ABSTRACT
The question of minority rights and protection in general, and of women in particular, became critical once again following the Gujarat violence of 2002. The incident begged for an immediate reassessment of the constitutionally guaranteed rights for minorities in India and their implementation through the policies of the state. BJP’s landslide victory in the Legislative Assembly elections of 2002 is testimony to the trend of manipulating the communal violence as a political weapon to polarize an already divided society for the consolidation of the Hindu vote. In this way, communal violence got legitimized as an election strategy of the BJP and further strengthened the process of ‘spatial purification’ aimed at creating a Hindu national identity in the Gujarat. Some women have chosen silence because it is shameful to proclaim sexual violence on one’s body in a traditional ethos.
