AHMADABAD, India -- By day, Jaimin Gandhi is a young, ambitious computer student who dreams of making India the software superpower of the new century. By night, he pursues a passion more deeply rooted in the past. Gandhi and other Hindus march through the streets of this western city, protecting their religion, they say, from shadowy foes.
More than two months after an attack by Muslims on Hindus here in Gujarat state triggered India's deadliest religious violence in a decade, the killing continues. With the official death toll already exceeding 900, with the majority of victims Muslims, local authorities and other observers say Gujarat's sectarian clashes may be entering a new and possibly more deadly phase as both sides amass stockpiles of weapons.
On the streets of Ahmadabad, the state's largest city, the angry bands of Hindus and Muslims who zealously guard their neighborhoods in tense, night-long vigils now are armed not only with stones, sticks and torches but also with acid-filled light bulbs and crude bombs. Police have found homemade "mini-cannons" and pistols in Hindu and Muslim neighborhoods. Officials said the manufacture of bombs and pistols has become a cottage industry for jobless youths.
Many local officials said the bombs, made of firecrackers, nails, knife blades and glass, have become their principal concern. Ten people were injured Tuesday when a bomb exploded on a bus in the town of Lunavada. In Vadodara, a police sweep unearthed bombs that contained gelatin sticks, a particularly powerful form of dynamite used in mining.
"This adds an element of terrorism, if you look at explosives and weapons that have been found," said Ashok Narayan, secretary of Gujarat's Home Ministry. "In a communal riot people try to settle old scores. But when such weapons are used in blasts it is dangerous, as you are killing people at random."
As each side hears fresh reports that bombs and explosives have been found in the other side's neighborhoods, the divide between Hindus and Muslims grows wider.
"Whenever curfew is lifted for a few hours, Muslims go looking for new explosives rather than food," Janak Thakkar, 20, a Hindu, said as he served water to thirsty policemen one night this week.
"We have not slept a single night in the past two months," said Yusuf Khan, 19, a Muslim who was parading with friends in the night, nervously watching for the shadow of approaching policemen. "They are trying to finish off Muslims in Gujarat. They will force us to take up weapons."
With the killings midway through their third month and showing no sign of ending soon, some Gujaratis say the damage to fragile Hindu-Muslim relations can never be undone, and that what happens in Gujarat will determine India's course.
"If we don't crush them now on the streets every night, Islamic fundamentalism would rear its head elsewhere and there will be many more incidents like the Godhra train massacre," said Virendra Shah, a Hindu hotelier, referring to the Feb. 27 attack that led to retaliatory riots by Hindus.
Since India gained independence in 1947, communal violence has flared periodically even as governments have grappled with how to balance the interests of the country's diverse religious, ethnic and regional groups. The constitution established secularism as one of India's guiding principles, but today 84 percent of India's 1 billion people are Hindus, the national government is led by a Hindu nationalist party, and many Indians question whether secularism is workable -- or ever was.
"Secularism in India is a bogus word," said Shah. "It only cheats us. Instead of equal rights to all religions, it has come to mean special rights for Muslims in India. The definition needs to be changed."
The train attack, Shah maintained, has embittered Hindus toward India's entire Muslim community of 130 million. "The old concepts don't apply anymore," he said.
"India's secularism is seriously damaged in Gujarat," said Qutubuddin Sheikh, 57, a Muslim taxi driver who has not been back on the road since the rioting began. "They want to establish a Hindu nation here. But I am not going anywhere. They have to deal with the fact that this is my land too."
Such passions play out every night in Ahmadabad's Kalpur neighborhood, a maze of narrow, winding alleys flanked by old, ornately carved houses where Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries. Streets strewn with broken glass, bombs and stones illustrate how distrust has replaced the decades of fragile peace that proximity had imposed.
Kalpur is wracked every day by rioting, which is followed by long, nervous nights. Hindu men gather on the steps of an old temple and Muslim youths huddle under a clock tower while bombs explode in the background and edgy policemen fire tear gas into dark lanes.
"This is the border," said Gandhi, the computer student, pointing to the line dividing the Hindu side of Kalpur from the Muslim side. "We have to be vigilant. We have tolerated the Muslims for too long."
Across the "border," Ikram Beg, a 38-year-old cloth merchant, told a group of Muslim teenagers to be vigilant. For Beg, this is a decisive battle.
"Gujarat has become the laboratory for Hindu nationalism," said Beg. "If we can defeat them here, India will be saved."