Ahmedabad, once a city known for its enterprise, is now a city whose various communities live lives defined by the communal space. The ascendancy of the communal space, however, has coincided with the global integration of its economy. This paper analyses how the city, its physical and socio-economic structure, responded to the needs of globalisation. The increasingly uncertain economic base of the city left self-employed and casual workers vulnerable to the vagaries of market forces. In the vacuum created by the exclusion of certain sections of the city's population from development programmes and as local governments abstained from their welfare responsibilities, an opportunity was created for the Sangh parivar to step in with its vicious propaganda, fomenting hatred and creating an identifiable, though false, image of the 'other'.
