SPECIAL REPORT 1

Under Narendra Modi, the state of Gujarat has become more segregated and divided.

Will India go the same way if he becomes Prime Minister?

BY JOHN CHALMERS AND FRANK JACK DANIEL

In Modi’s India, a case of rule and divideUnder Narendra Modi, the state of Gujarat has become more segregated and divided. Will India go the same way if he becomes Prime Minister?

MODI AND MUSLIMS

MUSLIM GHETTO: Around

400,000 people live in the

Muslim ghetto of Juhapura

within Ahmedabad.

REUTERS/AHMAD MASOOD

SPECIAL REPORT 1

SPECIAL REPORT 2

IN MODI’S INDIA, A CASE OF RULE AND DIVIDE

AHMEDABAD, INDIA, MAY 14, 2014

A li Husain is a prosperous young Indian Muslim businessman. He recently bought a Mercedes and

lives in a suburban-style gated community that itself sits inside a ghetto.

In Gujarat, it is so difficult for Muslims to buy property in areas dominated by Hindus even the community’s fast-growing urban middle class is confined to cramped and decrepit corners of cities.

Husain embodies the paradox of Gujarat: the state’s pro-business leadership has cre-ated opportunities for entrepreneurs of all creeds; yet religious prejudice and segrega-tion are deeply, and even legally, engrained.

If a Muslim enquires about a property in a new development, often the response is: “Why are you even asking?” said Husain, speaking at his home in the Muslim neigh-bourhood of Juhapura, where filthy slum streets rub against smart new apartment blocks and enclaves.

Separation of communities is common across India. Nowhere is it as systematised and entrenched by law as it has become in Gujarat.

That matters because the state’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, could soon run the country. Exit polls show that when re-sults of a general election are announced on May 16, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies will win a majority in parliament, almost certainly making him India’s next prime minister.

The 63-year-old Hindu nationalist has ruled the western state of Gujarat since 2001. He has surrounded himself with technocrats – and also ministers and advi-sors who promote “Hindutva”, a belief in the supremacy of Hinduism. As prime min-ister, Modi would lead not just 975 million Hindus but 175 million Muslims, around 15 percent of India’s population and the third-largest Muslim population in the world.

Modi’s record in his home state is cloud-ed by riots in 2002, when 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in a frenzy of mob

violence. Modi still struggles to shake off the perception he did not do enough to stop the bloodshed, despite a Supreme Court investigation that found no case against him and his own insistence he did all he could to keep the peace.

Even some Hindus connect Modi to the riots. Pradeep Shukla, a prominent Hindu businessman and former member of the BJP in the Gujarati town of Bhavnagar said Hindus “believe that, somewhere, indirectly, Modi had a hand in it because he supports Hindus. This is why they vote for him.”

On the campaign trail, Modi has tried to project a moderate image with a platform that downplays hot-button Hindu issues and emphasises growth and “development for all”.

But in Gujarat’s neighbourhoods and cities, people tell a different story.

HISTORY SCARRED BY VIOLENCEHusain is one of roughly 400,000 people living in Juhapura, a teeming Muslim township within Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s

largest city. Many of them moved there af-ter the 2002 riots. Local Hindus jokingly refer to it as “Little Pakistan”.

India’s history is scarred by episodes of horrific Hindu-Muslim violence. At least 200,000 people were killed in the months after the country was divided into India and Pakistan at independence from Britain in 1947. The destruction of an ancient mosque in 1992 by Hindu zealots in Ayodhya trig-gered religious rioting across India in 1993. Modi visited the northern town on May 5, repeatedly invoking the name of the Hindu deity Ram.

Memories of the 2002 rioting have not faded for the many residents of Juhapura who lost relatives, homes and business-es. And its legacy has been increasing segregation.

In particular, a property law unique to Gujarat has perpetuated segregation, creat-ing ghettos such as Juhapura and a sense of apartheid in some urban areas.

The “Disturbed Areas Act”, a law that restricts Muslims and Hindus from selling

HINDU FIREBRAND: Pravin Togadia, head of the hardline Hindu group, Vishva Hindu Parishad.

REUTERS/AMIT DAVE

SPECIAL REPORT 3

IN MODI’S INDIA, A CASE OF RULE AND DIVIDE

property to each other in “sensitive” areas, was introduced in 1991 to avert an exodus or distress sales in neighbourhoods hit by inter-religious unrest.

Modi’s government amended the law in 2009 to give local officials greater power to decide on property sales. It also extended the reach of the law, most recently in 2013 – 11 years after the last major religious riots.

The state government says the law is meant to protect Muslims, who account for just under 10 percent of the state’s 60 mil-lion people. “It prevents ethnic cleansing and people being forced out,” a senior gov-ernment official who requested anonymity told Reuters.

