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By Deepa A Five years after the Gujarat riots, many victims are still struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives. Ignored by the Gujarat government and ostracised by the majority community, Muslims find themselves deprived of jobs, civic, medical and educational facilities, and even a future
By the roads of Ahmedabad, and occasionally even somewhere as incongruous as the grey and gloomy psychiatry department of a public hospital, are signs about ‘Vibrant Gujarat’, the ‘V’ splayed like a protective arch across the rest of the letters, its colours adding zest to the ambitious tagline that follows: ‘Where Life is a Celebration’.
If there is indeed something to celebrate about her life in Gujarat, 47-year-old Lalbibi Khan does not know it yet. Once a resident of Saibag, Ahmedabad, Lalbibi lost everything she possessed in the communal violence of 2002, when over a 1,000 people – a majority of them Muslims – were killed. “When the mob came, we ran with just the clothes we were wearing,” she says. Her house was looted and she was separated from her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, who were living with her at that time. She ended up in a relief camp, and after the riots, moved to Faisal Park, where non-government agencies had built houses for riot victims.  On the day we meet, Lalbibi is at the office of the non-government organisation (NGO) Sanchetana at Faisal Park, holding a bag full of the documents necessary for getting a ration card. She lost her card in the riots, but as was the case with many others, wasn’t issued a new one by a government that has largely ignored the very existence of the Muslim community. On the prodding of the NGO, a few government officials have arrived to make new ration cards, a full five years after the riots, and Lalbibi has come rushing to the office to finish the cumbersome paperwork. She knows she has to consider herself lucky – absurd as the word sounds – for she has documents that speak of a previous life; many others have nothing to show of the world they inhabited before 2002 – no First Information Reports (FIRs), for the police force infamously refused to register complaints made by the Muslim community; or other documents such as voters’ cards, as it was all burnt down with their dwellings.
But there is little else that she can be thankful for. Lalbibi, a widow for many years, says she is harassed by the Hindu neighbours in her old locality, where she used to work in a bakery. She has no plans of returning there, as she considers the area unsafe, and has therefore been trying to sell her house. “But the Hindus don’t let me do that – they want me to give them the house at a low price and they threaten me,” she says. In her new home in Faisal Park -- she stays within its four walls all day, she has not been able to get any work – there is no water, sanitation or even approach roads. Faisal Park indeed appears to be a wasteland where tin-box-like houses have sprouted in a hurry; there are no paved roads, drainage or water. In the monsoons, residents have to wade through flooded paths to make their way to the main road, which is a good couple of kilometres away. Like Lalbibi, many riot victims are struggling to pick up the pieces of their broken lives. Ignored by the Gujarat government, which has not even adequately compensated them for their losses, and widely ostracised by the majority Hindu community, Muslims find themselves deprived of jobs, civic, medical and educational facilities, and even a future. No word called rehabilitation The appalling condition of the riot victims has been highlighted to the world outside time and again, but with little or no response. In December last year, a delegation of Members of Parliament from the Left parties and Congress visited areas that Gujarat riot victims have moved to and submitted a report on their situation. Among other things, the report, like countless others before it, mentions the absolute lack of civic facilities in the localities where riot victims live. “In Siddikabad and Citizen Nagar [both in Ahmedabad], there was no approach road to the main road… Drinking water facility was not provided by the Municipal Corporation. People were not given ration cards; school facilities for children were very far,” says the report. At Citizen Nagar, which is located next to mountains of garbage, the rubbish floats to the doors of the residents in the rains.
