If the violence of 2002 brought out the pathologies of the Gujarati society in its worst and most perverse form, the 2001 earthquake had different lessons for us. It represented all that is caring, compassionate, generous and charitable in Gujarati society. If the riots were unprecedented in their brutality; the responses of Gujarat to the earthquake were a lesson in a society’s capacity to deal with a disaster of huge proportions. But that part of the story was forgotten, or at least was not fore-grounded in the post-riot descriptions of Gujarati society. And maybe, we erred there. Gujarati civil society had possibilities of compassion and justice that were forgotten in this discourse. In 2001, the administration, religious organisations, the RSS, NGOs and citizens forums, industry associations and even affected citizens worked together to bring relief and rehabilitation to those who had lost their all. The acts of giving were done in a way that maintained the dignity of those who received. These were acts of sharing rather that charity. The fortitude of people in face of loss and grief told the story of Gujarati society’s resilient industry.

But post-2002, these possibilities appeared distant and the divisions appeared impermeable. The non-availability of justice, even in its most elementary judicial sense seemed to suggest that the caring civil society of 2001was an aberration. Nothing that happened in the last five years seemed to suggest otherwise. But it took another tragedy to bring what was so far recessive, to the fore.

... contd.