Communal Riots in Gujarat-Report of a Preliminary Investigation

of tension that they have generated, Hindu and Muslim friends look upon each other with suspicion. Mutual attitudes have undergone considerable change since the riots. Muslims particularly feel miserable and lonely at their work place. A Muslim professor, who has been associated with the college he works in for the last twenty- eight years, told me with tears in his eyes how lonely he now felt in the college! This feeling of estrangement is found also among students and even innocent children. In mixed localities where children of both communities used to play together before the riots, the situation has now changed. Before the riots they were not conscious that their friends ' Rasid' or 'Raman' were Muslim or Hindu, but now, as they identify each other by their communities, they have ceased to play together. The consequence of such a traumatic experience for the socialisation of future citizens can be well imagined.