1969 Gujarat riots
| 1969 Gujarat riots | ||||
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| Part of Religious violence in India | ||||
 Location of Gujarat in India
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| Date | September–October 1969 | |||
| Location | Gujarat, India | |||
| Methods | Killing, Arson, Looting | |||
| Parties to the civil conflict | ||||
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| Casualties based on the police complaints | ||||
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The 1969 Gujarat riots refers to the communal violence between Hindus and Muslims during September–October 1969, in Gujarat, India. The violence was Gujarat's first major riot that involved massacre, arson and looting on a large scale. It was the most deadly Hindu-Muslim violence since the 1947 partition of India, and remained such until the 1989 Bhagalpur violence.
According to the official figures, 660 people were killed, 1074 people were injured and over 48,000 lost their property. Unofficial reports claim as high as 2000 deaths. The Muslim community suffered the majority of the losses. Out of the 512 deaths reported in the police complaints, 430 were Muslims. Property worth 42 million rupees was destroyed during the riots, with Muslims losing 32 million worth of property. A distinctive feature of the violence was the attack on Muslim chawls by their Dalit Hindu neighbours who had maintained peaceful relations with them until this point.
The riots happened during the chief ministership of the Indian National Congress leader Hitendra Desai. The Justice Reddy Commission set up by his government blamed the Hindu nationalist organizations for the violence. Various writers trace the causes of the riots to a mix of socioeconomic and political factors (see Background below). The actual violence was triggered by an attack on a Hindu temple on 18 September 1969. The riots started in Ahmedabad, and then spread to other areas, notably Vadodara, Mehsana, Nadiad, Anand and Gondal. By 26 September, the violence had been brought under control, however some more violent incidents happened during 18–28 October 1969.
The Hindu-Muslim tension increased considerably in Gujarat during the 1960s. Between 1961 and 1971, there were 685 incidents of communal violence in the urban areas Gujarat (plus, another 114 in the rural areas). Out of the 685 incidents, 578 incidents happened in 1969 alone.
Although Ahmedabad had been divided along the caste and religious lines, it was not a communally sensitive area until the 1960s. In the 1960s, the city's textile mills attracted a large number of migrants from other parts of the state. During 1961-71, the city's population grew by nearly 38%, resulting in rapid growth of slums in the eastern part of the city. However, mid-1960s onwards, a number of under-qualified mill workers in Ahmedabad became unemployed, as the jobs went to the small units of Surat. During the 1960s, seven large mills in Ahmedabad shut down, and around 17,000 workers lost their jobs. The Hindus were over-represented among these workers, compared to the Muslims. The Dalit Hindu workers faced a greater sense of insecurity, as the local Muslim workers were said to be more skilled in the weaving. Several violent clashes involving the textile workers took place in the slums of the city, mainly between the Hindu Dalits and the Muslims.
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