The Challenge of Achieving Positive Peace in Gujarat

by

Mohammed Ayub A. Khan

Hindu-Muslim conflict has been endemic in independent India . Riots break out frequently taking an immense toll on life and property. In February 2002 the riots took a genocidal turn after a train carrying returning Hindu pilgrims from a disputed religious site was burned in the state of Gujarat in western India . By conservative estimates more than 2000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed at the hands of rampaging Hindu mobs. Scores of women were raped; businesses destroyed and over two hundred thousand people were internally displaced. As these genocidal riots were raging there was a complete breakdown of state machinery with the police and security apparatus actively conniving with the rioters. The civil society also remained largely silent. Six years after the riots the situation remains precarious with the criminals still freely roaming the streets and the refugees kept away from their homes. This paper undertakes a study of the dynamics of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and the attempts and interventions at attaining a lasting peace in a continually tense scenario. This will be done by first briefly analyzing the Hindu-Muslim conflict in India in its historical, cultural, and social context. Second, it will analyze the current phase of conflict in Gujarat which started in 2002. Third, it will analyze the attempts at reconciliation and peace-building.  It will be argued that the attempts made so-far in the conflict have not been successful and that bold new steps need to be undertaken to attain positive peace.

            Hindu-Muslim violence in India is rooted in history. Islam came as a foreign religion to the country in the eighth century. Its carriers were peaceful traders and Sufis as well as invaders.[1][1]  This was followed by a stable Muslim rule of approximately 600 years. Due to the assimilative character of Indian culture and Islam’s dynamism Muslims became part and parcel of the Indian society. A significant number of Hindus also converted to Islam. Hindus and Muslims mingled to such an extent that religious identity labels were not used to classify them. To quote historian N.E. Balaram:

Any careful examination will show that there were no Hindu and Muslim labels till the thirteenth century. They were two different faiths and they did not quarrel. The term Hindu was used by the Muslim rulers in early days to denote the zamindars, landlords and the Brahmin priests. The common people were not referred to as Hindus. Officers under the Delhi Sultanate in 14^th century called the zamindars Hindus to denote more their aristocracy than their religion.[2][2]

 During this time there were wars between rival Hindu and Muslim states but they were usually cast in terms of power relations and were not understood as religious wars. Muslim soldiers fought on the side of Hindu rulers and the Muslim armies were full of Hindu commanders. During this long reign religiously oriented Hindu-Muslim clashes were extremely rare. This state of affairs, however, changed after the onset of British colonialism in 1857 AD which applied a policy of divide and rule in the country.[3][3]

            The colonial authorities divided the society into religious segments by classifying them as such in the census. Since they had snatched power from Muslim rulers they looked suspiciously towards Muslims and favored the Hindus in education, the civil service, the security forces, and the judiciary.  They also instituted a policy of discarding anything which was presumed to be associated with the Muslims. Creating an artificial religious classification of languages they downgraded the supposedly Muslim Urdu language and patronized Hindi.[4][4] Such divisive policies shattered the religious amity which had been prevalent in the country for centuries. This led to the formation of political parties based on religious lines. Coinciding with the implementation of these policies was the frequency of Hindu-Muslim violence beginning in early twentieth century. The rivalries came to such a head that the country was finally divided in 1947 into a Muslim majority Pakistan and a Hindu majority India .  In what is correctly termed as genocide more than a million people died in the ensuing religious conflict on both sides. Despite the severity of the violence India opted to adopt a secular constitution and a large number of Muslims of India decided to stay in the country. For the first two decades since independence the secular leadership ensured that there were no major flare ups of violence. Even though there was widespread discrimination and marginalization of the Muslim community they were at least safe from violence. This changed in the 1960s with a parallel downturn in the national economy. The economic frustrations of the nation came to be taken down on the Muslim minority. This was most apparent in the Western state of Gujarat where a large number of cotton mills were closed forcing a large number of people into unemployment. The right wing Hindu parties saw this as an opportune moment to whip up communal passions which they thought would pave their way towards political power. As a direct result of their activities the most terrifying religious riot in the history of the country and Gujarat broke out in 1969 in the major commercial city of Ahmedabad .  More than 1000 people were officially reported to have been killed in these riots.[5][5] The riots resulted in polarization of the Hindu and Muslim communities with each of them congregating in clearly demarcated areas. The Muslims, already an impoverished and economically relegated community, were pushed into the ghettoes with few basic facilities and crumbling infrastructure. Due to the closure of the textile industry their economic condition worsened and they took on petty jobs like snack vendors and daily wage laborers. A small but significant number of them also took to anti-social activities by joining gangs and the mafia. The rise of a few prominent gangsters among them created a negative stereotype about the whole community. The word Muslim was now associated with criminality. This negative stereotype developed despite the fact that Hindu criminals are more numerous proportionally as well as numerically.[6][6] The polarization between the Hindus and Muslims was complete between the intervening years of 1969 and 2002. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the right wing Hindu political, saw a massive rise in its fortunes and was able to make a dent not only in the provincial but also federal elections.  In 1992 the party launched a massive agitation to reclaim what it claimed was the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya in North India but where a sixteenth century mosque now stood. Armed cadres of the BJP and its other right wing associates including the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Bajrang Dal, the Durga Vahini, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), destroyed the mosque on 6 December, 1992. The destruction of the mosque once again led to massive riots throughout the country. Their severity was most observable in Gujarat’s neighboring state of Maharashtra where more than 1000 people were killed.[7][7]

