Ayodhya aftermath: Short-lived initiatives

Community initiatives do not always succeed when taken on the spur of the moment.

When violence broke out in Surat in 1990, the first instance of communal rioting in the city’s post-Independence history, calm prevailed in Adajan, as the old city is known.

The potential for violence was high because of social tension resulting from local elections. What triggered it was the objection of Hindus to effluents from a Muslim slum seeping into a small neighbourhood temple. While these slums became major targets of attack, community elders remained in control in the old city and maintained peace in their neighbourhoods in cooperation with Hindu leaders.

In December 1992, after rioting in Bombay raised tensions in Surat, residents of Vijay Nagar Housing Scheme, a Hindu-dominated, middle-class neighbourhood, and Shanti Nagar, which is Muslim-dominated, both in a comparatively new part of the city, got together and formed an ekta samiti (peace committee). But it was short-lived because just an hour later the samiti’s Muslim vice-president, Yusuf Bheri Zaveri, was told by the Hindu president that he was disbanding the committee because it was “impossible to guarantee the safety of Muslims”. Next morning, a mob of 1,500 raided the locality, singling out Muslim households.