THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2014 INTERNATIONAL In India, a case of rule and divide Some Muslims support Modi’s pro-growth policies AHMEDABAD: Ali Husain is a prosper- Modi’s government amended the law in ous young Indian Muslim businessman. 2009 to give local officials greater pow- He recently bought a Mercedes and er to decide on property sales. It also lives in a suburban-style gated commu- extended the reach of the law, most nity that itself sits inside a ghetto. In recently in 2013 - 11 years after the last Gujarat, it is so difficult for Muslims to major religious riots. buy property in areas dominated by The state government says the law is Hindus even the community’s fast- meant to protect Muslims, who account growing urban middle class is confined for just under 10 percent of the state’s to cramped and decrepit corners of 60 million people. “It prevents ethnic cities. Husain embodies the paradox of cleansing and people being forced out,” Gujarat: the state’s pro-business leader- a senior government official who ship has created opportunities for requested anonymity told Reuters. entrepreneurs of all creeds; yet religious Critics say the act’s continued enforce- prejudice and segregation are deeply, ment and the addition of new districts and even legally, engrained. If a Muslim covered by it - about 40 percent of enquires about a property in a new Ahmedabad is now governed by the development, often the response is: law - means it is effectively being “Why are you even asking?” said Husain, applied as a tool of social engineering. speaking at his home in the Muslim The Gujarat High Court in a 2012 neighborhood of Juhapura, where filthy case questioned the state government’s slum streets rub against smart new use of the act to block the sale of prop- apartment blocks and enclaves. erties by Hindus to Muslims. The Indian Separation of communities is com- Express newspaper said in a recent edi- mon across India. Nowhere is it as sys- torial: “More Muslims and Hindus have tematized as it has become in Gujarat. moved into separate spaces in Gujarat, That matters because the state’s chief finding trust and assurance only among minister, Narendra Modi, could soon run neighbors of their own community, and the country. Exit polls show that when it has ended up entrenching segrega- results of a general election are tion and shutting Muslims out of the announced tomorrow, Modi’s Bharatiya mainstream.” Janata Party (BJP) and its allies will win a majority in parliament, almost certainly “Spit on him” making him India’s next prime minister. Among those pressing hardest for The 63-year-old Hindu nationalist the law to be maintained and extended has ruled the western state of Gujarat to other parts of Gujarat are Hindu since 2001. He has surrounded himself nationalists, such as Pravin Togadia. One with technocrats - and also ministers evening in April, Togadia sat before a and advisers who promote “Hindutva”, a crowd of neighbors in a tranquil resi- belief in the supremacy of Hinduism. As dential street of Bhavnagar, an other- prime minister, Modi would lead not wise bustling town three hours drive just 975 million Hindus but 175 million from Ahmedabad. To bursts of Muslims, around 15 percent of India’s applause, he railed against a Muslim population and the third-largest Muslim scrap dealer, Ali Asghar Zaveri, who had population in the world. dared to purchase a property there. MUMBAI: A woman customer (left) holds a sari printed with a portrait of Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at a gar- Modi’s record in his home state is His forehead smeared with vermil- ments shop yesterday. — AP clouded by riots in 2002, when 1,000 lion, a mark of piety, Togadia told his people, mostly Muslims, died in a frenzy audience they should break open their than Hindus because they have more Muslims.” Sareshwala estimated that 30 their rickety homes two years ago, forc- vote for Modi, selecting the “none of the of mob violence. Modi still struggles to new neighbor’s padlocked gates and children. percent of Gujarat’s Muslims now back ing them to rebuild away from the above” option on election day. “Our main shake off the perception he did not do take over the two houses behind them Several Hindus who declined to be the BJP thanks to urban development waterfront. fear is he will throw us out of the coun- enough to stop the bloodshed, despite before Zaveri could get a chance to named for this story said if Muslims buy and access to services that Modi has try,” she said. “What if some of his people a Supreme Court investigation that move in. “When he comes out onto the property in