If the ‘violence’ around the post-earthquake relief and rehabilitation was ‘invisible’, the violence in ongoing communal conflagration is there for everyone to see. The Sangh Parivar and the state apparatus have once again coalesced, this time to loot, burn and murder, and then shield each other. Citing the Godhra carnage, the entrepreneur class and burgeoning Hindu middle class found no difficulty in justifying open violence, including the lawlessness of the state. It is significant that in the private sphere, the same class has perpetrated violence within their own family in the form of foeticide and infanticide. The 2001 Census reveals that the latest sex ratio in urban Gujarat is 879 females per 1000 males, the lowest figure in the last hundred years. It goes on to add: ‘The overall sex ratio is affected by migration from rural to urban areas in search of employment, education, etc. The sex ratio in the population category of 0-6 years is, however, relatively immune to such bias/aberrations and can be said to be a relatively stable indicator. On this count also, the state of Gujarat has fared badly as the 0-6 year sex ratio has decreased from 928 in 1991 to only 878 in 2001.’ The five worst blocks in this category are Unjha, Mansa, Visnagar, Mehsana and Prantij where the number of females ranges from 781 to 734. The same blocks witnessed communal violence in varying degrees.
Achyut Yagnik, ‘The pathology of Gujarat’ (2002)
