Second-class citizens

Two high-profile official committees discover how Indian Muslims in Gujarat, exiled and condemned, have been effectively ghettoized

Akash Bisht Delhi

Four years have passed since the state-sponsored Gujarat carnage shook the entire nation, leaving hundreds dead and lakhs displaced and brutalised, but till this day many of the survivors of the post-Godhra killings have not found their way back home. These exiled ‘second-class citizens’ are living in inhuman conditions in make-shift camps and are deprived of basic amenities, like potable water, sanitary facilities, street lights, schools, banks, public transport and primary healthcare centres. Recent visits by members of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) and a Parliamentary committee revealed the pathetic state of more than 5,000 Muslim families living in these sub-human camps in Ahmedabad and Sabarkantha districts of Gujarat. Both the ‘secular’ Left-backed UPA regime and the Narendra Modi-led BJP government, which tacitly and overtly backed the genocide, seem to have left the people to their fate, and rather intentionally.

Living in 10 x 10 rooms with large families to support, basic civic amenities are denied to the people of these colonies. An NCM team, comprising Michael P Pinto, Zoya Hasan, Dileep Padgaonkar and A Banerji, visited the ‘relief camps’ and noted that the roads that lead to these colonies are non-existent. They also came to know how two boys drowned in the water collected at a road near a village during the last monsoon. The team also noticed that the residents had no means of earning livelihood to support their families. Many of these residents were artisans, industrialists and self-employed traders, who now face organised discrimination by their old clients, Hindutva supporters, the local administration and police; they find it extremely difficult to earn even a meagre income to support their large families in a state where their isolation and condemnation is absolute, relentless and precise.

The NCM team witnessed abject poverty in these camps and discovered that but for a few houses, most of them had little except bare minimum bedding and utensils. "Most of the residents of these colonies had no ration cards and the ones that were issued by the government were of the Above Poverty Line (APL) category, instead of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category," revealed A Banerji, joint secretary in the NCM. The residents have little source of income and are forced to buy food grains at much higher rates. The BJP government has done nothing to help out these victims, many of whom went through personal tragedies and deaths, and who have been now dumped to fend for themselves.

Ironically, the NCM, in its report, revealed that not a single colony was constructed by the state government, nor was any land allotted to these families, while, earlier last year, the Modi regime returned Rs 19 crore to the centre, stating that all the relief work across the state for riot victims had been done. The NCM team found out that the government did not rehabilitate those who could not return to their homes after the killings. All of them, predictably, are Muslims.

The residents complained of inadequate compensation; a maximum compensation of Rs 10,000 was given to them. Muslim organisations and NGOs took up their cause and bought land for these displaced people at high commercial rates. But due to deliberate lack of support from a biased and compromised state government, these organisations have not been able to provide the basic amenities and livelihood options in these colonies. The report read, "The implications that this has for the security and well being of civil society as a whole are extremely serious."