            Researchers  studying this phenomenon have discerned that these riots were not a spontaneous outburst of popular anger but were pre-meditated and planned—in some cases for years in advance. Paul Brass calls them “institutionalized riot systems.”[8][8]  What are labeled as mere riots, he contends are in actuality pogroms and massacres of Muslims, in which few Hindus are killed.  The actors in such systems are a whole host of people:

Individuals and parties who keep intergroup tensions alive through various inflammatory and inciting acts;  “conversion specialists,” who lead and address mobs of potential rioters and give a signal to indicate if and when violence should commence; criminals and the poorest elements in society, recruited and rewarded for enacting the violence; and politicians and the vernacular media who, during the violence, and in its aftermath, draw attention away from perpetrators of the violence by attributing it to the actions of an inflamed mass public.[9][9]

The main beneficiaries of the successful activation of such riot systems are the government and its political leaders, under whose watch such violence occurs.[10][10] The institutionalized riot system has been most observable in Gujarat with its elaborate structure and network reach.

            Against this backdrop occurred the 2002 riots in Gujarat . The immediate spark in this conflict was the burning of a train carrying pilgrims from the above mentioned disputed structure at Ayodhya. The train’s passengers were harassing and intimidating vendors at railway stations throughout their journey. When they reached Godhra on the morning of 27 February, 2002, they attacked and looted the small shops of Muslim hawkers on the station. They also reportedly tried to pull a veiled Muslim girl into one of the compartments. As word of these events reached the nearby Muslim dominated area, a huge crowd gathered and began pelting the train. In the ensuing violence, the train caught fire killing 58 passengers including women and children. It was never conclusively proven that the Muslim mob had set the fire.[11][11] Most independent investigations show that it was started from inside the coaches of the train and that most probably it was accidental.

            As the television channels showed in graphic detail the charred remains of the victims, violence began on a scale which was never before seen in modern India . Hindu passions were aroused by both the media as well as the political leaders. Instead of appealing for peace, the right wing Hindu Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi issued the following inflammatory statement: “I want to assure the people that Gujarat shall not tolerate any such incident. The culprits will get full punishment for their sins. Not only this, we will set an example, that nobody not even in his dream, thinks of committing a heinous crime like this.”[12][12] In the ensuing frenzy which continued unabated for eleven weeks more than 2000 people were killed or burned alive. Thousands more were injured and more than 200,000 people were rendered destitute.[13][13]  When the victims called for help to the police they flatly replied, “We have no orders to save you.”[14][14] The voter registration databases were utilized to identify and target Muslims. Underscoring the sophistication of Gujarat institutionalized riot system, on numerous occasions only Muslim lives and businesses were targeted even in mixed neighborhood localities. Thus, in commercial complexes only Muslim stores were damaged while the neighboring ones owned by Hindus remained untouched. Members of the upwardly mobile class, which is generally thought to be secular and progressive, took active part in the loot and murder. Television cameras recorded them, including women, coming in expensive cars and looting designer stores owned by the Muslims in up-market areas.

