The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting: The Gujarat Development Model and the 2002 Gujarat Pogrom

ABSTRACT

In 2002, barbaric communal violence broke out all over the western state of Gujarat in India. Over 2000 Muslims were killed and more than 96,000 displaced through violent attacks by Hindus in retaliation for the burning of a train carrying 59 Hindu pilgrims. After 2002, the Gujarat government implemented the Gujarat Development Model (GDM), an economic development model based on neoliberal politics and late-capitalistic policies. Using a rhetorical lens, I argue that the GDM performs memory work to forget the minority Muslim identity after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. GDM is a rhetorical move that uses sectarian-neutral language circulated via newspapers to perform a simultaneous forgetting of the pogrom and the atrocities against the Muslims but remembering the moment of Godhra valorizing the majoritarian Hindu identity.

KEYWORDS:

• 2002 Gujarat riots
• Muslims
• Gujarat development model (GDM)
• public memory
• rhetorical criticism

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Matthew deTar for his critical comments that have not only sharpened the paper, but also my scholarship. I am deeply grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and Dr. Benjamin Bates for their insightful comments and generosity of time. Finally, I am indebted to Dr. Devika Chawla for her mentorship and guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Historically, the term karseva is community service performed by Sikh and Hindu men and women. Its recent appropriation by Hindu right now means to perform specific acts of religious service.

2. Hindu right-wing bodies like the VHP destroyed the mosque in December 1992. The Hindu right-wing parties claimed that the Mughals built Babri Masjid after wrecking a temple dedicated to Ram.

3. I use the word “pogrom” here instead of “riots” or “clashes” to emphasize the targeted and systematic nature of the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002. The terms “riots” or “clashes” can dissolve the very organized nature of violence which specifically targeted Muslims.