegoating of Muslims was another, and many Hindu political leaders preferred it because this strategy appeared effective in uniting Hindus and winning their votes.
In her detailed interviews, Shani found “riots within the riot.” In the more modern, wealthier sections of Ahmedabad, the attacks on low-caste people predominated throughout the entire time frame. Also, there were few Muslims in these neighborhoods to serve as scapegoats. In the lower-middle-class neighborhoods of the central area and the slums of the industrial eastern area, however, there were relatively few upper castes. Here, the attacks turned against Muslims, and the attackers were frequently aided, abetted, and sometimes led by police. During the general breakdown of law and order, other attacks also broke out, between different gangs of bootleggers, for instance, each seeking to consolidate its territory and clientele, and by land developers evicting by force slum dwellers whose land they wanted, but could not get by legal means. These diverse, concurrent battles reflected a society out of joint, and not only because of communal issues.
The presentation of Shani's research benefits from its long time frame. The central focus is on 1985, but her interviews were conducted in 1997–98, by which time additional wrenching developments had occurred at the national level: India had liberalized its economy, increasing economic uncertainty, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), advocating a policy of “Hindutva,” the union of politics and religion, had destroyed the important Babri Mosque in North India, inflaming religious passions and evoking violence throughout the country. By the time Shani completed the writing and publication of the book, the pogrom of 2002 had occurred—she discusses it in her last chapter—lending further tragic support to her interpretation of a society unhinged from its moorings in which communal violence provides a vent and an opportunity for aspiring, cynical politicians. Even Congress Party politicians accepted strategies of “soft Hindutva.”
Shani is right to argue that Hindu–Muslim relations were not always antagonistic—she cites instances of intercommunity friendship and mutual assistance even during the riots—but neither were they entirely harmonious. The riots of 1969 revealed existing fault lines between the two communities, and the BJP invested decades of propaganda in further poisoning the atmosphere against Muslims. Shani points out that the use of violence is especially effective when politicians succeed in manipulating the state, especially the police, into participating. She could further invoke the other side of the coin: When politicians believe that violence will harm them at the polls, they crack down immediately, as the Congress did when violence flared once again in 1986, and the BJP did so later in 2002, when a Muslim attack on the important Akshardham Hindu temple near Ahmedabad had the potential to reignite another pogrom.
Shani's general interpretation of social breakdown is consistent with and draws upon the many detailed reports and analyses from the field of sociologist Ghanshyam Shah, issued periodically throughout this time frame, and the interpretations of Achyut Yagnik, a very perceptive organizer and political commentator in Ahmedabad. (See, e.g., Ashish Nandy, Shikha Trivedy, Shail Mayaram, and Achyut Yagnik. Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995]). Her stress on political instigators as “engineers” of violence of various kinds is consistent with other analyses from many parts of India, notably those of Paul Brass, most recently in The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005).