Most noticeable feature of this carnage was the degree of brutality hitherto unseen in a state which proudly claims itself to be the birthplace of Gandhi. Many women were not only raped, but also mutilated: ‘their bodies [became] battlefields to avenge, subjugate, and even eliminate, an entire community.’[15][15] In the light of these facts, human rights experts contend that the Gujarat carnage of 2002 was not a mere riot but a genocide. It does meet the definition of genocide offered in the United Nations Convention on Genocide:

Article 2. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or racial group, as such; (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measure intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[16][16]

The specific targeting of Muslims as a group and the centrality of rape attached to the violence shows that the events of Gujarat 2002 meet all the ingredients of genocide as described by the convention with the exception of removal of children to another group. In this case the children were not transferred but were instead killed along with their parents.

The civil society, for the most part, remained a mute spectator as the killing and burning spree went on. Even after the riots had subsided national and international actors largely appeared to be disinterested in making any efforts at rebuilding and reconciliation. Six years after the carnage the criminals who took part in the riots are yet to be convicted. Most of them roam free with impunity threatening the witnesses. Muslims have been barred from coming back to their homes which have now been occupied by the Hindus. The families of those who were killed or injured received paltry compensation. Some Muslim youth have taken to violence as a way of retaliation. Gujarat ’s communalized police forces on the other hand have taken to arbitrary arrests of innocent Muslim youth and have been indulging in fake encounter killings creating an atmosphere of fear.  An uneasy calm prevails in Gujarat today.

Amidst this despairing gloom, however, there is a glimmer of hope. This has come in the form of interventions by groups towards attaining a lasting peace. These interventions have mainly come from two frameworks and claim to offer solutions to which we now turn.

The first form of intervention insists that the retributive justice system has failed and that now Muslims should just move on.  Proponents of this view argue that Muslims have no hope of getting justice in a state where the impartiality of the police and the judiciary has already been compromised. Any insistence on getting justice places the Muslim community on a retrogressive track which is not helpful in their aspiration to become an educationally and economically advanced community. The most articulate proponent of this view is Dr.Bandukwala whose house was attacked and burned during the riots. “I have already pardoned those responsible for the attack on me and my family members. But now I want the Muslim community to forgive those involved in the riots. I appeal to my Muslim brethren to forgive those responsible for the heinous crimes including those in various stages of trial," he said in an interview to the Indian Express newspaper.”[17][17]  He further said that his stand was not based on fear but conviction. Putting a pragmatic touch to his views said that Muslims forgive the rioters that there will be plenty of Hindu philanthropists and well wishers who would come forward to assist the community to improve their educational and economic status.[18][18] Such views, however, were roundly condemned by the human rights community.

Father Cedric Prakash, a human rights activist, countered Badukwala’s views by saying that true reconciliation can only be obtained within the framework of justice. “In order to have true reconciliation and forgiveness, there must be some feeling of remorse at the other side. It should always be within the framework of justice so that such things don’t happen again,” wrote Prakash.[19][19]

From a peace studies perspective it appears that Prakash is correct in that positive peace cannot be achieved without first attaining a modicum of justice in the society. The prevailing tense situation to this day, with the frequent violent encounters between Hindus and Muslims, implies that negative peace is not only unsustainable but also dangerous.  Bandukwala might have had an argument if the violence was that of equals. But in the case of Gujarat it is clear that this wasn’t the case. The impoverished minority Muslims were no match for the numerically powerful Hindus who had the backing of the state in their crime. While the advocacy of Bandukwala’s form of negative peace has found few takers there are other peace theories which have tried to charter a new course. While rejecting negative peace they are also practical on the limits of applying retributive justice.

