Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Images
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Explaining Variation in Violence: An Introduction
- 2 Peace and Violence: Concepts and Theory
- 3 The Political Logic of Violence: Anti-Muslim Pogrom in Gujarat
- 4 Ahmedabad
- 5 Spatial Configuration: Variation in Violence across Neighbourhoods
- 6 Monitoring and Control in Two Peaceful Neighbourhoods
- 7 So Near, and Yet So Far: Group Relations between Victims and Perpetrators of Violence
- 8 The BJP's Muslim Supporters in Ahmedabad
- 9 Ethnic Violence: Connecting the Macro with the Micro
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Monitoring and Control in Two Peaceful Neighbourhoods
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2019
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Images
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Explaining Variation in Violence: An Introduction
- 2 Peace and Violence: Concepts and Theory
- 3 The Political Logic of Violence: Anti-Muslim Pogrom in Gujarat
- 4 Ahmedabad
- 5 Spatial Configuration: Variation in Violence across Neighbourhoods
- 6 Monitoring and Control in Two Peaceful Neighbourhoods
- 7 So Near, and Yet So Far: Group Relations between Victims and Perpetrators of Violence
- 8 The BJP's Muslim Supporters in Ahmedabad
- 9 Ethnic Violence: Connecting the Macro with the Micro
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The sudden appearance of a vividly coloured building in the middle of a dreary slum neighbourhood takes me by surprise. This is Shamshad's house or ‘don ka makaan’ (don's mansion), as they call it in Ram Rahim Nagar. It is a mansion indeed in comparison with other houses in the neighbourhood: two-storey high with freshly painted walls. I am being told that one of Shamshad's two cars is parked inside and the other outside in a shed opposite Santoshnagar. Most striking are the three mosaic–stone benches, overlooking the window in the courtyard. Anyone familiar with city municipalities in Gujarat would know that these benches were donations by municipal corporators and MLAs to their respective wards and constituencies from their welfare budget, with their name engraved on it in Gujarati. It was a gift to their constituency voters in exchange of their votes. What's not familiar is to find them inside the residential premises of a voter's house. Three benches in Shamshad's courtyard, each bearing names of the ward's three municipal corporators—this was an unabashed signal of who's in charge.
—Fieldnotes, 15 November 2011Describing the distinctive southern culture of the United States, where specific cultural traditions legitimate violence, John Reed (1982: 147; emphasis in original) had said, ‘Sometimes people are violent because they want to be and there is nothing to stop them. But sometimes people are violent, even when they don't want to be, because there will be penalties [disgrace is a very effective one] for not being violent.’ In the days following the death of karsevaks, many Hindus believed they were obligated to defend the ‘lost honour’ of the community. It was the coward who dared protest. ‘Some of us were paid to attack Muslims, others like me had to do it because everyone around me was doing it … we didn't want to be disapproved by our own relatives, Raheelben,’ Jagdish, a Hindu rioter from Parikshitlal Nagar had told me in 2015.
In times of such opportunistic violence, when neighbourhoods go against the grain and stay peaceful, solidarity among the residents becomes implicit. It is assumed that every individual belonging to the group, shares the group interest and behaves in accordance with their group norms.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Keeping the PeaceSpatial Differences in Hindu–Muslim Violence in Gujarat in 2002, pp. 116 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019