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Disaster Studies pp 127–141Cite as

An Unusual ‘Toofan’: Governance of Communal Violence and Disaster Management in Gujarat

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Part of the book series: Disaster Studies and Management ((DSDM))

Abstract

In everyday and political parlance, state policies, media reports and academic works, words and notions that place communal violence on par with natural disasters have much currency, particularly in Gujarat. Despite this, governance practices with regard to communal violence have been markedly different from those with regard to natural disasters in the last decade. This chapter argues that the comparison of communal violence, that raises larger political questions and the language of rights, with natural disasters that use the managerial and technocratic language of relief, is problematic. This chapter includes data from her thesis submitted at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2011. A version of this paper was presented in the 4th International Roundtable on Structuring Peace, The State and Conflict Transformation: Prospects and Challenges in South Asia organised by Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management in 2012 while working for the Tata Institute of Social Science and London School of Economics project on Governance and the Governed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Aakar Patel, DeleepPadgaonkar, B. G. Verghese. (2002). Reports by Editors Guild Fact Finding Mission Report Rights and Wrongs: Ordeal by Fire in the Killing Fields of Gujarat. New Delhi: Editors Guild.; Amnesty International. (2005). Justice the Victim: Gujarat State Fails to Protect Women from Violence. Retrieved from http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA20/001/2005; Human Rights Watch. 2002. “We have no orders to save you”: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat. 14(3(C)), Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2002/india/; Commonwealth Initiative for Human Rights, Citizen’s Initiative, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). (2002). Violence in Vadodara. Retrieved from http://www.onlinevolunteers.org/gujarat/reports/pucl/index.htm.; People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR). 2002. Maaro! Kaapo! Baalo!: State, Society and Communalism in Gujarat. Retrieved from http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Religion-communalism/2002/maro_kapo_balo.pdf and Tehelka. (2007, November 3). l4 (43) among others.

  2. 2.

    Narendra Modi. (2012, March 30). Letter to countrymen on eve of three-day fast. Retrieved from http://www.narendramodi.in/shri-narendra-modi%E2%80%99s-letter-to-countrymen-on-the-eve-of-3-day-fast/.

  3. 3.

    Discourse on disaster management has been criticised for technocratic and managerial approach in the light of recent scholarship (Andharia 2008). For instance, Anthony Oliver-Smith, 2006, in “Theorising Vulnerability in a Globalised World: A Political Ecology Perspective”, in Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People, edited by G. Bankoff et al., 10–24 (London: Earthscan) argues that among pre-modern Andean people there was a cultural tradition of disaster awareness reflected in territoriality and settlement patterns (cited in Thiruppugazh 2008).

  4. 4.

    2001: Thousands Die in Earthquake (2005, January 26). BBC. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/26/newsid.

  5. 5.

    The term kar sevaks refers to volunteers in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, a movement to build a temple for the revered Hindu deity Ram in Ayodhya where a sixteenth-century mosque stands on what is believed to be his birthplace.

  6. 6.

    Figures reported to the Rajya Sabha by then-Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Sriprakash Jaiswal, in May 2005 in response to a question by an unnamed MP; Gujarat Riot Death Toll Revealed. (2002). BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4536199.stm.

  7. 7.

    Human Rights Watch. (2002). “We have no orders to save you”: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat (14 No. 3(C)). Retrieved from http://www. hrw.org/legacy/reports/ 2002/india/.

  8. 8.

    ‘‘Newton” Modi has a lot to answer’. (2002, March 2). Times of India. Delhi edition. Retrieved from http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com.

  9. 9.

    The Citizen’s Committee for Extraordinary Report on Gujarat (May 2003): “Submissions to the CEDAW Committee for Seeking Intervention on Gender-based Crimes and the Gendered Impact of the Gujarat Carnage” cited in India: Five years on the bitter and uphill struggle for justice in Gujarat, Amnesty International. Retrieved from http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA20/007/2007.

  10. 10.

    Figures by then-Home Minister, LK Advani, Bharat Desai (2002 March 27). Fear Still Stalks Gujarat. Times of India, Retrieved from http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com; Dionne Bunsha. (2002 April 13–26) “The Crisis of the Camps”. Frontline, 19 (8). Retrieved from http://www.frontline.in.

  11. 11.

    Government of Gujarat, Government Resolution (2002) (GR No RHL 232002:513/3/S-4 dated 6/3/2002).

  12. 12.