            Advocates of this new course apply the principle of restorative justice. First coined in the late 1980s this concept argues that ‘restorative justice helps a society to live with a violent past, not by forgetting it but rather by understanding the reasons for transgression, admitting the brutal loss of humanity, and projecting new meaning into the present.’[20][20] In this view, justice is seen as a set of dynamic and ‘participatory processes through which we develop the desire and the ability to live peacefully and productively in our community with those who have harmed us, and/ or those we have harmed.’[21][21] This implies that under this principle the conflicting parties prepare to forgive but not to forget. In order to attain positive results under this framework it is essential that a social transaction occurs between a person who forgives and a person who is forgiven. A person who forgives may wave off the need for punishment but this still doesn’t leave the offender off the hook. The latter has to acknowledge his accountability at least in an informal manner.[22][22]  According to human rights activist Sarah Ahmed this comes about ‘through self-examination and questioning, and formal or informal interactions with the ‘other,’ which brings a growing sense of empathy, understanding, and ultimately healing.’[23][23] From a review of restorative justice literature it becomes apparent that it is tied to the notion of a just as well as peaceful society. Furthermore, for its successful implementation it needs to be supported by activities which build people’s skills, knowledge, and social networks, and rebuild livelihoods harmed in the conflict.[24][24]

            In the case of post-2002 Gujarat the concept of restorative justice was first inaugurated by the Gujarat Harmony Project.  It was initiated in May 2002, with the financial support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy, when the riots had still not been fully extinguished.  It is a collaborative effort which has brought together ten different human rights and development organizations. After intense deliberations the following seven key types of interventions were identified to be applied in Gujarat :

a.       Livelihood restoration

b.       Social reconciliation

c.       Habitat security

d.       Psycho-social care

e.       Advocacy to promote social harmony

f.        Community education

g.       Knowledge building and documentation [25][25]

As is evident from the above there was a heavy focus on development coupled with reconciliation and education which the project assumed would eventually lead to restorative justice and positive peace.

 Seven key strategies were then designed to guide the activities undertaken in these intervention categories. These were as follows:

1.       Promote positive relationships between different communities, at both individual and associational levels, through working to promote livelihoods, education, secure living conditions, and recreational and sporting events.

2.       Enhance the awareness of opinion makers in society and key institutions of the need for social harmony, through building links between them by means of cultural events, workshops, and meetings.

3.       Support people who had lived through the violence to return to a sense of mental well-being and health, working at both institutional and community levels.

4.       Strengthen links among institutions involved in work to promote social harmony.

5.       Build institutional capacity of GHP partners.

6.       Prepare educational materials to facilitate learning and documentation on the GHP.

7.       Strengthen leadership at the community level, and encourage leaders to promote the idea that social harmony is important and relevant to the life of people in their communities. [26][26]

Since women were the main victims of the riots the project focused its attention on them. It was assumed that reconciliation would be achieved through women leaders. GHP’s partner organization AWAG (Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group) held social reconciliation workshops separately with Hindu and Muslim women to remove misconceptions about each other and then brought them together in a joint workshop. Through this initiative dozens of women’s peace committees have been formed which discuss religious fundamentalism and other sensitive topics in some of the worst riot affected areas. SAMERTH, another partner organization, has formed mixed-religion self-help groups of women overcoming several hurdles. It has also initiated inter-group loans between Hindu and Muslim self-help groups where mixed religion groups were difficult to form. In the six years since the riots they have been able to overcome the barriers in several localities and are now successfully engaged in income-generating activities with participants from both communities. Several partner organizations also offer computer classes for local youth in mixed batches at a nominal cost. These classes, which are extremely popular because of the general tendency to acquire new skills, help the two communities to come together while learning. It creates a feeling of camaraderie and bonding.[27][27]

