The Ecology of Ethnic Violence: Attacks on Muslims of Ahmedabad in 2002

Abstract

Ethnic violence killed at least a thousand Muslims in Gujarat (western India) in 2002. The role of political elites in orchestrating attacks against Muslims for electoral gains was a conspicuous characteristic of the violence. Yet, as this article demonstrates, the political thesis was insufficient in explaining why neighborhoods, often contiguous, experienced different levels of violence. Alternative explanations, such as interethnic contact, were also found wanting. A unique research design allowing the comparison of neighborhoods in the same electoral ward in the city of Ahmedabad demonstrates the critical role of ecology in explaining microspatial variation in the violence. Even when attacks were politically orchestrated, attackers still acted with some regard to self-preservation in selecting which location to attack. Observational and testimonial evidence based on 22 months of ethnographic fieldwork reveals the importance of two ecological factors: the built environment and the population distribution of potential targets. Together, the two factors heavily shaped crowds’ decisions to attack or escape, thus influencing the subsequent success or failure of the attack. Muslims were most vulnerable where they were concentrated in small numbers and on routes that afforded the attackers obstacle-free entry and retreat. Where the potential targets had an obstacle-free escape route to a large concentration of fellow Muslims, the outcome was looting and arson rather than killing. By implication, the course of politically orchestrated violence was complicated by the ecology of the targeted space.