 "Imamkhan Pathan")
Fifty-something Leelaben sells fish in one of the busiest bazaars of Juhapura, a Muslim neighbourhood in the western fringes of Ahmedabad, about seven kilometres from the city centre. Business is brisk. The nearby shopkeepers tell me that she, a non-Muslim, has been selling fish over here for almost 40 years now.
"I used to live in a house right here in Juhapura itself. My five children were all born here," Leelaben answers queries as she cleans and cuts fish for her customers. "I moved out after the 2002 riots, not because I faced any issues at Juhapura, but because my relatives (read in-laws of children) had reservations about visiting our home here."
The family sold its house and bought one in the nearby Hindu neighbourhood of Guptanagar, but kept up its business in Juhapura. Leelaben's decision to not relocate her business out of Juhapura stems from sheer economic sense: she cannot sell fish in a Hindu neighbourhood in vegetarian-dominated Gujarat.
Several non-Muslim vendors go about their businesses unmolested in the narrow, dingy lanes of Juhapura, among Asia's largest Muslim ghettos. But for outsiders, it is another world - a no-go area.
Such is the polarisation that a first information report on a brawl in the nearby police station of Rakhiyal calls Vatva (another Muslim neighbourhood) Pakistan! Juhapura is commonly called mini-Pakistan, which shares "Wagah-border" along the road that divides it from the Hindu-dominated Vejalpur. From the police to the common man on the street, this moniker is mundane and almost a normal part of small talk.
The insinuation is clear: the residents of Juhapura do not belong here. That makes many see superficial differences as unbridgeable civilisational gaps. "It is the stark cultural differences between the vegetarian Hindus and the non-vegetarian Muslims, the marked difference in their dress codes that leads to a certain feeling of mutual exclusion between the two communities," says a senior government official who lives nearby.
A working paper from the Centre for Urban Equity of CEPT University of Ahmedabad, City Profile: Ahmedabad, mentions: "A clear divide exists today between these Muslim-dominated areas and the adjacent Hindu-dominated areas in Vejalpur, and the space between the two areas is commonly referred to as the "border" by both sides. The Hindu societies adjacent to Juhapura have built high compound walls, making the divide visible and stark."
It wasn't meant to be like this. Juhapura's development as a residential area started after the 1973 floods in the Sabarmati rendered 2,250 slum dwellers homeless - these people were relocated to a small locality called Sankalit Nagar. This is Juhapura today.
Crumbling infrastructure
Before the 2002 communal riots, Juhapura was just another neighbourhood where Muslims lived in large numbers. It was a place for poor people. All told, it had about 50,000 residents. The riots caused Muslims from other parts of the city to converge here for safety - many of them were affluent people who could have easily afforded to live in a better neighbourhood. Today its population stands at over 500,000. Thus, ten times more people now live in the same space.
Naturally, the infrastructure has collapsed. A walk along Juhapura's lanes (most of which are four-feet wide) shows that houses and shops have come up just about anywhere. You cannot access a house in the interiors in a two-wheeler, forget a car passing through these narrow passages. Most houses are about 10-feet wide, housing a shop on the ground floor, and share a common wall with adjacent houses. The roads are dusty without a hint of tar. Drainage is almost absent.
I ask the police if the instances of crime are high in the area, which would necessitate such heavy deployment of cops. J D Jadeja, assistant commissioner of police, M division, says incidents of petty crime are high, "especially, crime against women and physical assault".
He says there is only one dedicated chowki for Juhapura and that is inside the Vejalpur Police Station that borders the area. The rest are in the zones that border the Hindu and Muslim neighbourhoods. "In case of any communal tension, these zones can be called high-risk zones or sensitive areas. Police posting is primarily to ensure that peace reigns in the region."
Residents of Juhapura say there has been no communal violence in the region after 2002.
One of the consequences of the influx of people in such large numbers is unauthorised construction and encroachment. Houses have been built without proper planning. It is clear that the area has gone off the radar screen of the city's planners. Nobody seems to be in-charge here. Worse, the civic authorities don't seem interested.
This systemic indifference has led to the rise of a land mafia in the area, residents point out. Thus, it is not uncommon to find houses built in a haphazard way over canals, which has blocked the drainage lines. Water supply issues coupled with sewage problems has further complicated the nexus of bootleggers and land grabbers who have developed parallel delivery systems for civic amenities to the residents.
Government apathy
That pinches. Haji Asrar Baig Mirza, the councillor of the Sarkhej ward, reckons that over 50 per cent of the population would have a monthly family income of less than Rs 10,000.
He complains of government apathy when it came to developing civic amenities in the area. "We have been asking for a water pumping station for Juhapura since long now. Nothing has moved," he alleges, adding that similar is the case with the demand for a flyover that would ease the traffic flow over one of the arterial roads that passes through Juhapura.
Several attempts to reach Municipal Commissioner D Thara for her comments remained futile.
Juhapura was under the jurisdiction of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority till 2006 and comprised five panchayats: Vejalpur, Maktampura, Shahwadi, Sarkhej and Gyaspur. Thereafter, it was included in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation limits under the New West Zone. Juhapura comprises eight pockets now: Juhapura, Maktampura, Fatehwadi, Makarba, Sarkhej, Okaf, Vejalpur and Gyaspur.
Juhapura, mind you, is not some place in the boondocks where it is difficult to reach civic amenities. On its one end is the Agriculture Market Produce Committee compound leading to one of the busiest crossroads in Ahmedabad named after its former chief minister Jivraj Mehta, and on the other end is Sarkhej that connects the city to the spanking highways that lead to Sanand, Vatva, Bavla, Changodar or for that matter Rajkot and Kandla.
A five-kilometre stretch lying between such important junctions can hardly be called secluded, yet the feeling of ghetto reigns.
"The government has let the zone remain the way it is, as launching a town planning scheme in the region could spur violence as most developments in the region are illegal and there is a flourishing real estate racket here," says a Muslim resident of Dariyapur, another Muslim neighbourhood of the city, who does not wish to be named.
Chief Minister Anandiben Patel visited the area in April this year to inaugurate a health centre. Weeks prior to her visit, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation had issued a notice to demolish about 100 illegal buildings in the area but that met with strong protests from locals.
"It is not easy for the government to take concrete action here. To change the state of affairs here, it would require laying out an entire town plan for the zone with proper drainage systems, roads, space for parks, libraries, et cetera. While it is also a matter of political will, at the same time it would also mean battling the several musclemen who have come to dominate this zone over the years," says a young lawyer who lives and runs an office from Juhapura.
