A separate peace

It started as a minor fracas over bogus voting in a non-descript ward during polls to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. But in Ahmedaba...

It started as a minor fracas over bogus voting in a non-descript ward during polls to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. But in Ahmedabad, a city considered the safest haven for women in the country, a city touted as one of the fastest developing ones, a small dispute is all it takes to produce eight untimely, and entirely avoidable, deaths. A few others are battling for life in the hospital.

One small incident, and the joie de vivre that otherwise permeates the city vanishes into thin air and the transformation to a ghost city is complete in minutes. Things were not different on Sunday. Curfew clamped, affected pockets wore a deserted look, with only charred and damaged vehicles and goods dotting the roads strewn with stones.

Unfortunately, it is the innocent who almost always fall victim in these violent sprees. At least two among the four who fell to the police bullets were not from the mob. One was on his way to buy milk for his family, while the other was returning after informing his relatives of a death in the family. Though it has been termed as communal violence, the fact remains that apart from the four who were killed in the police firing, it is isolated stabbing incidents which resulted in the other four deaths.

One almost wonders what lies behind such sudden spurts of violence in a city which has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. It is as if under the cover of a communal flare-up there are some who are out to settle a few personal scores.

But there is a silver lining to even this red8217; cloud hanging over the city: The assurance that it will bounce back to normalcy with a resilience characteristic of the Amdavadi spirit. That never-say-die spirit which comes to the fore in any crisis which is not communal. Like when they threw open the doors of their houses to friends and relatives who had fled their homes in the wake of the tremors which rocked Bhavnagar; like when they rose above their own personal losses to help out marooned kids during the July floods.

But despite this spirit, the city seems to have a Jekyll and Hyde character. While it is the Jekyll which is in the fore almost always, the Hyde disposition peeps through in matters communal. Though most would like to sweep this communal bias under the carpet, the fact remains that under all this Amchi Amdavad spirit lies a communal tinderbox. That may be the reason why cops keep their fingers crossed every time there is an India-Pakistan cricket match and why ghettoisation still exists.

The stone pelting may be over, the guns may have fallen silent, the tear gas shells may have burst out, the embers may have been doused, the smoke may have died down; but charges and counter charges are flying thick and fast. They have acquired a velocity and momentum much greater than the stones or bullets or the tear gas shells.

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What do we learn in the end? That a city touted as the abode of the peace loving, hailed as the safest for women, has a smouldering underbelly somewhere? Maybe city fathers should examine what it is that brings out the animal instincts in man cops included to come out at such slight provocation? Law enforcers need to ponder what better way can be there to calm tempers other than opening fire indiscriminately. That done, lessons would have been learnt and lives would have been saved. The effort will be worthwhile just for the smile that will stay on the lips of those children who ultimately end up bearing the brunt when they lose a parent to mindless violence.