‘Govt’s blueprint for alienation'

The state government's decision to study Gujarat's ghettoisation — a sensitive subject that DNA investigated thoroughly after 26/7 — has been censured by intellectuals, who contend that the exercise will only alienate people forced into social quarantines: 'Victimised Muslims'. 

In Gujarat, ghettoised dwellings, organised along religious lines, are perhaps the landmark of life in the state. Social scientists and activists, who have studied this subject in detail, feel that Ahmedabad is perhaps the lone example in the country where extreme ghettoisation has taken place.  DNA had visited most of these 'newly formed' ghettos after the city was hit by the serial bomb blasts on July 26, 2008.

Ghettoisation is a global phenomenon. In Gujarat, it is widely perceived that it is only the Muslims who live in ghettos - and that too out of fear. Though this may be true, there are also cases where most other communities prefer to live in areas largely earmarked as their 'own' by their ilk.  However, there seems no unequivocal embargo on entry of a particular community into these 'reservations'.

And that is what delineates and makes the ghettos of Gujarat so unique, and perhaps precarious. So formation of BJ Sethna commission to study the ghetto formation of Gujarat and its trends after Independence has made human rights activists raise serious concerns against targeting any specific community.

Juhapura — the largest muslim ghetto of Asia, with a population of over three lakh Muslims — is loosely but many a times referred to as 'mini Pakistan'. A clearly demarcated road dividing the ghetto from the nearby area is referred to as 'border'. 

Of Ahmedabad's population of 5.5 million, an increasingly small number of Muslim families or even bachelors as paying guests, are found living outside the ghettos. Even the most affluent are not acceptable exceptions. These ghettos spread all over the city have only one tale to tell — that of extreme state apathy and total neglect in civic amenities and basic hygiene infrastructure.

Though this tale has been told several times —  by the media and activists to civic authorities, and corporators to their politician bosses, the state of these ghettos only gets worse with each passing day as population increases social odium and civic crisis goes deeper. It is another story that police excesses are a way of life here.

Intelligence agencies suspected sleeper terror cells were being operated from here and local youth were sent to terror training camps. "It is often believed that the Muslims victimised during 2002 riots are a soft target for terror recruitment, but the desperate reality of their everyday life in the ghettos does not let them move on in life, even if they want to. Education is available, so the community is full of sharp thinking individuals, but remains cornered," says a senior resident of Juhapura, who has witnessed the transition of Ahmedabad from a non-ghettoised city to a highly polarised one.