Gujarat riots 2002

I am going to write about my experience during 2002 Gujarat Godhra riots. Me and few of my colleagues were at Ahmedabad during September 2001 to April 2002 doing some project for Gujarath State transport corporation (GSRTC).

Ahmedabad can be divided to old city and new city areas. Sabarmati river seperates old from new. We were staying at Vastrapur (Ahmedabad outskirt) and working at Kalupur (old city).

It was 28th of February, another normal day in very dry Gujarath Summer. Ahmedabad public transport was very pathetic then. AMTC(municiple transport) buses were so old and worn out, you never knew where will they breakdown. Lot of times, we had to switch buses because the earlier one just died at the middle of the road or died at the (traffic) lights. One of our local colleague (Sanjay) had a car and sometime we used to travel in his car. We (me, Sanjiv, Vipul and Navin) used to travel together as we used to stay in the same rented apartment.

GSRTC office is a old, run down government office where very majority of the folks used to just come to work and sit in the chair whole day and do nothing. Our favorite was the 'drawings guy' who used to sit just outside our office. He had a very fixed routine. Come to office by 10 AM, light an incense stick and keep it on the table, stare at the roof till 12:30. Eat lunch, come back and play carrom till 2:00 PM. Take a small nap and then again stare at roof till 4:30. He did that every day for six months and may be doing the same even now! Whole office used to sleep or play carrom during lunch break. I am not saying that everybody used to do that, majority used to follow the routine. There were some really talented guys who used to complete whole department's work.

Coming back to that fateful day, we went to eat our lunch at nearby low cost (and low quality) restaurant. We heard some news about Sabarmathi express train fire at Godhra train station. As usual we didn't give much thought about that. We were busy doing our work. There were lot of commotion outside office and we thought, may be Gujarath Government had annouced some pay commission implementation or something similar.

That day office was empty earlier than expected . And one old gentlemen suggested that we go home early as  there was some trouble in the city. We were all travelling in Sanjay's car and came across some charred buses, cars etc. We were only curious to see what was going on, totally ignorant about the dangerous conditions we were in. We reached our apartments safely (thanks to Sanjay's car). Even now I dred the thought, what would have happened if we had chosen to go by public transport.

When we reached home, as usual we turned on TV and put the news channel. Because TV was the only form of entertainment we had. We saw ghastly images of Sabarmathi Express train fire, riots every where in the state of Gujarath and even in the heart of Ahmedabad city.

We weren't too sure if we should go to work next day or not. All Hindu organization had given call for statewide bandh (strike) and conditions were explosive for communal riots to occur. We were staying in relatively safer part of city. Ahmedabad Judges bungalows were just across the road. But our PM insisted that we report to work to avoid the timesheet default or something like that. Reluctantly we agreed to go. We let him go ahead of us and came up with some phony excuse to go later. We reached local bus station and were waiting for the bus. Suddenly police patrol party and shouted at the people standing at the bus stand, we all went home (thankfully). We stayed glued to TV. Cable operators were showing only news channels. We could see smoke billowing from multiple places in the city. After a while, may be around 11:00 AM we saw smoke billowing from the hotel one block away from our apartment building. That was one of the posh hotels and miscreants had set that hotel on fire. Sanjiv and some of us went to see that burning hotel. Immediately blue uniformed RAF (Rapid Action Force) team arrived, all the crowd dispersed. I saw couple with two kids travelling on the scooter to take a look at the burning hotel. People were streaming to that location as if it was a picning spot.

We went home and watched TV for whole day. Thankfully our lunch carrier brought us lunch and dinner. We did not dare to go out of the building whole day. In the evening there were rumours that people from other community will attach our area. Vastrapur area was predominantly Hindu area then. We had one of the High court Judge stay in our society and he spoke to commissioner of police. As usual police suggested that it is a rumour and not get bothered by these things.  But ladies (aunties) did not want to take any risk, so they wanted us to stay at the building gate to provide 'protection'. Soon we had a question, what if rioters really attached our society? We were all thinking about how quickly we can run back to our apartment. Navin said he has come armed - with small knife which did not even cut onion in our apartment. We all had good laugh.
Next day was no better, we had decided that we will not be going out until the conditions improved in the city. Our PM was stuck in some of his relative's house closer to Maninagar.

We played cricket inside apartment to kill time as only thing they were showing in television of news channels. We went to local shop to see if we can get anything. All were closed but our tiffin provider lady sent our lunch, so it was another lazy day. TV reports were relentless regarding stabbings, looting, arson and general law and order situation. 

Day three was very difficult as lunch provider only sent few tiffin boxes and we just had to manage.  Also we ran out cooking gas and there was no way to get refill. Some shops had started opening though everything was in short supply. As bread was being prepared in old city area, there was absolutely shortage of bread. They were rationing milk, groceries etc.

For dinner during night, our tiffin provider could not food. We ate whatever we could find. There were couple of maggie packets but there was no way to cook that. Navin ate raw and I tried too. It was impossible to eat raw. Sanjeev or Vipul came up with idea of using water heating coil to heat water and use that hot water cook maggie. That idea became instant hit and we ate our 'most delicious meal'

On day four, we decided to go to our office as we were bored to core sitting at home watching just news channels.   Everybody was tense during travel as we did not know what to expect. By god's grace we reached office and started with daily routine.  For next couple of months (March and April), law and order situation swung everyday. One day we went to nearby eatery for lunch and suddenly lot of folks started running. We did not wanted to check and instant reaction was to run back to our project office. Later in the day we were told there were stabbings right outside that eatery.   Another day we had decided to leave office early (by 4PM) as it was Friday, somehow we managed to reach our apartment on time. Everyday first thing we did after reaching apartment was to watch local news channels. We realized that there was big riot and stabbings right at the bus stand from where we had boarded our bus one and half hour earlier. We all thanked our Lord for looking after us. 

It was someday stabbing at Kalupur or fire at Sindhi market or some other disturbance. Somehow we managed to survive and we were constantly nagging our manager/management to suspend the project so that we could return back to the safety of Mumbai. But our PM wanted us to complete the work and wind down the project after that.  I was looking forward to my marriage day on 1st May. I even had nightmares where I had reached our hometown well past 1st May.  As we had finished requirement study phase, made presentations, submitted report to client, there was no clarity on next phase we finally decided to return to Mumbai by night train. We paid double the money to rickshawala to take us to Ahmedabad railway station from our apartment. Riot had affected people from lower rung of society very badly. They were ready to do any odd job to get through the day. We had one person pestering us to polish our shoes. He cut his charge to paltry one rupee or so.  I realized that he may had a decent job prior to riots and now trying do anything to earn few bucks. After so many years, I am unable to forget the helplessness we saw in his eyes.
Based on our interaction with some of our local colleagues, there were lot of reason for the riots and scale of violence. It seems almost every year there were stone pelting during annual Jagannath rath yatra, divide between rich and poor, old and new city contributed to resentment among people. That resentment added fuel to riots and vested interested in different communities utilized the situation. It is hard to explain why only one hotel among tens of the hotels was burnt down when everything remained intact.
It was very difficult time and teaches us the lesson that we have to prepared for any difficult situations and there is light at the end of the tunnel.