Word: gujarat
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...order to counter Islamic terrorism, we should match it with Hindu terrorism," an unsigned editorial in the Shiv Sena's official newspaper said. Hindu right-wing organizations have been blamed for virulent anti-Christian violence in two states in recent months, and many critics would label the 2002 Gujarat riots and the tearing down of the Babri Masjid in 1992 - which first propelled the BJP to national prominence - as acts of Hindu extremist violence as well. Hindu right-wing parties have used Islamist terrorism to play upon the majority community's resentment at a sense of persecution by the minority...
...That was the disquieting reality India awoke to on July 27, after a coordinated series of bomb blasts rocked Ahmedabad, an elegant, ancient city in the western state of Gujarat. Coming just a day after eight blasts hit Bangalore, the center of India's thriving technology industry, the attack seemed, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said during a visit to Ahmedabad, to target India's cosmopolitan, secular social fabric. The whole country seemed to sense the threat, as India's major cities immediately set up checkpoints and metal detectors. At least 17 more unexploded bombs were defused on July...
...Gujarat riots, and Modi in particular, have become a rallying cry for extremist groups, who have drowned out the voices of moderation among India's Muslims. "We have a completely extraordinary situation post-2002 in Gujarat," says Harsh Mander, a former civil-service officer who works with victims of the riots. Other spasms of sectarian violence in India have been followed by "some kind of healing process," he says, with official remorse and legal action. But six years after the Gujarat riots, only a handful of cases have led to convictions. The Indian Supreme Court forced the state's government...
...festering anger over Gujarat serves as irresistible fodder for extremist groups who direct their message to India's increasingly disaffected Muslims. A federal report released in 2006 found that the country's 138 million Muslims are poorer than other Indians, less educated and vastly under-represented in India's largest employer, the railways, and its civil service. While many political parties pledge to defend India's Muslims against Hindu nationalism, they rarely deliver promised roads, jobs and schools. "The disaffection of Indian Muslims is not any different in its quality from the disaffection of other parts of the underclass, whether...
...original version of this article incorrectly referred to Ahmedabad as the capital of the Indian state of Gujarat. While Ahmedabad is the commercial and cultural center of the state, Gandhinagar is the actual capital...