their areas, the value of their brought. Opinion polls have not project- People are afraid come and attack us?” found no case against him and his own street, you should spit on him,” he told own homes falls. One said the stigma of ed the Muslim vote in Gujarat. “Modi has done some good work. In Juhapura, businessman Ali Husain insistence he did all he could to keep the gathering. “Get 10-15 children to living alongside Muslims can make it dif- “People call him a dictator, I call him Our children can get scholarships and has made it his mission to break down the peace. stand around and throw tomatoes at ficult for Hindus to marry off their daugh- decisive,” he said. Even much poorer school meals. Women feel protected, and barriers between the state’s communi- Even some Hindus connect Modi to him.” Togadia added that if Zaveri did ters. Muslims back Modi. In a dirt-poor widows get compensation,” said 48-year- ties. Two years ago he persuaded a major the riots. Pradeep Shukla, a prominent not give up the property, which he One consequence of the segregation: Ahmedabad riverside slum of about 150 old Shabnam Banu, sitting on the floor developer to sell homes to Muslims in Hindu businessman and former mem- reportedly bought for $250,000, they land and home prices in Juhapura and families, most of them Muslim, five of with her friends in a simple room where luxury townships on the edge of ber of the BJP in the Gujarati town of should go in their thousands to his other Muslim areas have escalated more eight women who spoke with Reuters a slow-moving ceiling fan did little to Ahmedabad, and he is now working Bhavnagar said Hindus “believe that, scrap shop and surround it. than in Hindu areas as the community said they had voted for the BJP, even alleviate the pre-monsoon heat. Still, with a Hindu company to produce Halal somewhere, indirectly, Modi had a hand “Take stones with you, burn tires,” he finds its ability to expand and build more though Modi’s government bulldozed Banu herself couldn’t bring herself to food. — Reuters in it because he supports Hindus. This is said, according to a video of the meet- properties limited. “Prices have increased why they vote for him.” On the cam- ing, which concluded with women in so much because the expansion of paign trail, Modi has tried to project a the crowd of around 100 people chanti- Juhapura has been contained, not only moderate image with a platform that ng a Hindu hymn. Togadia is president by walls but also by the building of downplays hot-button Hindu issues and of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindu colonies... at the periphery of the emphasizes growth and “development pugnacious group in a family of Hindu locality,” Christophe Jaffrelot, a scholar for all”. But in Gujarat’s neighbourhoods nationalist organizations that includes with the Carnegie Endowment for and cities, people tell a different story. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). International Peace, wrote in a recent col- Togadia did not respond to ques- umn in the Indian Express. History scarred by violence tions from Reuters. According to local Husain is one of roughly 400,000 media reports, he said news articles Muslims for Modi people living in Juhapura, a teeming about the incident were “fabricated and At the same time, some Muslims in Muslim township within Ahmedabad, written with malicious intention to Gujarat have been lifted on a tide of ris- Gujarat’s largest city. Many of them malign” both him and his organization. ing prosperity. The state has long been a moved there after the 2002 riots. Local Modi did not comment directly on the model of economic success in India giv- Hindus jokingly refer to it as “Little VHP leader’s outburst. But in a tweet en its coastal location, large ports and Pakistan”. India’s history is scarred by widely interpreted as condemnation, he industrialization. According to National episodes of horrific Hindu-Muslim vio- said he disapproved of “petty state- Survey Sample Office figures, for lence. At least 200,000 people were ments by those claiming to be the BJP’s instance, Gujarat is one of the top Indian killed in the months after the country well-wishers”. Modi was not available to states for Muslim employment. The was divided into India and Pakistan at comment for this story. national unemployment rate among independence from Britain in 1947. The Muslims was almost double that of destruction of an ancient mosque in Escalating property prices Gujarati Muslims in 2009-10. 1992 by Hindu zealots in Ayodhya trig- Bhavnagar is not covered by the But the picture is far from clear. Data gered religious rioting across India.