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Abstract
This study explores the nature and practice of state power in ordinary times, as it developed in Gujarat from the 1980s, in an attempt to understand how the communal harnessing of the state that manifested in large parts of Gujarat in 2002 was possible. In particular, it examines everyday expressions of public corruption around the politics of bootlegging. In the context of systemic corruption at the local level in routine times there was little difference between violators of the law and its purported guardians, such as state law-enforcement mechanisms and politicians. From the 1980s, practices of public power in Ahmedabad, infused by routine forms of corruption, became entwined with deepening ethno-Hindu politics and a strong anti-Muslim bent, thus readily enabling the communal harnessing of state power in 2002.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers, Nalin Mehta and Fredrik Galtung for their very helpful comments.
Notes
1. See, for example International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat (IIJ), Threatened Existence, 37–9; Human Rights Watch, ‘We Have No Orders’, 4–6, 15–6, 23, 48; People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Violence in Vadodara, 6–8, 132–8; People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), Maaro! Kaapo! Baalo!; People's Union for Civil Liberties, Vadodara and Vadodara Shanti Abhiyan, At the Receiving End, 4; Women's panel from the Citizen's Initiative, How has the Gujarat Massacre Affected, section II; Varadarajan, Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy; Shani, Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism, 168–73; Khetan, ‘Conspirators and Rioters’, 14–5, 20, 40–1, 43, 51–3.
2. National Human Rights Commission, Order on Gujarat, 6.
3. Manu and Anand, ‘A Plot from the Devil's Lair’.
4. See Pathan, ‘Modi Ties Hands of Cops’. This seemed to be the case at least till May 2002, when the Election Commission publicly announced its unhappiness with the law and order situation and first indicated that scheduled state elections may be postponed. This was followed by a reshuffle of senior police officers in Ahmedabad and the appointment of K.P.S. Gill as security advisor to the chief minister.
5. Official Government of India figures, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs Annual Report 2002–2003, put the death toll at 763 with another 2400 injured: Quoted in Mehta, ‘Modi and the Camera’, 396. In May 2005, the government informed the Rajaya Sabha that 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed, 223 more people were reported missing and 2548 injured: ‘Gujarat Riots Killed’. Voluntary agencies and human rights groups, however, put the death toll at close to 2500. See, for example Human Rights Watch, We Have No Orders, 4.
6. State violence against its citizens was not wholly new, nor unique to Gujarat. State officials and police had played a part in the violence against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984, and in the violence against Muslims during the 1980s and early 1990s in Bhagalpur, Meerut, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, for example.
7. A growing literature on the Indian state over the past decade approaches the state through an examination of its everyday practices. See, for example Fuller and Harriss, ‘For an Anthropology’; Gupta, ‘Blurred Boundaries’; Parry, ‘The ‘Crises of Corruption’; Chandavarkar, ‘Customs of Governance’.
8. For an analysis and typology of corruption see Galtung, ‘Criteria for Sustainable Corruption Control’.
9. Chandavarkar, ‘Customs of Governance’, 443; Parry, ‘The ‘Crises of Corruption’, 28.
10. Gupta, ‘Blurred Boundaries’, 376. Also see Visvanathan and Sethi, Foul Play, 8.
11. The term ethno-Hindu recognizes the socially constructed, as opposed to ontological nature of the political category of Hindu.
12. Communal riots occurred in Ahmedabad in 1985, 1986, 1990 and 1992. Sporadic communal violence took place in the city throughout the 1990s.
13. In the 1972 Gujarat Assembly elections, the Jana Sangh Party (JS), the predecessor of the BJP, won three seats, 9% of the vote. In the 1975 election, the party contested the Gujarat election as a member in the Janata Morcha coalition (together with Congress (O)), and gained 18 seats with 9% of the vote. The Janata Morcha's campaign emphasized issues of democracy and corruption. In the 1952, 1957 and 1962 elections in Gujarat, the JS did not win any seat. In the 1967 election, the party won one seat. See Shah, ‘The 1975 Gujarat Assembly Election’, 276. Shah argues that ‘no Muslim political organisation, such as the Muslim League or the Majlis, has a large following in the state’, and that after 1969, Muslims united behind the Congress. See Ibid., 280.
14. During partition there was no violence in Ahmedabad or Gujarat in general. Yagnik and Sheth, The Shaping of Modern Gujarat, 223–5. Communal riots took place in Ahmedabad in 1941, and violent incidents in 1946 on the Rath Yatra day.
15. Shani, Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism.
16. See, for example Dave, Report of the Commission of Inquiry, Vol. II, 11, 16.
17. See for instance, Spodek, ‘From Gandhi to Violence’, 769.
18. Diwanji, ‘Prohibition – Gujarat's worst kept secret’. Also see Spodek, ‘Crises and Response’, 1631–2. For discussions of bootlegging in the context of the 1985 riots see, for example Spodek, ‘From Gandhi to Violence’, 769; Ribeiro, Bullet for Bullet, 256, 258; Engineer, ‘From Caste to Communal Violence’, 628–9.
19. See Benegal, ‘India: Alcohol and Public Health’, 1051; Gaunekar et al., ‘Drinking Patterns’, 127.
20. Mohan, ‘India’, 149.
21. ‘Cheers: ‘Malt March’ in Gandhi's Gujarat’.