    Government of Gujarat, Response of the State Government on the proceedings of 01/04/2002 of the National Human Rights Commission (2002) (suo motu case No. 1150/6/2001-2002) p. 24.

  13. 13.

    Government of Gujarat, Reply to NHRC Report of 31st May 2002, pp. 16, 17.

  14. 14.

    National Human Rights Commission, Proceedings (2002 April 1), suo moto Case (No. 1150/6/2001-2002). P. 13.

  15. 15.

    Figures quoted by then-Minister LK Advani who claimed that this number had come down to 19 camps sheltering 18,500 people. Manas Dasgupta (2002 July 18). More Relief Camps Ordered Closed. The Hindu.

  16. 16.

    This was announced with previously passed orders as precedents: Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department (1981 January 4). Order No/RHL/1090/1031/S4; Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department (1992 December 26). Order No/RHL/1092/41801/S.4; Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department (2002 February 28). Order No./RHL/232002/513(1)S4; and Government of Gujarat, Government Revenue Department (2002 April 23). Order No./ RHL/ 232002/513/S4.

  17. 17.

    Manas Dasgupta. (2002 March 6). No discrimination in compensation in Gujarat. The Hindu. Retrieved from http://www.hindu.com.

  18. 18.

    Modi puts state money where biased mouth is. (2002 March 5). The Indian Express.

  19. 19.

    National Human Rights Commission, Proceedings (2002 April 1), suo moto Case (No. 1150/6/2001–2002). P. 13.

  20. 20.

    National Human Rights Commission, Proceedings (2002 April 1), suo moto Case (No. 1150/6/2001–2002). p 29. Also Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department (2002). RHL/232002/51 (5)/S4 dated 5/3/2002.

  21. 21.

    Gujarat officials work overtime to present clean image to PM. (2002 April 3). Times of India.

  22. 22.

    Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department. (2002). RHL/232002/51 (5)/S4 dated 20/3/2002.

  23. 23.

    Times of India 8/6/2002. The administration purportedly made attempts to reach out to those affected who didn’t live in camps, but such people would have to get undertaking from people of repute living in the area. This vague criterion did not stipulate who these persons of repute were.

  24. 24.

    Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department Order. (2002 April 24). No./RHL/232002/513(part1)S4, dated 23/4/2002.

  25. 25.

    Government of Gujarat, Response of the State Government on the Proceedings on 1/4/2002 of the National Human Rights Commission.

  26. 26.

    Government of Gujarat, Revenue Department. (1992). RHL/ 1092/4077/S4 dated 19/12/92.

  27. 27.

    Government of Gujarat, Response of the State Government on the Proceedings on 1/4/2002 of the National Human Rights Commission. p. 31.

  28. 28.

    Government of Gujarat, Response of the State Government on the Proceedings on 1/4/2002 of the National Human Rights Commission. p. 33.

  29. 29.

    Seema Chishti. (2006 October 24). Modi govt returns riot rehab funds, minority panel says victims suffer’. The Indian Express. Retrieved from http://archive.indianexpress.com.

  30. 30.

    Harsh Mander has also attested to this from his experience as district magistrate. In the case of Gujarat, RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt have testified to the complicity of state authorities in the violence of 2002.

  31. 31.

    Harsh Mander quoted in The Hindu (2011 March 24). Retrieved from www.hindu.com/2010/07/14/stories/2010071464281400.htm.

  32. 32.

    Government of Gujarat, Gujarat Vidhan Sabha Debates (1985 January). Part II, Book 9. p 788; Government of Gujarat, Gujarat Vidhan Sabha Debates (2002 March 13). 10th Gujarat Vidhan Sabha. pp. 148–49; Government of Gujarat, Gujarat Vidhan Sabha Debates (2002 March 15–16). 10th Vidhan Sabha, (Amarsinhbhai Chaudhary). p. 21.

  33. 33.

    This payment of relief by the central government in case of Gujarat 2002 post-Godhra violence as well as the 1989 Bhagalpur riots was brought on par with the compensation paid in the anti-Sikh riots.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philadelphia, USA

    Sanjeevini Badigar Lokhande

  2. South Asia Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

    Sanjeevini Badigar Lokhande

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  1. Sanjeevini Badigar Lokhande
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  1. Jamsetji Tata School of Disaster Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Janki Andharia

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Lokhande, S.B. (2020). An Unusual ‘Toofan’: Governance of Communal Violence and Disaster Management in Gujarat. In: Andharia, J. (eds) Disaster Studies. Disaster Studies and Management. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9339-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9339-7_6

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