One of the lesser known facts perhaps of the 2002 Gujarat riots is that Dalits were at the fore of much of the violence against Muslims in Ahmedabad. When I asked an accused Dalit boy in the Naroda Patia area why he got involved in the rioting, his answer troubled me: “The local Bajrang Dal has promised us we will be allowed to stay in the land vacated by the Muslims who have fled”. Whether that was a riot “jumla” or not, the fact is many Dalits were the foot soldiers of the rioting mobs and were swayed by the promise of being empowered by caste Hindus.
