Muslims burned out by Hindus fear returning home

Rama Lakshmi

The Washington Post Tuesday, April 9, 2002

AHMADABAD, India A month ago, Razak Usmanbhai watched mobs of Hindu militants set fire to his Muslim neighborhood in religious rioting that killed more than 700 people in western India. Weeks later, he felt brave enough to go back to his workplace, the only Muslim-owned car repair garage in a predominantly Hindu area.

As he made his way toward the garage, which he owned with a friend, a group of Hindu youths wielding rocks and metal chains descended on him. As they beat him up, he recalled recently, they said: "Don't you know? Muslims are not allowed here anymore."

"I can't return home, as it is a graveyard," said Usmanbhai, 25, who now lives in a makeshift camp with 10,000 others who fled their ravaged neighborhoods. "Now they will not allow me to reopen my garage either."

"I will go mad if I stay without work in this relief camp," he added. "The biggest question now is: How do I begin my life again?"

Since an attack by Muslims on a train in the town of Godhra on Feb. 27 that killed 59 Hindus, triggering days of arson and killing by rampaging Hindu mobs throughout the western state of Gujarat, about 60,000 homeless Muslims in refugee camps across this city have struggled to resume their lives. But many say they are discovering that life here will never be the way it once was.  Two Muslims were killed here two weeks ago; one of them, the husband of a Hindu woman, was stabbed to death and his body set on fire.

"This madness has to stop," Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said last week when he made his first visit to Gujarat since the violence erupted. "Fire cannot be put out by fire." Though scattered attacks continue, carried out by Hindus and by Muslims, the violence scarcely approaches the level of a few weeks ago. But beneath the relative calm, the city remains fearful and suspicious.

Relief workers and the Gujarat state government are forming Hindu-Muslim "peace cadres" in every neighborhood to hasten the process of returning Muslims to their homes. But many of those in the camps have requested new land away from the charred remains of their old homes. Even Muslims whose houses are still habitable guard their neighborhood with stones, sticks and gasoline bombs, saying that each day brings new rumors and threats and each night carries the fear of fresh attacks. Anonymous leaflets carrying inflammatory threats against Muslims are slipped under doors.

One such flier calls on Hindus not to do business with Muslims or hire them as workers. Relief workers said that while such fliers have been distributed after every Hindu-Muslim riot in Gujarat, this time the pressure by Hindu radical groups on employers has made it more difficult for them to welcome Muslim workers back. . "When I called my Hindu boss, he said he had hired Hindu workers in my place," said Mohammed Shafi, 18, who was one of three Muslim tailors in a Hindu-run garment factory. "He said some groups were threatening him not to take us back."

Bajrang Dal, a Hindu nationalist group whose members are accused of attacking Muslims in Ahmadabad, denies having a hand in the circulation of the fliers. But Haresh Bhatt, vice president of the group, said the threat of economic boycott only shows "general anger of the Hindus." "The Muslims use the country's resources, so we expect them to behave and not provoke Hindus," he said, pointing to the Feb. 27 train attack. "This is only an economic boycott. It could get worse if they don't change their ways."

Fearing more violence and discrimination, many Muslims are slowly and quietly erasing any signs of their religious identity that might make them vulnerable. Nameplates bearing Muslim names have been removed from the doors of homes. Some women have stopped wearing the black burqa, a full-length veil, when they go out to buy vegetables. A few Muslims have even hung boards outside their homes saying "Hindus Live Here." Some drivers of auto-rickshaws have wiped from their vehicles images of minarets and the Islamic crescent moon.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/54032.html