This year is being celebrated as the ?Year of Urban Development? in Gujarat. The government is busy with a beautification drive, which has also reached Godhra, the epicentre of the communal violence of 2002. Part of the drive to change the image of the city is to rid it of illegal encroachments occupying pavements and spilling over into the roads.

Demolitions have come early to the predominantly Muslim areas of Rani Masjid, Maulana Azad Road, Polan Bazaar, Vejalpur and Satpul, as well the Hindu localities at Nava Bazaar, Civil Lines and Gidwani Road. Scrap vendors, cycle-repair shops, food vendors and the like have been badly affected. The livelihood of close to 3,000 families, some Hindu but a large majority Muslim, have been destroyed.

Demolitions are always hard, but are made more unbearable when laced with seeming bias. Shops on one side of the road have been done away with, but those on the opposite side and a little ahead lie untouched. Here they belong to the majority community or are owned by people with the means to bribe the authorities. Muslim vendors complain that government officials go around in targeted areas in rickshaws with a loudspeaker, announcing that all encroachments will be removed on a given date but in their area, no effort was made to forewarn them. The authorities counter that the Muslim community is rowdy and admit they dispense with giving notice of the demolition, as it would only create problems. Also, alternate arrangements have been offered to Hindu vendors, but nothing to Muslims.

Uneasy peace

The absence of conflict since the 2002 communal violence does not mean that Gujarat is at peace with itself. People are polarized and defensive and the Muslim community feels vulnerable.

All their means of livelihood seem to be getting choked off. Since the communal killings, the areas have been starved of electricity to such an extent that these hard-pressed communities have had to battle in court for three years just to get an order for the supply of electricity. But there has been little change on the ground as cables continue to be cut and generators mysteriously get broken and cannot be repaired. But right next door in the non-Muslim areas there is no problem with electricity at all.

At Vejalpur road, shops and houses on private-owned land have also been demolished. To prove that the land belongs to them, the residents have shown the authorities maps, site plans and titles but that made no difference when the bulldozers came anyway.

Deliberate targeting

The Muslims? sense of exclusion is heightened by their experiences in dealing with the administration. Anyone making a query or complaint is openly called thief and traitor. The answer to any request or complaint about civic amenities is often: ?if you don?t like it here go to Pakistan.? Coincidentally, the localities of the demolition are the same as those of the battle over electricity. The combination of power cuts and demolition has landed them in severe debt or a state of utmost penury.

This is just one story. In Godhra, there are hundreds more about how people are being deliberately targeted.

People know what is being done and why. They believe there is no fair hearing to be had anywhere up or down the line. Nevertheless, in the face of so much evidence, that the very people entrusted with assuring them their rights are denying them the same, a few soldier on. They believe that this is their home, and a thousand people saying otherwise will not change that. They believe that someday they will get the respect and equality that every citizen of our democracy is entitled to.