World | India
Sectarian violence museum planned
Survivors of Gulberg Society will also be part of the advisory board of the museum.
- By Pamela RaghunathCorrespondent
- Published: 01:22 February 22, 2008
- A derelict building in Gulberg Society, Ahmedabad, lying unoccupied since the Gujarat riots of 2002.
- Image Credit: Pamela Ragunath/Gulf News
Mumbai: A memorial to victims of India's communal violence, will be set up at Ahmedabad, the largest city of Gujarat.
Two Mumbai-based organisations , Sabrang Trust and Citizens of Justice and Peace , will launch the project to convert the ghost-like relic of the city's Gulberg Society, once a housing colony where 70 people were killed during the communal carnage six years ago, into a museum.
Called the Gulberg Society: A Museum of Resistance, it will map the instances of communal violence and victimisation in the country. It could be the Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley or Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir, the Sikhs, who were victims of the 1984 massacre, or the voices of survivors from Meerut or Bhagalpur.
It will also map the instances of violence in Gujarat - the Godhra train burning and killings at Naroda and Patiya, Odh, Sardarpura, Vadodara, Panchmahal and Dahod.
Survivors of Gulberg Society will also be part of the advisory board of the museum.
Tragedy and gloom
"The idea of resistance emerged out of tragedy and gloom, but more particularly, it was of the close emotional bonds that we have with each of the victim survivors, our family," says Teesta Setalvad of these two organisations that have been battling for justice for the victims of Gujarat violence.
"On February 28 each year we meet for prayers and remembrance. We now want to do something more," she says. Once again, a vigil will be held at Gulberg Society on February 28 to remember the victims and to inaugurate this idea and movement.
What would be challenging is to raise funds for this project since the surviving owners of 18 bunglows and six flats in Gulber Society would have to be paid at current real estate prices.
Setalvad is appealing to contributors to help make this vision a reality. The donors' names will be displayed in a scroll of honour in the museum.
"Today, the space lies vacant but is crowded with battered memories," she says. All the documentation, posters and films that have been accessed and archived will be housed in the Gulberg Museum.
Narratives of survivors and victim-communities, art and literature on the subject will come under special focus here.
Daylong massacre
"Once the project is complete, no one will be able to visit Ahmedabad city without revisiting what transpired here in 2002."
Room after room and home after home in this Society will be sombre reminders of the daylong massacre in which 70 people were killed in a gruesome manner.
The survivors have withstood selling out to hawkish buyers ready to obliterate any visible public memory of what happened that day. "This idea offers us all, private citizens, foundations and entrepreneurs the opportunity to build a professional institution that energises the survivors and human rights defenders who have stood by them," says Setalvad.
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