How the wounds of Partition have fuelled communal tension in Godhra since 1947

The rest of the story has multiple versions depending on one’s point of view. But the irrefutable facts of the case at the time of writing this book are that fifty-nine people, including several women and children, died in the carnage and thirty-one persons have been sentenced to life in connection with the crime, while sixty-three others, charged by the police, were acquitted. The horrific riots that followed also brought to national limelight Narendra Modi, a first-time chief minister who later rose to the highest elected office in the country and became one of the most popular Prime Ministers the country has ever had.

The history of religious strife

From the railway station, I got into an auto rickshaw and asked the driver to take me to what I was told was the latest mall in Godhra, about 8 or 9 kilometres away, just to beat the intense heat even at that time of the year. The auto rickshaw driver, a middle-aged Muslim man with a wooden leg, who referred to Godhra as his ‘gaon’, drove me to a DMart supermarket on the Godhra–Dahod highway. On my way, I noticed that this part of Godhra appeared so different from the busy bazar area where my hotel was located. Neat two-storey bungalows lined both sides of the highway, resembling a posh suburb you’d find in any Indian city. We also passed a boutique star-rated hotel, which boasted a banquet hall and two fine-dining restaurants, a Pantaloons showroom, Mahindra and Bajaj vehicle showrooms, and at least a handful of swank pizzerias. Despite all this, the auto rickshaw driver, whom I now came to know as Sheikh, still referred to Godhra as his gaon. ‘This is the largest mall of our gaon. This is the latest star hotel in our gaon. People are living very peacefully and there is no tension in our gaon …’ he kept repeating.

If one has to put the communal tension prevailing in Godhra into perspective, it is requisite for us to take a tour of the past history of communal violence in the region. This town, which is also the headquarters of Panchmahal district, has a long history of religious strife that dates back to the pre-Independence era, which the country’s partition was expected to put an end to. But it didn’t. An Economic and Political Weekly report published more than forty years ago, in October 1981, points that out. Back then, Godhra town had a population of about 86,000, of whom 39,000 were Hindus and 35,000 were Muslims, while other communities made up the rest of the population. Muslims in Godhra were mainly Ghanchis, who are different from other Muslim communities like the Syeds and Bohras. In Godhra, Ghanchi Muslims remain poor, have large families and generally lack the education and progress achieved by the Bohras, who are the more affluent among Muslims and have smaller families. During Partition, a large number of Sindhis (Hindus) migrated from the Karachi area in Pakistan and settled down in Godhra. They belong to the Bhaiband sect, who are mostly petty traders, less educated and conservative when compared to the Amils, who are the more affluent Sindhis.

The Sindhis who came to Godhra during Partition with horrendous tales of suffering at the hands of Muslims added to the already volatile communal relations in the region. The communalists among the Hindus present in Godhra took advantage of this Sindhi resentment and directed it against the Ghanchis in 1948, resulting in a large-scale communal riot. According to news reports, over 3,500 properties belonging to Muslims were burnt down in Godhra town alone, forcing several Ghanchi Muslim families to flee the country, and their homes were occupied by the Sindhis who had arrived during Partition. Even at the time, arson was the top choice for rioters in this region.

The Sindhis vs the Ghanchis

After the 1948 riots, the next major communal flare-up happened in 1965, when around sixty Muslim homes, according to the EPW report, were burnt down by Sindhis and four Ghanchi Muslims were killed, including two by police, during the riots. After about fifteen years of relative peace, the Sindhis and the Ghanchis, both coming from poor and conservative backgrounds, clashed again in October 1980 after a petty quarrel between a Sindhi and Ghanchi hawker flared up uncontrollably. Arson was yet again the preferred act of violence to attack the enemy. Both Sindhis and Muslims set fire to each other’s homes in rival pockets, even in far-flung areas. During that violence, a Sindhi family was burnt alive in the Signal Falia area, following which more homes were burnt and entire colonies gutted. According to reports, hundreds of homes belonging to both Hindus and Muslims were razed during this period. While minor skirmishes and outbreaks of violence continued between the Hindus and Muslims in this region, those born in Godhra and surrounding villages in Panchmahal district believed that the wounds of Partition had healed and that the region would probably not witness gruesome incidents of violence anymore.

Mehboob Yusuf Dedki, a primary school teacher from Ranipura village, approximately 25 kilometres from Godhra, also believed that such violence was buried in their past and would never happen again in his village. He is now forty-five and his large family has been in Ranipura for generations, since even before Independence. During those days, there were quite a few Dedki families spread out across villages in Panchmahal district. Mehboob vividly remembers his father frequently recalling violent memories of Partition. ‘Hundreds of Muslim homes were set on fire and the families chased away. Along with the thousands of Muslims who fled to Pakistan during Partition were several of my extended family members, leaving behind just one Dedki family in our village,’ the teacher told me when I caught up with him at a restaurant on the highway to Ranipura from Godhra.

But the villagers lived in peace after Partition and the Dedkis — Mehboob has five brothers and four sisters — prospered in Ranipura. At the time of the Godhra riots, the family owned two flour mills and a kirana store, besides some agricultural land, and employed at least a dozen workers for their operations. Within a span of a few hours, fifty years of hard work by the whole family was razed to the ground on 8 March 2002 by an angry Hindu mob. Mehboob clearly recalls the events that unfolded on the days preceding the attack. ‘Soon after the Sabarmati Express burning happened, riots broke out all over Gujarat, but our village remained untouched as there was just one other Muslim family besides ours. Still, we sent off all the women and children to relatives’ homes in Godhra, and my father, one brother and I stayed back to guard our home and businesses. Since we had the full support of our Hindu neighbours in the village, we got information on the morning of 8th March that a group was planning to attack our home that night. Soon, at least twenty-five of our Hindu neighbours accompanied the three of us in a van all the way to Godhra and returned to the village only after ensuring we were in a safe house. Later that night, our home and all our shops were burnt down, just as we had been warned,’ Mehboob recounted.

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Freedom : Travels across Patriotic Lands by Pradeep Damodaran (pp.368, Rs 599), with permission from HarperCollins India)