It is not generally recalled that Ahmedabad is one of India’s oldest surviving cities. Founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah (after whom the city is named) and then in turn Mughal, Maratha and British, Ahmedabad will be 600 years old in 2011. The original city was the walled city on the eastern side of the Sabarmati which runs through the city dividing it into two, one representing the past and the other the present aspect of the city. On the eastern side is a warren of intricately carved pols, temples, mosques and gates; the compounds of numerous textile mills that once gave Ahmedabad the tag “Manchester of the East”; and Shahibaug, the gardens laid out by Shah Jahan when he was viceroy in Gujarat, where Ahmedabad’s old money has its mansions. On the west bank are modern institutions such as the IIM, busy shopping areas and the fast expanding residential areas of the upwardly mobile and aspiring middle and upper class. Almost all the bombs that comprised Saturday’s serial blasts were set off on the eastern side of the river. This today is an area of crowded markets selling hardware and electronics, chemicals traders and neighbourhoods of the genteel, the lower middle class, former mill-workers and the poor. The Civil Hospital, also a target, is one of the country’s oldest and most efficient hospitals, a sprawling facility spread over 110 acres with specialists that draw equally from the low income groups in the city and prosperous Indians from overseas. What did those who planted the bombs hope to achieve with their attack? Given that a group with Islamic overtones has claimed responsibility and that Ahmedabad was the nerve centre of the 2002 communal violence, probably the worst assault on the Muslim minority community in post-independence India, revenge seems a clear motive. But the blasts are clearly also part of a larger pattern to destabilise Indian cities. And India’s seventh-largest city is a significant target. Despite a dip in the ’80s and ’90s, the city has come to be the centre of a thriving pharmaceutical and chemicals industry. Home to leading pharma companies, Zydus Cadila and Torrent, the fast growing Adani group, Nirma and a clutch of foreign concerns including Bosch Rexroth, the city is also a leading supplier of denim, gems and jewellery. Six years ago NASSCOM rated it fifth in a list of most attractive destinations for IT-enabled services. In recent years the city has expanded and undergone a further makeover with massive malls, new hotels, transport and beautification projects and the emergence on its outskirts of the Gujarat International Finance Tec City (GIFT), a futuristic-looking 27,000 ha finance and business district.In fact, Narendra Modi has staked his reputation on development and while reports suggest his growth figures may have been wildly inflated, his vision of Ahmedabad as an emerging Singapore has fuelled optimism in the state. It is possible that Modi’s reluctance to upset the city and the state’s progress — evidenced in his focus on economic growth early in his last election campaign — is the reason for his uncharacteristically neutral response to Saturday’s attacks, unlike his stance after the Godhra incident in 2002. Recent hoardings in the city, among other things, also suggest that his ambitions have expanded beyond Gujarat. And with an eye to Delhi it is possible that he wants to shed his demagogic image and project himself as a statesmanlike figure.The consequences of anti-minorityism, however, cannot be wished away so easily. The last six years have seen no further disturbances in Ahmedabad, unusual for a city known for endemic communal violence. Yet this calm is a mere veneer and discrimination from Hindus and fear among Muslims has driven the latter out of mixed neighbourhoods.Migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan form a substantial part of these enclaves; they were prominent targets in the 2002 riots. These and other victims have rebuilt their lives but still live with memories of past horrors and a belief that the state is not even-handed in its treatment of its citizens. Religion however is not the only grounds of disparity. Moving about the city, it is impossible to miss the blatant difference between the gleaming towers and lifestyle of the nouveau riche and the proliferating slums of the back streets.Migration, discrimination and a growing disparity among the rich and the poor — these are the features prominently visible in Ahmedabad; they are also emerging characteristics of many Indian cities today. Suggestions made by intelligence authorities of local involvement in the blasts have still to be fully probed but these are possibly some issues for policy-makers to address for long-term measures in the fight against terrorism.Mumbai-based Shah is the author of ‘Hype, Hypocrisy and Television in Urban India’express@expressindia.com
