Narratives of Segregation: Ghettos of Ahmedabad

Abstract

The portrayal of Ahmedabad as one of the best cities in India blatantly celebrates the exclusion of lower caste Dalits1 and religious minorities, as manifested in their increasing ghettoization. This paper sheds light on how discourse in popular media supports dominant narratives and examines how ghettos are constructed and reinforced through state complicity. I focus on the growth of the ghetto of Juhapura in Ahmedabad and draw parallels between the Indian caste system and that of the apartheid system in South Africa. Further, I examine the responses to riots and related legislative tools, such as the Disturbed Areas Act, that perpetuated ghetto enclaves through a measure I call premeditated ghettoization. I emphasize the need to distinguish between de facto residential separateness and sites of apartheid urbanism as a step toward safeguarding the needs of the vulnerable communities that reside in these ghettos. In the 17 years since the 2002 Gujarat riots, a generation of Ahmedabad residents has grown up in the different administrative divisions of the city, as well as in its ghettos – a generation that has effectively been prevented from interacting with the ‘other.’ There is a need for narratives that speak of this unquantifiable loss.