Critics say the act’s continued enforce-ment and the addition of new districts cov-ered by it – about 40 percent of Ahmedabad is now governed by the law – means it is effectively being applied as a tool of social engineering.

The Gujarat High Court in a 2012 case questioned the state government’s use of the act to block the sale of properties by Hindus to Muslims.

The Indian Express newspaper said in a recent editorial: “More Muslims and Hindus have moved into separate spaces in Gujarat, finding trust and assurance only among neighbours of their own community, and it has ended up entrenching segregation and shutting Muslims out of the mainstream.”

“SPIT ON HIM”Among those pressing hardest for the law to be maintained and extended to other parts of Gujarat are Hindu nationalists, such as Pravin Togadia.

One evening in April, Togadia sat be-fore a crowd of neighbours in a tranquil residential street of Bhavnagar, an other-wise bustling town three hours drive from Ahmedabad. To bursts of applause, he railed against a Muslim scrap dealer, Ali Asghar Zaveri, who had dared to purchase a property there.

His forehead smeared with vermillion,

a mark of piety, Togadia told his audience they should break open their new neigh-bour’s padlocked gates and take over the two houses behind them before Zaveri could get a chance to move in.

“When he comes out onto the street, you should spit on him,” he told the gath-ering. “Get 10-15 children to stand around and ... throw tomatoes at him.”

Togadia added that if Zaveri did not give up the property, which he reportedly bought for $250,000, they should go in their thousands to his scrap shop and sur-round it.

“Take stones with you, burn tyres,” he said, according to a video of the meeting, which concluded with women in the crowd of around 100 people chanting a Hindu hymn.

The video was posted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zatIRhuiuuY). Local police, who acquired a copy, have filed a case of “hate speech” against Togadia.

Togadia is president of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a pugnacious group in a family of Hindu national-ist organisations that includes Modi’s

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).Togadia did not respond to questions

from Reuters. According to local media re-ports, he said news articles about the inci-dent were “fabricated and written with ma-licious intention to malign” both him and his organisation.

Modi did not comment directly on the VHP leader’s outburst. But in a tweet wide-ly interpreted as condemnation, he said he disapproved of “petty statements by those claiming to be the BJP’s well-wishers”.

Modi was not available to comment for this story.

ESCALATING PROPERTY PRICESBhavnagar is not covered by the Disturbed Areas Act. But in one district of the town, Hindus have effectively imposed it, raising a banner at the entry to a narrow lane that reads: “In this area, locality or by-lane no property or building can be sold or rented to people who are not of this religion.”

Reuters interviewed two local VHP leaders who said they have made repeated requests since 2004 for Bhavnagar to be put

POLARIZING: Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies are expected to form India’s next

government. REUTERS/ AMIT DAVE

SPECIAL REPORT 4

IN MODI’S INDIA, A CASE OF RULE AND DIVIDE

under the Disturbed Areas Act.One of the two, S.D. Jani, said Hindus

object to Muslims living among them be-cause they are not vegetarian and many have committed acts of terrorism abroad. His colleague, Kirit Mistry, complained that Muslims slaughter cows, which are sacred to Hindus, and that the Muslim population is growing faster than Hindus

because they have more children.Several Hindus who declined to be

named for this story said if Muslims buy property in their areas, the value of their own homes falls. One said the stigma of liv-ing alongside Muslims can make it difficult for Hindus to marry off their daughters.

One consequence of the segregation: land and home prices in Juhapura and

other Muslim areas have escalated more than in Hindu areas as the community finds its ability to expand and build more properties limited.

“Prices have increased so much because the expansion of Juhapura has been con-tained, not only by walls but also by the building of Hindu colonies ...at the periph-ery of the locality,” Christophe Jaffrelot, a

Source: Planning Commission, Government of India. All at current prices except for 2004-05 which is at 2004-05 prices.

India growth

Andhra Pradesh

Chhattisgarh

Maharashtra

Gujarat

Rajasthan

Madhya Pradesh

UttarPradesh

Uttarakhand

Himachal Pradesh

Jammu and Kashmir

NEPAL

PAKISTAN

CHINA

MYANMAR

BANGLADESH

BHUTANPunjab

HaryanaNew Delhi

Line ofcontrol

Bangalore

Bihar

JharkhandWest Bengal

Odisha

Assam

ManipurMeghalaya

Sikkim

MizoramTripura

Nagaland

ArunachalPradesh

Andamanand Nicobar

Islands

Tamil Nadu

Puducherry

Kerala

Karnataka

Goa

≤10 1512.5 17.5 ≥202011-’12(Latest available)

2012/13 GDP growthYear-on-year, percent change

GDP growth since 2003/04Percent change, in select states

Top five Indian states by GDP2011/12, in trillion rupees

Hyderabad

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

National

’03/04 ’12/13

National: 83.5

Maharashtra

UttarPradesh

TamilNadu

AndhraPradesh

Gujarat

TamilNadu

AndhraPradesh

Gujarat

Others45.4

12.0

6.8

6.7

6.66.2

Gujarat Maharashtra

SPECIAL REPORT 5

IN MODI’S INDIA, A CASE OF RULE AND DIVIDE

scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a recent col-umn in the Indian Express.