            One of the most successful partner organizations has been Olakh, a group with strong feminist roots. It sees women as actors in the process of reconciliation and peace. It uses dialogue, group-based interventions, and information sharing on laws, policies, and rights, to extend women’s skills and knowledge, and develop their perspectives on key issues. While focusing on women it does not exclude men. It runs computer classes for both genders and involved men in an ongoing dialogue to form local peace committees. Olakh has been successful in mobilizing mixed-religion women’s collectives in Gujarat ’s slums. It has made conscious efforts to employ young Muslim women because it realized that it had no Muslim staff. It has also taken stories and songs about women’s struggles from Gujarat and presented them to women around the country, and has offered them trauma-counseling facilities.[28][28]

            As is evident from the above representative examples a focus on women and development have been the focus of this peace building process. This effort has gained success in breaking barriers between the communities on a limited scale.  It has been able to achieve a tentative harmony. Out of its seven key intervention areas it has succeeded in three of them---advocacy to social harmony, community education, knowledge building and documentation. On the other four—Livelihood restoration, social reconciliation, habitat security, and psycho-social care—this effort has been a colossal failure.

            The effort hasn’t been able to achieve livelihood restoration even on a miniscule scale. Many of the two hundred thousand displaced persons still remain as refugees in places away from their homes. In many instances their homes and businesses have been occupied by Hindus who refuse to vacate them and have threatened them with dire consequences if they ever return.  Similarly, it hasn’t been able to provide habitat security. Muslims still living in Hindu dominated areas live out a precarious existence with frequent outbursts of violence on the slightest of pretexts. In the Hindu dominated villages, for instance, they have to follow the draconian dictates of the council’s which scuttle their rights guaranteed by India ’s constitution. In some villages they have barred from eating meat, calling out the Islamic call to prayer, and to construct new mosques.[29][29]

            While the proponents of restorative justice have been leading many public awareness campaign there has been little improvement in their social reconciliation efforts. For a vast majority of Gujarat ’s Hindus there is little or no remorse over the brutal massacres of Muslims. They still see the Muslims as outsiders and blame them for their own condition. They say that the riots were necessary to teach the Muslims a lesson.  Any criticism of the riots is now seen as a direct attack on Gujarati identity. By associating Hindu with Gujarat the right wing Hindu parties have been successful in removing any feeling of guilt from the state’s public conscience.[30][30]

The activists focused on women and tried to empower them but they appear to have overlooked the fact that Hindu women were active participants in participating in and leading the riots. In some of the worst cases brutalities in Gujarat women have been active participants apart from providing strategic support like cooking food and handling food. As illustrative examples the following example from victim testimony is provided:

“Safia, a woman from AA1 area in Ahmedabad testifies, “AHM15’s daughter was pulling women by hair and throwing them in fire…We saw women from AA6 area pouring kerosene or some chemical powder so the bodies used to burn.”[31][31]

In Gujarat the widespread and furious attacks against Muslim were regarded as legitimate not only by male attackers but also by women belonging to the Hindu community. According to independent investigations in some instances the rapists were actively supported or even instigated by Hindu women.[32][32]

From the above discussion it is apparent that positive peace has still not been achieved in the Gujarat . While the attempts of the proponents of restorative justice like the Gujarat Harmony Project are commendable they have not been successful in achieving their goal of social reconciliation. The Gujarati society is as divided on religious line as it has ever been and the divide is only widening.

It is the contention of this writer that bold new initiatives need to be launched to reverse this trend. To begin with politicians, elected officials, government officials, and police officers, who were involved, directly or indirectly in the violence, should be brought to the book. Since the lower judiciary is compromised they should be tried in the nation’s highest court of law. The Supreme Court of India still commands popular respect and it is the only body which can conduct the trial in a fair manner. Prosecution of the major actors will instill confidence in the masses while at the same time send a stern warning to others who might be contemplating similar heinous deeds in the future. This will also instill a sense of remorse on the common masses which will mark the first step towards reconciliation and eventually towards restorative justice.

Secondly, all extremist parties should be banned. This should be especially applied on the organizations which have been instilling communal hatred as well as armed training to their cadres. The schools run by these organizations should be taken over by the federal government and should be run on secular principles.

Thirdly, tough legislation should be enacted in the federal parliament outlawing hate speech. The new law should be applied on a rigorous scale.

