Business as usual: Economics triumphs over fundamentalism in Bardoli

The setbacks they suffered when curfew was imposed on the town on June 25, in the wake of violence triggered by a Hindu procession against Hindu-Muslim marriages, has only strengthened their beliefs.

“I don’t want to starve by dividing customers on religious lines”, says a grocer in Sardar Chowk. “There’s no way I’ll reject customers because they’re Muslims”, adds an STD booth-owner nearthe railway station. All agree the boycott call is only so much hot air.

Not that the right wing has given up. RSS general secretary Harshad Shah admits, however, that it will not be an easy job. Much more upbeat, though, is Bajrang Dal South Gujarat convener Harish Surti, who is confident his efforts “will bear fruit”.

Awareness is growing, says Surti. “The parivar has had meetings with residents of 20 villages in Bardoli taluka. We are encouraging labourers to boycott Muslim employers”.

Congress councillor Farid Gajia, who has been accused of helping Muslims boys elope with Hindu girls, is now being treated for malaria in a hospital run by a Hindu doctor. Talking to The Indian Express, he said VHP activists did try to stop labourers from working on Muslim farms at Tajpore village. But the labourers, he adds, retorted that they would desist from working only if they got alternative employment or money.

Not just the boycott call, the flashpoint — the elopement of one Varsha Shah with oneHanif Meman — too, has become a footnote. Shah reportedly ran away from a VHP-BD camp in Ahmedabad and is said to be still determined to marry Meman.

Surti, on the other hand, is equally determined to go ahead with his campaign, including allotting `Om’ symbols to auto-rickshaws driven by Hindus. But the few rickshaws that do bear the symbol had them painted on long before June 25.

Chhotubhai Bhavsar, whose auto-rickshaw sports an `Om’ — painted last year — speaks for many when he says, “It helps passengers to know I’m a Hindu, but I don’t ask them their religion.”

At Bardoli, you could say, it’s business as usual.