Gujarat relief camps were far better run and the government was very cooperative. This is not to say that refugee camps can ever be a pleasant or com… - Zafar Sareshwala

People who go on and on about the 2002 riots, choose to forget that it was the culmination of an endless series of riots. The worst riots in post-partition India happened in 1969 in Ahmedabad; more than 5,000 Muslims were killed in that massacre. But because there was no 24x7 media, riots in those days went largely undocumented, so no one outside got to know of the 1969 riots. It was a small incident involving a cow but it led to a shocking outburst. At that time, Congress Party’s Hitendrabhai Desai was the chief minister while Indira Gandhi was in power at the Centre. During the 1969 riots, our office, factory, everything was burnt down.... Forget about punishment, not even a single charge sheet was filed after that massacre. The Jagmohan Commission report is there for everyone to see. Entire communities were wiped out, without a trace. Why are people not talking about those victims? Has anyone documented what happened to those 5,000 families? Another major riot took place in 1985 preceded by several smaller ones. It went on for months on end. Again, our factory and our house were set on fire. In 1985, Madhavji Solanki of Congress Party was in power in Gujarat and Rajiv Gandhi at the Centre. Between 1985 and 2002, people came to expect that after every 2-3 months there would inevitably be a riot. At one time, the curfew lasted 200 days. During the 1987 riots also, Amar Singh Chaudhury of the Congress Party was the CM. This was followed by riots in 1990. At that time too, Congress Party’s Chimanbhai Patel was the chief minister. Again, our factory was burnt down. In 1992 also, it was set on fire. Chimanbhai Patel was the chief minister even at that time.... The truth is that while the earlier governments remained indifferent; after each riot, the Hindus themselves helped the rehabilitation of Muslims. I always say that if the Gujarati Hindus were 100 per cent communal, the Muslims would have been destroyed long ago. It is because Hindus are not communal that Muslims continue to prosper in Gujarat. All those riots were politically engineered and the Congress Party was the prime culprit.

Because at that time Modiji used to talk of Gujarati asmita [identity], I said to Mr[.] Modi you are a slightly diluted Gujarati than me. He said: How come? I replied: You know that I am an Ahemadabadi and Ahmedabadis by all accounts are the purest of all Gujaratis while you are from Vadnagar. You are a very impure Gujrati. He said: "Yes, you have a point."

Please note that when we asked for a meeting with Modi he was not yet a hero but one of the most hated figures; he was called Milosevic, Hitler, and so on. Now, there is a long line of people waiting to meet Modi sahib and competing with each other to praise him to the skies, but at that time no Muslim was willing to approach him openly.... Here we were praying in anxiety about our first meeting with Modi, when bang came the first headline against me: “Zafar Sareshwala takes a U-turn on Modi.” The very same people who treated me as a hero earlier, now attacked me furiously. .... All hell broke loose when I issued a statement saying, “We welcome the visit of Narendra Modi, who is the democratically elected chief minister of Gujarat.” Suddenly, from a hero, I became a villain... Because I am a businessman, I could absorb the attacks on me by the anti-Modi lobby. But the poor Maulana, oh my God, he was branded as kaafir. Bahut zaleel kiya unko. He was humiliated no end!