The report points out that many people have not gone back to their old houses because of fear. In Naroda Patia, Ahmedabad, only 15 of the 80 families living there had come back, says the report. “Even these families are scared of the police. Leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad have taken over possession of their land and built multi-storeyed buildings,” the report adds. In fact, many riot victims say they are being arm-twisted into selling their houses at prices far lower than the prevailing property rates, pointing to the fact that their helplessness is being fully exploited by political goons. As the MPs’ report notes, the Gujarat government returned Rs 19 crore sent by the Centre as part of the rehabilitation package, claiming that all the work in this direction was complete. This is laughable, for many riot victims, living in the one-room houses built by non-government agencies, still haven’t even got adequate compensation. Mehraj Ansari, a resident of Faisal Park, sniggers when asked about the compensation amount he was offered. He had a small business at Chamanpura, where he and his employees made Punjabi suits on their 15-odd sewing machines. The mob damaged his business during the riots, and he lived in a relief camp for eight months before moving to Faisal Park. “The government gave me a cheque for Rs 300, when I had filed an FIR showing a loss of Rs 3.5 lakh. I have kept the government cheque as a memento,” he says. Ansari, who has been living in Faisal Park for two years, speaks of a suffocating life in the ghetto. “My wife and I do some embroidery work at home but the city is too far away,” he says. “Businessmen don’t like coming here, they don’t want to give their clothes for stitching here.” The water they get in the house, from a borewell, is coloured yellow; they have to rely on water tankers, which come only on alternate days and costs Rs 150 per head. “There are no gutters, no facilities for sanitation and you have seen the road,” he says. A few kilometres away, Mehrazbibi Abbasmiya and her children sit on the floor of her one-room house in Vatva, remembering the day the mob came to their lane and burnt down their home. Their house was rebuilt by a non-government agency but Mehrazbibi says they are now struggling to make a living. Her son, who is unwell, has to have an operation and there is no money to cover the medical expenses. Both of them used to work in a brick kiln earlier, but one day, the other employees burnt her son’s clothes and the employers told her that they couldn’t guarantee her or her son’s safety. “Who knows, they would have burnt us next,” she says. They stopped going to the kiln and are now at home, without any work. Her husband does odd jobs, and it is on that money that the family now survives. It is grossly inadequate, so none of the children – Mehrazbibi has a 14-year-old daughter too – go to school. Miles away in Juhapura, Mohammad Iqbal squats outside his one-room tenement, washing the blades of a dirty fan. For many years, he had been working in a garage in Vejalpur, a Hindu area, but lost his job after the riots. “Before the riots, I used to stay in Hindu houses, but now everything has changed,” says Iqbal. He has been unable to get a job and the family now depends on his son, 15-year-old Faiz Ahmed, who works in a garage, to bring money home. The violence inside homes The changes in the outside world have had an impact inside Muslim homes as well. A few activists say that cases of domestic violence have gone up in Muslim ghettos such as Juhapura and Faisal Park, because of the increasing frustration within the community. Says Javed Ameer, programme manager of the NGO Action Aid, “The maids in Juhapura, where I live, are the primary earners in their families as the men are not getting jobs. The way men are raised in our society, they are brought up to think of themselves as the bread-winners, and now they are failing in all these criteria. Therefore, there is a sense of failure, which they take out on their wife and children.” The number of cases of separation and divorce has also increased, he says. Some women are taking to commercial sex work because of lack of options, he adds. Farzana S Shaikh, manager of Mahila Patchwork Co-operative Society, an organisation that works with Muslim women in Juhapura, concurs that men are having trouble coping with the new situation. Unable to find work, they feel feeble and dependent on women, and their frustrations are expressed through violence, she explains. “Every day, we get at least one call from women about beatings, talaq or dowry,” she says. Afroz Baig of the NGO Samerth, which works in the area of education and development, says that riot victims who have moved to areas such as Juhapura or Faisal Park have great difficulty making enough money to feed their families. “There is duplication of work, leading to a decrease in demand. For instance, a vegetable vendor from Naroda, who has moved to Juhapura, sets up a pushcart here. But then he finds that there is already a person here who has been doing the same work for years. As a result, both encounter problems of livelihood,” she says. No way out? With no help forthcoming from the Gujarat government, the Muslim community finds that it has nowhere to turn. Shakeel Ahmad, administrator of the legal help and guidance cell of the Islamic Relief Committee-Gujarat, which built a vast number of houses for riot victims, says that reconciliation has not taken place even now. “The same government, which incited people to take up violence, is ruling the state. Those accused of violence get support from the government while those who were affected are being neglected,” he says.
Mohaiyuddin G Bombaywala, director of the Hazrat Pirmohammed Shah Library and Research Centre, recalls that during the earlier riots, as soon as the violence was over, people would forget differences created on the basis of religion and get busy with their daily lives. “Now, however, people identify themselves more as members of their own communities, not as that of the society as a whole,” he says. Besides, as Muslims don’t feel safeguarded by the government, they have little interest in stepping out of the ghettos where they have been confined, he adds.
As Hanif Lakdawala, director of the NGO Sanchetana, explains, “There is no war but no peace either, there is no violence but no harmony either. There is a tremendous level of uneasiness among both communities – and the Gujarati Hindu learns from his or her childhood to hate Muslims.” In such a situation, where there is no regard, respect or compassion for a fellow human being, Gujarati Muslims continue to suffer, five years after the riots ripped apart their homes and lives. The Gujarat government, meanwhile, continues to claim that life in the state is all about a “celebration”. (Deepa A is a journalist based in New Delhi. She writes on development issues, particularly education.This report arises out of a study on the impact of communal violence on education, funded by the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism) InfoChange News & Features, February 2007
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