Chariots of Fear
The Jagannath rath yatra passes without incident, but for Gujarat's Muslims it is life on the edge, for the fifth month running.
DIONNE BUNSHA
in Ahmedabad
A festival in a ghost town. Welcome to Ahmedabad’s 125th Jagannath Rath Yatra. While some people in the city celebrated, others abandoned their homes, ran for their lives and hid in fear.
Relief camps were swamped with a sudden exodus of people. After staying in a relief camp for four months, Sayeeda Rafiq Maniyar and her family returned, just 15 days back, to their looted home in Saraspur, Ahmedabad. Their attempts to settle back into their old life were rudely disrupted by the rath yatra. Fear of further violence made them drop everything and run back to a relief camp in Haj House, Kalupur. “The basti is empty once again. Everyone has left. No one dares to stay there for the rath yatra.” Sayeeda’s chawl is close to the route of the rath yatra.
Anxiety over the outcome of Ahmedabad’s Jagannath Rath Yatra reached fever pitch as the dreaded day - June 12th - drew nearer. On the eve of the festival, many of the city’s Muslims, especially those living in the walled city, deserted their homes. In their search for safer places, they scrambled into relief camps, relatives’ homes or neighbouring bastis, which were away from the road and had a large Muslim population.
Chief minister Narendra Modi pulled out all stops, using this festival to prove that law and order has returned to Gujarat. But the atmosphere surrounding the rath yatra is reflective of the mood all over the state. Despite official attempts to show that the situation is normal, scratching the surface reveals the terror that lies beneath. While the powerful are upbeat, marginalised Muslims in the relief camps and the streets hang about the darkest corners. Although large -scale violence has abated, they still live in fear, moving between the remains of their homes, relief camps and relatives’ houses. Some who returned to their homes had to return to the camps. For many Muslims, it’s a desperate search for a place to belong. The rath yatra has heightened the insecurity and toppled the balance for those who were just about managing to pick up the pieces of their lives and start again from scratch.
The rath yatra is a 3-km long procession that winds through the narrow lanes of Ahmedabad’s walled city every year. Participants indulge in wild, chauvinistic rituals, running through the streets of the city’s Muslim dominated areas, brandishing swords, sticks and trishuls, sometimes shouting provocative communal slogans. In the past, communal clashes have erupted during the yatra in 1985 and 1992. This time, Muslims were not taking any chances.
They have already lost more than 1,000 lives, and thousands more homes and jobs when Hindutva mobs launched systematic communal attacks against Muslims after February 27th when the Sabarmati Express was burned in Godhra, killing 59 passengers. Ever since then, Gujarat’s Muslim community has been shaken. Not only have they witnessed the most gory attacks on their people but picking up the pieces of their lives has also proven difficult as they face an economic boycott. Many have seen their homes and shops razed to the ground to make way for temples. Living in a state whose government abetted the massacres makes every Muslim fearful.
Ayub Khan, a tailor who lives and works in Dariyapur, finished work for the day and headed off for the Shah Alam relief camp on the eve of the yatra. “Its not safe for us here. We don’t trust the rath yatris or the police. During the recent violence, it was the police who fired on innocent people here, even though there was no riot in the area,” he says. With the police swarming the neighbourhood for the past few days, fear of the police also drove residents away. As part of security measures, the police organised rehearsals drills in the days leading up to the yatra. “The police only target us. Even when we are attacked and run for safety, the police fire at us. We live on the border with a Hindu colony. If anything happens, where will we run?” he asks.
His distrust of the police is echoed by many others. The residents of Punjabi Galli in Dariyapur have recently constructed a huge iron gate to keep outsiders away as well as to prevent random police combing operations. “We are scared of the police, not the rath yatris. The rath yatris are people like us. But it was the police who encouraged the killings in the past months. They entered homes and shot at innocent people,” says Rizwana Noormia Sheikh, a Daryapur resident. While boasting of its ability to restore law and order, the Gujarat government points out that the largest number of people have been killed in police firing while quelling the violence. However, it does not mention that a disproportionately large number of these firings killed the victims of the attacks rather than the criminals. This has made Muslims even more scared since they have no one to turn to. “Its the first time that we are deserting our houses because of the rath yatra. What bigger shame than to escape from your own home?”
While most of the 7,000 people who fled in fear of the rath yatra will get back to their homes soon, Ahmedabad’s relief camps still houses around 30,000 others. They have had no choice but to live in the most unhygienic and inhospitable conditions for almost five months. Their livelihoods and the education of their children has been disrupted. Most of them have been unable to return to their homes, fearing further attacks or because they don’t have the money to rebuild their homes. Compensation doled out to refugees by the BJP government has been pathetic, mainly in the range of Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000. Many haven’t even received cheques from the government. Yet, the state is trying to shrug off all responsibility for the refugees. It is willing to provide supplies to only 4 of the 20 camps operational in Ahmedabad. The others simply don’t exist in government records anymore. Most rural camps, where people live without even shelter during the monsoon, have also been de-listed by the government. Food, water and electricity supply has stopped. A government that aided and abetted the violence obviously wouldn’t bother to help the victims get back on their feet again.
