Religious composition of the population (as per the 2001 census): 81% Hindus, 14% Muslims
Chief Minister of Gujarat: Hitendra K. Desai, Congress Party, October 1965–May 1971
Dramatic riots occurred in Ahmedabad (Gujarat) and in adjacent districts in September. Communal tensions had been rising since the Indo–Pak war of 1965, during which Gujarat’s Chief Minister’s plane was shot down. Anti-Pakistan feelings rapidly transformed into anti-Muslim resentment. Incidents multiplied from mid-1968 onwards. In June 1968, the Muslim organization Jamiat-Ulema-i-Hind organized a conference of Gujarati Muslims. This was followed by an RSS mass rally held the 27–29 December, and attended by the leader Guru Golwalkar . In January, an All Gujarat RSS Camp was held in Ahmedabad and included two thousand volunteers. On March 10 1969, Muslim protests took place in the city in which several policemen were injured after a Hindu policeman allegedly insulted the Quran during an altercation with a Muslim rickshaw-driver. On August 21, Muslims demonstrated against the arson attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. On September 4, a Muslim policeman was alleged to have kicked the Hindu holy book of Ramayana while searching for a Hindu pandit (scholar of Hindu sacred texts) during a religious ceremony. Two days later, a Hindu Dharma Raksha Samiti (HDRS, Committee to Defend Hindu Religion) was formed. On September 15, a victory procession was organized by the BJS to celebrate the punishment of the Muslim police officer. On September 14 and 16, the MP (Member of Parliament) and BJS leader, Balraj Madhok , made a series of inflammatory speeches (the Modak lectures).
At the political level, the situation was no less confused. In the 1967 elections, for the first time since Independence, the Congress ceased to be the dominant party. In Gujarat, it had lost the Muslim electorate to the Swatantra Party and was severely weakened in the Assembly. At the national level, the confrontation between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the Old Guard leadership of the Congress further destabilized the party (a scission was to occur in November 1969). Fearing a complete debacle, Congress Chief Minister Hitendra Desai could not afford to alienate Hindu opinion by clamping down excessively on the anti-Muslim violence that was to later erupt.
In this tense atmosphere, violence was sparked by the “Jagannath Temple incident” on September 18. Thousands of Muslims had gathered for a yearly pilgrimage to a shrine adjacent to the Jagannath Hindu temple, in the Old City. Clashes occurred with sadhus (ascetic Hindu men) for a minor reason. Thirteen of them were injured and the glass facade of the temple was damaged. Further troubles erupted in the city after a series of pamphlets and inflammatory speeches spread rumors about the incident. The local media played a despicable role in the events. On the night of September 18, large Hindu crowds looted and set fire to Muslim properties and religious places, with the police refusing to intervene. The situation worsened on September 19. A Muslim youth was burned to death for refusing to chant “Jai Jagannath!” (“Long live Jagannath”). Large numbers of women were raped, and even children were not spared the violence. One hundred Muslims were murdered in Amraiwadi. On the night of September 20, four trains were stopped and 17 Muslim passengers trying to leave the city were killed. On September 23, when the government imprudently lifted the curfew for a few hours, forty persons were murdered. Violence spread to nearby districts as well between September 20 and 30. In the nearby city of Baroda, around ten persons were killed, and six thousand families lost their properties; thus becoming refugees. The arrival of the army (belatedly) defused the situation, but incidents of stabbing continued intermittently for almost a month. The P. Jaganmohan Reddy Commission Report published evidence that most of the attacks had been carefully planned. Voters’ lists were used to identify Muslim households. The Reddy Commission blamed the police and the Congress-led state administration for their incompetence and delay in imposing curfews. It also denounced the RSS and the BJS for their active involvement in the riots.
In all, according to that report, violence claimed 660 lives, including those of 430 Muslims and 24 Hindus. Other accounts consider that more than one thousand -or even two to three thousand- people lost their lives. The large majority of those killed were Muslim (about 80 percent).
The Ahmedabad tragedy had international repercussions: during the Islamic Conference held in Rabat (Morocco) on 24–27 of September of that year–at which many Muslim countries were represented–the Indian delegation sent by Indira Gandhi ’s government was asked to quit the negotiation room, a serious humiliation.
***(G. Shah 1970); ***(Reddy 1971); ***(Graff 1977); ***(Schermerhon 1976: 17–18); ***(G. Shah 1984: 185–191); ***(Ghosh 1987: 154); ***(Saksena 1990: 177–178), ***(Chatterji 1995: 24–25)