MUSLIMS FOR MODIAt the same time, some Muslims in Gujarat have been lifted on a tide of rising pros-perity. The state has long been a model of economic success in India given its coastal location, large ports and industrialisation.

According to National Survey Sample Office figures, for instance, Gujarat is one of the top Indian states for Muslim em-ployment. The national unemployment rate among Muslims was almost double that of Gujarati Muslims in 2009-10.

But the picture is far from clear. Data from the same source showed nearly one in three Gujarati Hindus had a secondary ed-ucation or higher in 2009-10, against one in five for Muslims – roughly in line with the average for Muslims across the country.

Zafar Sareshwala is among those who have prospered. One of Gujarat’s wealthi-est Muslims, he owns a chain of BMW showrooms. Sareshwala supports Modi even though his family was financially ru-ined by the 2002 unrest. His view changed overnight the following year, he said, after a meeting with Modi.

“He was deeply anguished. He was apologetic about the scale of the damage,” Sareshwala recalled. “Modi promised jus-tice would be delivered and said he would never discriminate against Muslims.”

Sareshwala estimated that 30 percent of Gujarat’s Muslims now back the BJP thanks to urban development and access to services that Modi has brought. Opinion polls have not projected the Muslim vote in Gujarat.

“People call him a dictator, I call him de-cisive,” he said.

Even much poorer Muslims back

Modi. In a dirt-poor Ahmedabad river-side slum of about 150 families, most of them Muslim, five of eight women who spoke with Reuters said they had voted for the BJP, even though Modi’s govern-ment bulldozed their rickety homes two years ago, forcing them to rebuild away from the waterfront.

“Modi has done some good work. Our children can get scholarships and school meals. Women feel protected, and wid-ows get compensation,” said 48-year-old Shabnam Banu, sitting on the floor with her friends in a simple room where a slow-moving ceiling fan did little to alleviate the pre-monsoon heat.

Still, Banu herself couldn’t bring herself to vote for Modi, selecting the “none of the above” option on election day.

“Our main fear is he will throw us out of the country,” she said. “What if some of his people come and attack us?”

DISTURBED AREAS: Hindus and Muslims have mostly lived in separate areas of Gujarat since the 2002 religious riots. REUTERS/ARKO DATTA

© Thomson Reuters 2014. All rights reserved. 47001073 0310. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. ‘Thomson Reuters’ and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of Thomson reuters and its affiliated companies.

IN MODI’S INDIA, A CASE OF RULE AND DIVIDE

SPECIAL REPORT 6

FOR MORE INFORMATIONJohn Chalmers, Bureau Chief, South Asiajohn.chalmers@thomsonreuters.comFrank Jack Daniel, Senior Correspondent, Indiafrank.daniel@thomsonreuters.comBill Tarrant, Enterprise Editor william.tarrant@thomsonreuters.comMichael Williams, Global Enterprise Editor michael.j.williams@thomsonreuters.com

PEOPLE ARE AFRAIDIn Juhapura, businessman Ali Husain has made it his mission to break down barri-ers between the state’s communities. Two years ago he persuaded a major developer to sell homes to Muslims in luxury town-ships on the edge of Ahmedabad, and he is now working with a Hindu company to produce Halal food.

Other initiatives have flopped. In February, Husain organised a Hindu-Muslim business conclave, sponsored by the state government and addressed by Modi. Few Muslims turned up. “Truly speaking, the Muslims, they are not with Modi,” he said.

Husain has bought a house in a Hindu

area of Ahmedabad, and wants to move out of Juhapura. But his parents are too scared to leave. He is too nervous to even take the sheet off his Mercedes because neighbours might think, after his recent meeting with Modi, he has sold out for money.

“I encourage Muslims to come out of Muslim areas and live everywhere, to end ghettoization,” Husain said. “But ... people are afraid that if they come out the violence could happen again.”

Additional reporting by Aditi Shah in Bhavnagar, Vadodara and Ahmedabad, India and by Himanshu Ojha in London.

Editing by Simon Robinson and Bill Tarrant.

A shortage of state schools in

Juhapura means the Muslim

community has had to set up

its own schools. REUTERS/

Ahmad Masood