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Vinod Mathew

THE BUTCHERY and arson that began in Gujarat with the ghastly Godhra massacre of February 27 and switched a few gears on the Budget day still goes on, though somewhat abated in intensity. Now, fingers are pointing at an ISI link in the train attack, which does not absolve the mindless violence and the breakdown of the state machinery that followed. Also, the timing of this violence could not have got any poorer for a State that had undertaken a massive rebuilding exercise where much was lost in a killer quake only last year.

Gujarat is still struggling to come to grips with life one year after the quake where 13,805 lives were lost, with the rehabilitation cost pegged at Rs 7,836 crore. At this juncture, a man-made disaster that has already cost over 500 lives and over Rs 3,000 crore in damages is something the State could have done without. And both the toll and destruction figures keep changing by the day as the official figures given earlier are proved to have been erring on the side of caution.

Driving home an obvious point, Kutch remained the only region to escape the communal frenzy till date. And not without reason. There are two schools of thought explaining this aberration with the first holding that the perpetrators of the outrage decided to go easy on the quake-ravaged people of the desert district.

But there are others who believe that it was the solidarity among the two communities in Kutch that led to them holding forth with grit against excesses in the name of religion.

The priority for the Kutchis was the lives they were painstakingly rebuilding and not destruction to be wreaked on their fellow citizens. One would be inclined to support the second theory.

The serial violence sparked by the Godhra disaster has abated somewhat since Sunday as if the perpetrators had decided to take a well-earned rest after putting in some serious work in office during the week.

Thus, while the initially targeted cities and towns are getting a breather, sporadic incidents are still reported in far-flung villages.

For multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, that together are steam rolling a major portion of the State's post-quake rebuilding cost, the Gujarat carnage only undermines their confidence in the State's administrative capabilities. Surely, the communal violence will be looked upon with more concern by the two agencies that any slip-ups by the State on the fiscal front.

According to Mr Chinubhai R. Shah, president of the Gujarat Investors and Shareholders' Association, it will take much more than an image-building seminar to reassure the prospective investor from turning away from the State.

This, unlike in the case of the `Resurgent Gujarat' business meet of February 8-10 when the State authorities put up a platform for the State's business houses to forge relations with their counterparts both within and outside the country.

The common refrain within the business community is that the state machinery should have taken sterner measures against the hooligans who, instead, were allowed a free run during the first two days of the riots. Political pundits say this may have resulted in polarising the vote banks along communal lines benefiting certain quarters. It can only be short-term gain, if at all, say others.

Clearly, there is no argument that Gujarat, in four days, has cost India dearly in its fight against global terrorism, the ISI link at Godhra notwithstanding. Because, Mr L. K. Advani, in a media briefing on Sunday, equated terrorism in Kashmir with the incidents in Gujarat last week, and the mayhem after.

As often happens after such incidents, the politics of the carnage overshadowed the poor economics, the latter being an incidental fallout. The mandarins here are already talking in hushed tones as to how many industrial years the violence will cost Gujarat.

The industry continues to be horrified by the anarchy that prevailed in the State for three days. It narrates disquietingly identical incidents where the lumpens nonchalantly ransacked one showroom after the other as the law enforcers looked the other way.

Desperate phone calls made by the owners of the business establishments to the police, more often than not routed through high-ranking bureaucrats, went unanswered. In the end, many shop-owners pleaded with the hoods that the punishment be limited to looting and not torching of their premises. While some paid heed to the pleas, others did not.

Apparently, the marauding masses came in from outside the violated cities and towns, confirming suspicions that they had very little stake in the well being of these societies. That some of the local residents played into their hands by becoming accomplices in these heinous acts is another matter altogether.

The state machinery, under the aegis of the Industries Department, has begun the painstaking exercise of determining the extent of damage caused to small and medium units and business outlets. As with any such government exercise, it will be weeks before answers would be forthcoming.

Though the harrowed businessmen may have been appreciative of getting themselves an educated chief minister in Mr Narendra Modi, somewhat difficult to digest for them was the by now infamous statement, "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". Neither did it go down well with anybody that Mr Modi kept reiterating that things were under control when the cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara were burning.

Indeed, it is ironic that a state with self-proclaimed banner of `Aapnu Gujarat, Aagvu Gujarat' (our Gujarat, forward-looking Gujarat) now has to struggle with the shame unleashed by the regressive forces. True, the dance of death which began on Wednesday has eased its vice-like grip somewhat, but uneasy is the calm, one which could erupt in fresh violence again at the slightest provocation. In the past too, any violence in the State has found favourite whipping boys in MNCs such as Coke and Pepsi. But this time round, there seemed to be no such nationalistic fervour in evidence as roughnecks went in for random targeting of business establishments.

The global trend of investors shying away from locales of political and social instability may not portend well for Gujarat in the coming days.

Also, not auguring well for Gujarat's industrial climate is that some of its potential investors were targeted by the rampaging mob. Bearing the brunt of this plunder were the small and medium sector units, the latest such case being the 30 factories, comprising powerloom units and textile godowns, burnt in Surat on Monday.

High on the list of the corporates affected was General Motors India (GMI) which had a number of its passenger cars burnt on Friday. This happened outside its factory in Halol near Vadodara which remained closed even on Monday.

Repeated attempts to contact Mr Aditya Vij, Managing Director of GMI, drew a blank and the local staff denied that anything untoward had happened. Interestingly, GMI was weighing options whether to stick to Gujarat or move to another state in its second-generation investments slated at Rs 600 crore.

There are also the home-grown business houses, such as Ajanta Clock of Morbi, that has been considering China as a potential destination on account of economies of scale. The same is the case with some major ship breakers in Alang, the world's largest ship breaking yard, who are said to be considering both China and Bangladesh as more viable options in the coming days. The Gujarat violence may have helped some of them make up their minds.

However, by and large, the big-ticket investors who have huge investments already pouring into the State can only hope that the violence in Gujarat does not get repeated and remains a one-off incident.

This genre includes Reliance Industries, the Essar group, Indian Oil Corporation as also those prospecting oil and gas on and off the shores of Gujarat.

The other significant class comprise those putting up LNG terminals in the State such as British Gas, Shell and those involved in large infrastructure projects like port development and Special Economic Zones.

Looking at the future, the biggest casualty of the riots in the coming days would be top-notch man power, especially in sectors such as information technology that has hitherto proved elusive for the State, as Gujarat would be among the least preferred destinations for a while.

Likewise, McDonald's may hold its foray into the `strictly' vegetarian country at least for some time.

And the presence of the Army, which may be doing a world of good to the morale of the people right now, is something Gujarat can do without in the long run.

Hopefully, this land of the Mahatma will not continue to be an out-of-favour address for too long.

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