Paper short abstract:

This paper is based upon field work conducted in Ahmedabad. It examines how the memory of 'Partition' is re-inscribed before and after an episode of communal violence.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based upon field work conducted in Ahmedabad. It examines how the memory of 'Partition' is re-inscribed before and after an episode of communal violence, especially with reference to the post-Godhra attacks on Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. A close look at the history of communal violence (whether riots or pogroms) reveals how a localised incident is extrapolated from the present and portrayed as yet another manifestation of a long-term inter-group animosity. The Godhra incident evoked contesting discourses of victimhood. The asthi kalas yatra (funeral procession) of the victims of train-burning was staged by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad with full complicity of the state in an attempt to polarise communities on a binary of perpetrator-victim. But the deaths of those killed in post-Godhra massacres are sought to be expurgated from public memory, as revealed in the controversy aroused by the proposed construction of a memorial at Gulberg Society, one of the loci of the Gujarat carnage. The memory of 'borders' is resuscitated to demarcate boundaries of urban spaces, as noticed in relief colonies like Ekta Nagar in Vatwa. Localities like Juhapura with a predominant Muslim presence are labelled off as 'mini-Pakistans'. Relief colonies like Citizen Nagar in Danilimda are characterised by the lack of sufficient approach roads, so that they are veritably isolated. This paper examines how the local is confronted and altered by the consequences of state and societal failure to come to terms with its rupture from the past.