Our second day in Gujarat, we visited a very interesting region called Kachchh.  This area in Gujarat was drastically impacted by the big earthquake that struck in 2001.  However, Kachchh has been suffering from natural disasters for years and the links between natural disasters in a given area and the communal violence that exists is very prominent.  Although we spoke to a number of people regarding the situation within the region, my understanding of the dynamic of this specific area is still at unease and frantically working to information to cure this confusion.

In Bhuj, we talked to Sushma Iyengar, who is the director of Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan.  She informed us that she was working on issues related to the earthquake, gender and even culture.  She also depicted that Bhuj had experienced a series of disasters pre-earthquake, which were a cyclone in 1999, a drought, which were common in this region, in 2000 and then the earthquake in 2001.  Sushma implied that due to these previous disasters, there was plenty of relief organizations that already existed when the earthquake struck.

What was most interesting about speaking with Sushma was the points she made related to the violence within Gujarat and the severity of the earthquake.  She had explained that due to the high level of droughts in the region of Kachchh, there is a high level of interdependency due to the droughts.  There is almost a coexistence and mix of ethnicities that work together to get through these tough times.  It was interesting to hear that especially since the majority of the research and reading I have done talks about “survival of the fittest” during tough times and how natural disasters cause more tension in an already tense atmosphere.

The next morning we spoke to Father George of the Kutch Vikas Trust in Bhuj and he also mirrored the same sentiment as Sushma…that for the most part, there was very little tension in Kachchh and that it wasn’t like Gujarat.  He also further explained that everyone in Kachchh received the same amount of support and aid and that no one was discriminated.  However, when we began to ask more questions we also found that the they Kutch Vikas Trust were not allowed to enter Muslim villages, that at one point there was strong resistance to sending their children to the same schools, and that the amount of aid being given was corrupted and not properly being distributed.

All in all, Kachchh is extremely hard to understand, just as the rest of Gujarat.  I still cannot wrap my head around it.  What sticks out the most is that on the surface Kachchh seems to be a very close knit community, but when you dig deeper you realize that it is a highly politicized, highly divided society that is easy influenced by NGOs and Aid.