HMEDABAD/VADODARA: After purchasing hockey sticks and baseball bats to save their homes and hearths, the hapless majority community of Gujarat has been reduced to wearing religion on their sleeves.
Overnight, homes, shops and business establishments have sprouted posters that announce which community the owner and proprieter belongs to. Jai Shri Ram and posters of Hindu gods have now become tickets to survival for those who live in mixed localities.
The precaution is well thought of. When rioters started burning shops in Ahmedabad, owner of Mehfil Restaurant could not help cursing himself. In a last ditch attempt, he put a board outside his shop, which said: ‘‘Jai Shri Ram. Proprietor-partner RG Singh and Balwant Singh.’’ Mehfil still stands intact.
On the main Samjuba Hospital Road of Bapunagar, the all-glass Bajaj showroom was spared only because of Shri Ram written prominently on the glass. The phenomenon is most pronounced in Naroda-Patia, where Hindus and Muslims live cheek-by- jowl in a labyrinth of shanties.
Since the gruesome massacre of February 27 in which 75 people were killed, only a handful of Hindu families remain. The fear of being caught in the crossfire drove away the rest. Those who stay have no option; and they are letting the world know they are Hindus.
There is no way one can miss a Hindu home here. The difference is marked. Houses bedecked with posters of gods and goddesses stand intact amid blackened shells that were once homes.
Elsewhere, while ‘‘Jai Shri Ram’’ is the most favoured mantra to survival, a combination of vegetables, apparently, does the trick as well.
In fact, as the riots ended, many shopkeepers sprinted for chillies and lemon - a time-tested combination to hang outside shops. Garments shopsalong C G Road - with names that could raise an eyebrow - all sported strings of chillies hanging at the entrance like so many wind chimes.
The humble mango leaf is suddenly in demand as well. After an automobile showroom on the Sarkhej-Gandhinagar highway was burnt down, Satnambhai, despite lacking a specific name for his shop, lined the entrance of his garage with mango leaves.
Others have fallen back on simple symbols. Fresh swastikas, the symbolic Om and Jai Shri Ganesh surfaced overnight on rusted shutters of mechanics and greengrocers at Naroda, Bapunagar and Memnagar.
In Vadodara, a number of houses have Ram inscribed on doors and shopkeepers have hung boards proclaiming: ‘‘This shop belongs to a Hindu’’. Others have resorted to decorating doorways with coconuts on a kalash near their doorsteps. In Karelibaug, even housing societies have pasted posters ofHindu gods and goddesses at the main gates.