(The July, 1999) incident of nearly 200 families of the minority community being driven out of their homes from the Juhapura area on the outskirts of Ahmedabad was the latest in a series of such events since the BJP returned to power in March (1998).

In the statistics of crime records, nearly 900 local refugees' leaving their home, hearth, cattle, chicken and livelihood would not be listed as riot victims.

They are actually victims of an undercurrent of communal tension that has been building up in the State over the last one-year or so. These poor people were driven out of their homes by a mob of outsiders and some policemen ... The ... incident was sparked off by stone pelting by some outsiders ... Some organised groups were behind the mischief.

The saga of such incidents (began) immediately after the present Keshubhai Patel Government returned to power in March 1998. Almost all such incidents can be attributed to the Sangh Parivar, the ideological guide of the ruling BJP, usurping for itself the role of moral policing over the people in general and the minorities in particular.

Although there have not be many large-scale riots in the State after the worst spell of 1992-93, the continuance of low-level communal tensions almost all over the State belies the ruling party's claim that their tenure is free of riots and social strife. However, all incidents of minority bashing witnessed in Gujarat for last one year may not be categorised as communal, riots as per the police' definitions. And rightly so, as they were very close to one-sided bashing of minorities at the hands of the Sangh Parivar elements who enjoy a certain degree of immunity from the law and order machinery.

The situation was best described by the State Director of Police last year, when he attributed the rise in violent incidents to what he called the "increased belligerence of the Sangh Parivar after the BJP came to power both in the Centre and the State." Within weeks of the Keshubhai Patel Government coming to power, the Sangh Parivar's moral police disrupted a beauty pageant ...

In June last year, the liberal campus life-style came under attack when the students of the prestigious Centre for Environmental, Planning and Technology (CEPT) were severely beaten up with the instructions "Jhansi Ki Rani ho, Madonna mat bano."

In July, copies of the Bible were burnt in a Rajkot school ... The Sangh Parivar's moral policing did not even spare the dead. An old man's corpse was exhumed from a cemetery and thrown out ...

Around the same time, more than 50 (Muslim) families of Radhikpur village were hounded out of their homes as punishment for a case of elopement. By the time the families could return under police escort, their homes, standing crops; cattle stock, shops and business set-ups were either in a shambles or completely destroyed.

Then in October, a Minority congregation in Vadodara was attacked ... In Baroda, an economic blockade of the minority community was attempted in retaliation to another case of juvenile. elopement.

Moreover, in Surat, the Bajrang Dal had taken upon itself the task of implementing the State's prohibition laws ...

... In December several churches in the tribal district of Dangs were torched with impunity while the administration insisted that the structures never existed in their revenue records. Only widespread media and international condemnation of the matter brought an end to the ... ergy. And then it was the turn of the Muslims, who were asked not to slaughter animals on Bakrid as the day also happened to be Manavir Jayanti. This issue led to police deployment in all the major cities (and) a Rapid Action Force (RAF) flag march in Vadodara.

The government's claim that these incidents are not statistically classified as riots or communal is true, but there is no denying the fact that all such events (constitute) violation of constitutional rights. (Souzce: Rathin Das in The Hindustan Times, 2 August, 1991)