Its only pre-occupation is to hold elections soon to ride on the Hindutva wave generated by the communal attacks orchestrated by the Sangh Parivar. Fear is a key element of its electoral game plan. Gujarat’s BJP government brushed off the concerns and anxieties of its Muslim citizens regarding the renewal of violence during the rath yatra. While Modi insists on the rath yatra, he appealed to Muslims not to take out processions during the Moharram festival in March, a suggestion to which many had agreed. Despite suggestions from top police officials to cancel the yatra this year or change the route, it remained adamant. “The rath yatra at such a time is very dangerous from the security point of view. Especially in Ahmedabad, where two to three lakh people celebrate in very narrow roads. Over the years, the festival has become a Hindutva yatra on the streets. It is hijacked by these elements every year,” says a police officer. Over the years, the yatra has become a festival to be dreaded since it threatens to turn into a flashpoint for communal clashes.
But this year, the Hindutvadis have had their fill. After unleashing widespread violence over the last few months, they spared no effort to ensure that the rath yatra was peaceful. Heavy police security was deployed. The streets were dotted as much with khaki as with saffron. The government probably spent more money on arranging security for the festival all over the state than it has on the refugees in relief camps. To prevent any trouble, the size of the Ahmedabad rath yatra was cut down to one-third its size. Only 35 trucks were allowed on the 15 km route, whereas normally there are around 100. Nothing was going to stop the yatra from rolling on. The prestige of all the ‘true Hindu patriots’ in the Gujarat government was at stake.
Many of these ‘Hindu patriots’ who wreaked havoc with peoples’ lives have got away scot free. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has made sure that their ‘boys’ were safe from the clutches of the law. In fact, it even launched a fund collection drive in middle class Hindu localities to raise the legal fees to defend them. But the lawyers didn’t have to work too hard. The local police did enough to help. They refused to file cases against Sangh Parivar leaders and activists although victims and witnesses tried doggedly to register FIRs. When cases were filed, they were group FIRs for an incident in the area, instead of for each complaint filed. That reduced the number of times, if at all, the accused were arrested. No action has been taken against BJP MLA Mayaben Kodnani and VHP secretary Dr Jaideep Patel whose names were mentioned in the most gruesome massacre at Naroda Patiya in Ahmedabad. The first riot case came up for hearing recently regarding the burning of shops in Lunawada. The accused were let off within two days since the police case against them was so flimsy. The saffron brigade is gloating over the manner in which they have been able to subvert the system and use state power to their advantage.
As the akhadas made their way through the streets, flexing their muscles in frenzied arrogance, the few Muslim elders, who stayed back in the neighbourhood to guard their homes, hid behind closed doors and windows. Muslims all over the state were told to observe a self-imposed ‘janata curfew’. Even Muslim areas through which the yatra did not pass were deserted. As soon as the last rath passed out of the Muslim-dominated Daryapur area, police cordoned off the road and Muslim elders helping the police let off a collective sigh of relief. They celebrated the peaceful passage of the yatra through their neighbourhood. It helped that the police was hurrying the yatra on, attempting to get it over as quickly as possible. Normally, the yatra starts from the Jagannath temple at 7 a.m. and returns late at night. But this time, the police tried to get it over much earlier.
Considered an ‘acid test’ for Narendra Modi’s government, it was essential for him that the rath yatra passed off peacefully. All the BJPs hopes of an early election in October were hinged on proving that it can please its hardline Hindu supporters and yet maintain peace when it wants to. The chief minister as well as former CM Keshubhai Patel were there to greet the yatra. The government was adamant on holding the festival. Its security advisor K.P.S. Gill endorsed Modi’s stand by saying that changing the route of the yatra would create more tension in the city. Gill also backed the BJP’s stand by declaring that early elections would ease tension in the state by putting an end to any politically-motivated violence. Although Gujarat’s Muslim are still threatened, Mr Gill announced that since the rath yatra was peaceful, his work in Gujarat was over. With tempers still so frayed and elections around the corner, many would say its just begininng.
In the public jubilation over a peaceful yatra, all the terror and violence it created was sidelined. Around 7,000 people left their homes and fled to relief camps, according to Fr. Victor Moses from the Citizens’ Initiative, a group of NGOs helping with relief operations. In the build up to the yatra, trouble broke out in Gomtipur, Ahmedabad. Shivramdas, a mahant of the Saryudas Temple in Prem Darwaza (which is on the route of the rath yatra) was arrested for possessing nine country-made pistols. Country-bombs and arms were also seized in Bhavnagar. A suicide bomber, who wanted to avenge his son’s death, was arrested while the yatra was underway in Ahmedabad. The police fired 20 rounds, injuring two people, when trouble broke out during the yatra at Sherpur village, Anand district. Stone throwing occurred during the rath yatra in Kheda, Anand district and curfew was imposed. So much for the peaceful rath yatra.
To know just how peaceful, it really was, ask people like Sayeeda Maniyar. They have spent sleepless nights in fear and terror. Even though they are relieved that the yatra has passed off without violence, they still prefer to wait and watch for a day or two before leaving the camps. Peace is yet to return to their homes and their minds.
Frontline, July 20 - August 2, 2002 Also available here
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