22. Gaunekar et al., ‘Drinking Patterns’, 136.
23. Sharma, ‘50% of liver failures due to alcohol in Gujarat’.
24. Dave, Report of the Commission of Inquiry, Vol. I, 118, 260; Vol. III, 349.
25. Interview with Sunil, Vadigam, Ahmedabad, 31 March 1998. This account was reiterated in interviews with Makbul, Sajjan Jamadar's Moholla, Dariapur, Ahmedabad, 29 December 1997; Rasul, Naginapol, Ahmedabad, 30 December 1997.
26. Rs. 300,000 was about $23,000 at the time.
27. Interviews with Rasul, Naginapol, Dariapur, Ahmedabad, 30 December 1997; Makbul, Sajjan Jamadar's Moholla, Dariapur, 30 December 1997. The claims made in the interviews reflect local understandings of the events of 1985.
28. Interview with Gaurang, Bapunagar, Ahmedabad, 6 December 1997.
29. Interviews with Karsenbhai and Inayat, Dariapur, Ahmedabad, 22 February 1998.
30. Interviews with Sunitaben, Rakhail, Ahmedabad, 30 December 1997.
31. Interview with Saurabh, Vadigam, Ahmedabad, 26 March 1998.
32. Interviews with Sudarshan and Karimbhai, Gomtipur, Ahmedabad, 6 January 1998.
33. Interview with Makbul, Naginapole, Dariapur, Ahmedabad, 30 December 1997.
34. Dave, Report of the Commission of Inquiry, Vol. II, 11, 16.
35. Miyanbhai, Report of the Commission of Inquiry.
36. Ibid., 30, 32.
37. India Today, 31 August 1985.
38. Quoted in Spodek, ‘From Gandhi to Violence’, 772.
39. Ribeiro, Bullet for Bullet, 258, 256.
40. Interview with Rasul, Naginapole, Dariapur, 30 December 1997. The same narration was repeated, for example by Makbul, Sajjan Jamadar's Moholla, Dariapur, Ahmedabad, 30 December 1997; Parvin, Shahpur, Ahmedabad, 11 March 1998; Karsenbhai, Ambedkar street, Dariapur, 29 November 1997.
41. Interview with Karimbhai, Gomtipur, Ahmedabad, 6 January 1998.
42. Interviews with Ashok Bhatt (BJP), Khadia, Ahmedabad, 15 December 1997; Madhavsinh Solanki, the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time of the riots of 1985, Delhi, 16 March 1998. This was also the language used in newspaper reports.
43. Engineer, ‘Now Vadodara Goes Up in Communal Flames’, 287.
44. Ibid., 285.
45. Ibid., 282. For similar examples from communal violence elsewhere in India see, for example Hansen, ‘Governance and Myths of State in Mumbai’, 56; Brass, Theft of an Idol, 55.
46. For a discussion of externalities in corrupt transactions see Galtung, ‘Criteria for Sustainable Corruption Control’.
47. Also see Gupta, ‘Blurred Boundaries’ (especially p. 348). Gupta's analysis discusses the ambiguity of the boundaries between state and society in the context of corruption and the difficulty to demarcate where the state ends and society begins.
48. Pathan, ‘Modi Ties Hands of Cops’; National Human Rights Commission, Order on Gujarat, 11; Human Rights Watch, ‘We Have No Orders’, 23, 48–9; Khetan, ‘Role of the Police’, 40.
49. Charles, ‘Growth and Activities of Organised Crime’, 359–67.
50. Shah, ‘The 1969 Communal Riots’, 183. Shah suggests that middle-class Hindus believed that the distillers and their goondas were Muslims.
51. Jhaveri, The Gujaratis, 126.
52. Shah, ‘The 1975 Gujarat Assembly Elections’, 270–1; Jhaveri, The Gujaratis, 112; Shah, Youth in Gujarat, 3; Dhar, Indira Gandhi, 244. The Nav-Nirman agitation ended with the dissolution of the state Assembly on 15 March 1974.
53. Shan, Youth in Gujarat, 12–3.
54. See, for example ‘This Was a BJP Lab Experiment’; Engineer, ‘Gujarat: Laboratory of Hindutva’; Dayal, Gujarat 2002; Human Rights Watch, ‘We Have No Orders’, 41; Vyas, ‘More at Stake’, 8 December 2002.
55. Patel, ‘Narendra Modi's One-Day Cricket’, 4833.
56. Shani, Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism.
57. Times of India, 19 July 2009.
58. Interview with Ravindra, Ahmedabad, 1 December 1997. Also see Engineer, ‘Communal Riots in Ahmedabad’, 1641; Spodek, ‘In the Hindutva Laboratory’, 30.
59. Interviews with Sunitaben, Rakhail, Ahmedabad, 30 December 1997.
60. See Parekh, ‘Re-imagination of the State’, 1602–6, 1609; Simpson, ‘The State of Gujarat’, 341.
61. Sud, ‘Secularism and the Gujarat State’, 1264; Parekh, ‘Re-imagination of the State’, 1603.
62. Simpson, ‘The State of Gujarat’, 344.
63. Sachar Committee Papers, File 59.
64. Sachar Committee Papers, File 62, Vol. V, 169–80.
65. Ibid., p. 171. The Ghanchi memorandum explains that ‘the department in this recurring policy towards Muslim OBCs relay on a judgment of the Supreme Court from 1994 with reference to the case of tribal candidates not Muslim OBCs’.
66. Sachar Committee Papers, File 61.