“My sin was I could not do anything during the 2002 riots,” Sahitya Akademi Award winner Esther David said at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival which began here on Wednesday.
Participating in a discussion on “Seven Deadly Sins in Our Time,” Ms. David said Ahmedabad became divided between Hindus and Muslims then and it still continues to be so under the cover of Vibrant Gujarat.
“What I see now is a strange change in communities. They are becoming more religious and I am not comfortable with it.”
She said communal riots were not new to Gujarat. Recalling her association with Ahmedabad, Ms. David said that between 1955 and 1995, people lived together but now there are ‘identified’ areas.
Esther David’s forthcoming book is A City with A Past: Ahmedabad.