ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on the content of the rumors that circulated during religious riots in India in Ahmedabad or, more specifically, in the riot-hit areas of the city before making some general remarks on the psychoanalytic "theory" of rumors. The city of Ahmedabad, with a population of more than five million, the commercial, cultural, and political capital of Gujarat, was the worst affected by the riots. In September 2002, the author collected the rumors that had circulated during the riot from the poorer localities of Ahmedabad–both Hindu and Muslim–where the two communities live in close proximity to each other and which had borne the brunt of violence. A Hindu informant remembered the reception of rumors thus: Every day, night or day, many rumors reached us. The author described some of own childhood memories of the rumors that circulated in the North-Indian town of Rohtak during the partition.
