Separation of communities is common across India, but nowhere is it as systematised as it has become in the western state of Gujarat.
When it comes to Hindu-Muslim relations, Gujarat is a place of paradox. The state’s pro-business leadership has created opportunities for entrepreneurs of all creeds; yet religious prejudice and segregation are deeply, and even legally, engrained.
The Muslim neighbourhood of Juhapura, pictured above, is a case in point.
The area is a sprawling Muslim township of roughly 400,000 people within Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city. Here, filthy slum streets rub against smart new apartment blocks and enclaves, as even members of the community’s fast-growing urban middle class find it difficult to buy housing in areas dominated by Hindus.
The situation is perpetuated by a property law unique to the state, which restricts Muslims and Hindus from selling property to each other in “sensitive” areas.
The law, introduced in 1991 to avert an exodus or distress sales in neighbourhoods hit by inter-religious unrest, has created ghettos such as Juhapura and a sense of apartheid in some urban areas.
14 May 2014. AHMEDABAD, India. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood
The situation in Gujarat is especially significant because Narendra Modi, the man who ruled the state for more than 12 years, is now India’s prime minister.
The situation in Gujarat is especially significant because Narendra Modi, the man who ruled the state for more than 12 years, is now India’s prime minister.
Modi (pictured above in a poster near the Muslim neighbourhood of Juhapura) became chief minister of Gujarat in 2001.
The 63-year-old Hindu nationalist surrounded himself with technocrats – and also ministers and advisers who promote “Hindutva”, a belief in the dominance of Hinduism.
But while Modi’s critics depict him as an autocratic Hindu supremacist, Modi himself insists he is a moderate who will create a prosperous India for people of all creeds.
Yet Modi’s record in his home state is clouded by religious riots in 2002, when 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in a frenzy of mob violence.
Yet Modi’s record in his home state is clouded by religious riots in 2002, when 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in a frenzy of mob violence.
In the image above a Muslim man named Sayeed Khan Pathan poses inside his house, which was burnt and damaged in the unrest.
Modi still struggles to shake off the perception he did not do enough to stop the bloodshed, despite a Supreme Court investigation that found no case against him and his own insistence he did all he could to keep the peace.
