Gujarat won’t oblige doomsdayers

The watchful eye of civil society is, in fact, a great boon. A constant reminder that ravaged people have to be rehabilitated and that democracy does not mean that dastardly criminals who burn women, children and men in streets and train bogies can get away. Information is, in fact, required to guide the future, to repair and to give solace. But a plea must be made for more focus on reality. Generalised demonisation, while helping to salve the conscience of some and the pursuit of the interest of others, tends to diffuse the attention away from the real culprits.

In the Ahmedabad riots, for example, the fact that the violence was far more in urbanising areas rather than the walled city where large numbers of households of both communities live together, was not noticed. Neither were the reasons on account of which large areas held out. It wasn’t noticed also that in large areas of Gujarat in Saurashtra and south Gujarat there was no violence. That this could have happened only with community strength resisting disorder was not seen. The image was that the whole of Gujarat is burning, that the police and administration is entirely communalised, that civil society has broken down. There were forecasts of the breakdown of the economy as the social and economic links between communities are ripped apart. These messages, all with some background to them, started within the country. By now, they have a global dimension.

An Ahmedabad based NGO, in its own quiet way, chalked out another road map. It took the view that people are rational and will learn to live together. Indians of different religions, castes and creeds, have to respect each other and to learn that they have a future together. They started a project, for example, in which in mixed poor localities a computer centre shows youngsters that they have a future in this land. They called it Caravan; the demand for Caravans is increasing.

Then, it was found that, in fact, people of different communities did help each other. So they designed a scheme to award those who went out of their way to help the other. Different social groups nominated such persons based on their own experience. It turns out that a large number of policemen and civil servants helped people of different communities. It is not true that business men did not help in rehabilitation efforts. Doctors and lawyers of both religions helped affected persons of the other religion. Ordinary citizens went to each other’s aid as did all kinds of political persons at the local level.

It would, of course, be juvenile to say that there will be no problems. A well known Gujarati sociologist speaking at Vidyanagar last week, made the point that in India, given the traditional social structure, “shame” was the reason for keeping away from deviant behaviour just as in the West, it was “guilt”. In India, he argued, the traditional structure was breaking down and western values had not set in. The future is clearly in our hands.

But in Gujarat the economy has not broken down. Given its burgeoning prosperity there is no out-migration in any major way. There was no economic boycott of the minority community at the time of Diwali or Makar Sankranti. Different groups will strive for their interest, but the realisation that conflicts have to be resolved in peace cannot have disappeared. In spite of dire prognostications to the contrary by well known people and the media at home and abroad, it seems extremely unlikely that Gujarat will oblige by allowing its social and economic structure to crack up.

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