The terrible violence in Gujarat in 2002 demands explanation, as one of the worst episodes of ethnic violence that has occurred under a democratic government. While the death of 59 Hindu karsevaks in a train fire in Godhra town was immediately declared as premeditated, the widespread attacks on Muslims that followed were termed spontaneous clashes. Since then, most observers have argued that the attacks were not spontaneous, and that the state government was complicit, at least, in the killings. But this does not explain why violence varied so widely across the state. Further, if political incentive accounted for violence in some constituencies, why did adjoining neighbourhoods experience different levels of violence? This book has aimed to bridge the wider political factors that foment ethnic violence, and the behaviour and interactions of individuals who eventually participate in it and are affected by it. In this final chapter, I attempt to establish a meaningful connection between these spatial scales to enhance our current understanding of collective violence.

Spontaneity and Deliberateness in Violence

In asking whether the variation in violence was random or could be sociologically explained, my principal aim was to test the ruling BJP's spontaneity thesis— that the attacks were emotionally charged outbursts of so-called mob behaviour. I first compiled an original data set of killings in Gujarat, down to the level of the neighbourhood. Then, by comparing peaceful with violent towns and rural areas of each district in Gujarat, I began this book with a systematic investigation of the social, political, and economic factors associated with the killings. Empirical evidence strongly refuted the spontaneity thesis. Instead, findings support state-approved orchestration: the worst killings occurred in places where the BJP faced the greatest electoral competition and not where the party was weak or even dominant. Muslims were most vulnerable where the BJP had previously won around 33–36 per cent of the vote, indicating that the party had to attract more voters to secure victory in the next election. Analysis also demonstrates that violence did boost the party's votes in the subsequent election. Attacks were, therefore, strategic, not spontaneous. Surely this is not a new finding, for it simply bolsters the evidence from other studies that violence in India against minority groups, whether Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, or Dalit Hindus, is politically orchestrated.