Fourthly, the civil society and the human rights organizations should actively propagate the ill-effects of the policies of the right wing state government. While whipping up religious policies it has been following corporate friendly neo-liberal policies which have been hurtful to the masses. As a direct result of the government’s agenda more than 489 farmers in the state have committed suicide since 2003.[33][33] The masses should be educated that right wing politics are detrimental to their interests irrespective of their respective religious affiliations.

In conclusion, a hybridized approach combining both retributive justice (as in the prosecution of major actors) and restorative justice (promoting reconciliation among the masses) appears to be the effective way in achieving a long lasting positive peace in Gujarat . Rigid adherence to any strict theoretical frameworks will not result in achieving the desired objective in a complex and challenging situation like Gujarat .  Mahatma Gandhi, the most famous son of Gujarat , had always experimented with new and innovative ways in achieving peace and justice. By adopting his experimental framework we might finally be able to conquer violence and make Gujarat an example for others to follow.

[1][1] Ziyaud-Din Desai, Mosques of India (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1969),10.

[2][2] Cited in Prafull Goradia, Hindu Masjids ( New Delhi : Contemporary Targett Prafull, 2002), 164.

[3][3] Maulana Syed Mohammad Mian, The Prisoners of Malta ( New Delhi : Manak Publications, 2005), 21.

[4][4] Abdul Jamil Khan, Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide ( New York : Algora Publishing, 2006), 254.

[5][5] Asghar Ali Engineer, The Gujarat Carnage ( Hyderabad : Orient Longman, 2003), 8.

[6][6] Pravin Seth, Images of Transformation: Gujarat and Narendra Modi (Ahmedabad: Team Spirit ( India ) Pvt.Limited, 2007), 32.

[7][7] Mohammad Jamil Akhtar, Babri Masjid: A Tale Untold (New Delhi: Genuine Publications & Media, 1997), 12.

[8][8] Paul R. Brass, Forms of Collective Violence, (Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective, 2006), XV.

[9][9] Ibid, p.5.

[10][10] Ibid.

[11][11] Asghar Ali Engineer, The Gujarat Carnage ( Hyderabad : Orient Longman, 2003), 13.

[12][12] Quoted in Sara Ahmed, “Sustaining Peace, Re-building Livelihoods,” Gender and Development,” 12, No.2 (2004):94

[13][13] Ibid

[14][14] Engineer, op.cit., 34.

[15][15] Harsh Mander, Cry My Beloved Country: Reflections on the Gujarat Carnage ( New Delhi : Rainbow Publications, 2004), 26.

[16][16] Martha C.Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India ’s Future ( Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 2007), p.45.

[17][17] Syed Khalique Ahmed, “Forgive and forget the riots…move on in life, Bandukwala tells Muslims,” The Indian Express, November 3, 2007. A12.

[18][18] Ibid.

[19][19] “Bandukwala’s riot remarks attract criticism of activists, human rights groups,” The Indian Express, November 4, 2007, B9.

[20][20] Sarah Ahmed, op.cit., 97

[21][21]M. Forget, ‘”Developing a New Framework dor Evaluatiing Restorative Justice Programs,” paper presented at the Sixth International Conference on Restorative Justice, Vancouver, Canada, 2003, p. 3.

[22][22] Sarah Ahmed, op.cit., 97.

[23][23] ibid

[24][24] Smita Tewari Jassal, The Partition Motif in Contemporary Conflicts, ( New Delhi : Sage Publications, 2007), 43.

[25][25] ibid

[26][26] Ibid.

[27][27] Ibid, p. 98

[28][28] Ibid

[29][29]Smita Jasaal.  op.cit., 75.

[30][30] Pravin Seth, Images of Transformation: Gujarat and Narendra Modi (Ahmedabad: Team Spirit ( India ) Pvt.Limited, 2007), 12.

[31][31] International Initiative for Justice.  Threatened Existence: A Feminist Anlaysis of

the Genocide in Gujarat. Mumbai: IIJ, 2002:3.

[32][32] Ibid.

[33][33] “489 Gujarat farmers have commited suicide since 2003,” The Hindu. October 14, 2007, A3.