Godhra

I took a trip to Godhra which is where the Gujarat riots began. The riots actually began on the train station in Godhra itself, before spreading to other towns in Gujarat, and it was eerie getting off the train and being in that same location. I don't know much about Gujarat, so whatever I write will just be a superficial impression of it. But 8 years after the riots, Godhra strikes me as a depressed place, still scarred with trauma.

For those who want to know more about the riots, law and philosophy professor Martha Nussbaum devoted the opening chapter in her most recent book on Gujarat on the politics of intervention (or rather lack of state intervention and government complicity in on-the-ground violence). The book is called the The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future.

At Godhra, I visited a school in a poor Muslim area, an initiative that was begun after the riots. The school is struggling now to obtain funds and just keep afloat. Initially, it had a larger vision of existing as a community center, a place where people might gather for events, discussions...especially the women in the community who might have a space for themselves beyond the familial, but that is now a distant vision. Like most sites where sudden violence and trauma has taken place and brought in aid and activism, the energy and commitment dies down and the local residents are left to sort through how to manage...

Godhra brought religious or what is termed as 'communal' violence to the forefront again in India. I sometimes wonder how much of these conflicts are rooted in religion as such or are rather just expressions of some other form of discontent.

On the way to Godhra, I went to a Kabir festival in the nearby town of Baroda. Kabir is a 15th century mystical poet whose songs and poems continue to be recited today in India. Kabir denounced formal religion as such, especially the caste system, advocating for a simple path to oneness with the divine. At the festival, a folk musician and devotee of Kabir had sung some of his songs, only to be later attacked by a circle of right-wing extremists who were insulted by the content of the musician's message. Luckily, the musician was not too hurt and decided the experience will not stop him from continuing to sing Kabir's songs. That experience was a proper introduction to the politics of religious violence in Gujarat, and in India more generally, showing how real it continues to be.