Ahmadabad Riots 1985

1985; March 18–25; April 15–29; 1986; July 9–14: Ahmedabad (Gujarat) 81% Hindus, 14% Muslims

Chief Minister of Gujarat: Madhavsinh Solanki, Congress Party, June 1980–August 1985, Amarsinh Chaudhury, Congress Party, August 1985–December 1989

A series of communal troubles erupted in the city of Ahmedabad (Gujarat), claiming more than 200 lives. The violence that engulfed Ahmedabad in February was not, at first, of a communal nature: it was linked, rather, to the anti-"reservation" protests of upper-caste Hindus against the implementation of quotas for the Backward Classes in the public and education sectors. On March 18, disturbances took on a communal cast when Muslim storekeepers refused to close their shops in response to a bandh call. In April, policemen retaliating for the death of a police head-constable helped rioters set fire to Muslim houses. On April 22, the police burned down the office of the newspaper Gujarat Samachar (which had been critical of their activities). Twenty Muslims were killed in shooting by police. The Indira Garib Nagar slum was attacked by an armed upper-caste Hindu mob with the police’s complicity on April 22. The unofficial toll rose to one hundred dead.

After the difficult year of 1985, Hindu–Muslim communal riots erupted again on 9 July 1986. The "Shah Bano controversy" had polarized the atmosphere along communal lines. Troubles began on July 9 when stones were allegedly thrown from Muslim houses onto a Rath Yatra (chariot procession). The parade participants were armed with lathis (sticks), trishuls (traditional trident), and kerosene; and were shouting anti-Muslim slogans. A riot erupted, claiming 59 lives.

***(Engineer, 1985a); ***(Engineer, 1985b); ***(S. Patel, 1985); ***(Engineer, 1986); ***(Ghosh, 1987: 163–164; 265); ***(Saksena, 1990: 96); **(Varshney and Wilkinson, 2004, database); *(Rajeshwari, 2004)