On The Road Blog
Healing After the Communal Riots Continues in Mumbai
- By Vineeta Gupta on July 30th, 2010
- Category: Blog, South Asia
Mumbai, India – I landed in Mumbai amid the newspaper headline, “Monsoon chaos returns to Mumbai, disrupts normal life.” India’s climate, mythology, romantic poetry, literature, Bollywood songs—all bear the influence of the monsoon. Although the country’s infrastructure has developed at a rapid pace since the economic liberalization of the 1990s, it is still inadequate to accommodate the diversity and volume of transportation. The old means of transportation still exist, while new methods have been added. While driving, a turn can take you from a six-lane highway onto a flooded, narrow lane with open sewage inlets in the middle of the road. The mix of ox carts, camels, donkeys, rickshaws, and the latest-model sports cars sharing the roads can be amusing or prove challenging to deal with. And this new jumble and high volume of vehicles has added another dimension to monsoons in India—traffic jams.
Making my way through flooded slums and pouring rain, I visited the areas served by the programs of our grantee partners in Mumbai. I met Rama, director of Society for Awareness, Harmony and Equal Rights (SAHER), at the group’s office in Jogeshwari, and we walked together to meet with the program participants, while discussing theories behind the theft of her laptop that morning. Jogeshwari, a Mumbai suburb with a predominantly Muslim population, continues to feel the aftereffects of the communal violence that happened in 1992 following the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh. During the riots, there was a complete breakdown of law and order. The Srikrishna Commission, established by the government to probe the riots, noted, “The evidence before the Commission indicates that the police personnel were found actively participating in riots, communal incidents or incidents of looting, arson and so on. The Commission strongly recommends that Government take strict action against them.” Many youth, including Sheikh Masood Akhtar, the founder and director of SAHER, were victims of police atrocities. Instead of loosing hope, Masood transformed his pain and suffering into a lifelong commitment to work on religious harmony, starting in his own neighborhood of Jogeshwari.
Imtiaz, the program coordinator at SAHER, shared his experiences and recovery with me. He was 18 at the time of the riots and was arrested by the Mumbai police on false charges. The fear and devastation is still vivid in his eyes and motivates him to do whatever he can to ensure that it never happens again. He patiently worked within his family to allow female family members to join him in his goal of peace building and healing in his community. Today, his wife is also a volunteer and helps him run the programs for youth in the area.
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