Roughly 45,000 cases were filed nearly three years ago after the carnage. Half of them were closed within days of filing due to lack of evidence. Many have been dismissed since, like the one in Baroda. In fact, only 75 cases are being pursued vigorously.

There are no funds or volunteers to take them up. Hindu lawyers are reluctant while most of the Muslim lawyers are charging hefty fees. It is, therefore, difficult to imagine that the guilty in the Gujarat carnage will get the punishment they deserve. It may well be a repeat of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, where only a couple of persons have been convicted after 21 years.

There is, however, one glaring difference: the Sikh victims have been given Rs 300,000 per family for rehabilitation, but the Muslims have not got even a penny by the government. In the first case, the Delhi government took no time to pay. In the case of Gujarat, the state government refuses to pay anything at all. Muslim victims await the generosity of individuals or non-governmental organisations. Both are fewer than before.

As a matter of fact, no aid is coming to Muslim victims. The government is hostile and the local population biased. The international agencies wound up their last office some months ago. The 2 lakh Muslims, ousted nearly three years ago from their homes during the carnage, blink on nobody's radar. Saffronised state administration has turned its back on them. Over one lakh people have migrated to other places. But the rest live at Ahmedabad on a strip of land, along the road, stretching into graveyards. They want to return to their places, but cannot do so. One of them, Ibrahim, went back to his village Marghi, near Anand. He even fulfilled the conditions laid down and withdrew the FIR and other statements. Still, the local youths made his life so miserable that he had to quit. They did not want a Muslim in their midst.

Hundreds of villages in the state proudly display a board: Hindu village in the Hindu Rashtra! There is hardly any protest against it. Social and economic boycott of Muslims continues. No Gujarati hires them. Bureaucrats are tainted, the police one-sided, and liberals indifferent.

The worst is that the intelligentsia has taken no time to get integrated into the communal segregation. It does not even talk about Muslims -- as if they don't exist. It looks as if Chief Minister Narendra Modi has changed the people. This has happened in dictatorships, but he has done it in democratic system. "We have to get on with life," is the rationale given. The fact is that nobody wants to recall the carnage because it probably weighs in the conscience one way or the other. Abnormal economic growth in Gujarat should give a message of peace. But the reality is different. Muslims have been written off. It is a growth for the Hindus and by the Hindus. Since the rest of India measures success on the scales of economics, it believes that things are all right.

That the Modi-headed government is hostile is understandable. But the centre's ambivalence is beyond comprehension. The Atal Behari Vajpayee government had its political compulsions because Gujarat was ruled by the BJP. But why has the Congress government led by Manmohan Singh remained distant? True, law and order is a state subject. But the relief and rehabilitation of Indian citizens is New Delhi's responsibility. Since the Gujarat government has refused to pay anything for rehabilitation, the centre has to bear the burden. Either it should bring a law to force the states to accept the responsibility of rehabilitation or it should foot the bill. Anger against the Congress is the reason why the Muslims have voted for the BJP in the civic polls, not because they have turned towards the party as BJP chief LK Advani has claimed in a public statement. The Congress put up those candidates who had led Muslims at the time of the carnage. The Muslims' reasoning was that a known communalist was far better than a secularist who was communalist at heart.

The biggest disappointment of Muslims in Gujarat is that secular forces have caved in. They recall how even the tallest among them did not stand up to defend them. Founder of the Amul Cooperative movement Verghese Kurien issued orders to his employees not to take part in the rehabilitation work. One senior employee, a Muslim, who had toiled for Amul for years, resigned in protest. Leading social activist and chairperson of voluntary organisation SEWA, Ila Bhat, did not raise a finger to help the carnage victims. In fact, she accepted the chairmanship of the Modi-constituted rehabilitation committee which is now in the midst of controversy. True, she has resigned now but she has hurt the Muslim sensitivity beyond redemption.

What do the Muslims of Gujarat do? Whom do they turn to? Fear stalks the land. An average Gujarati wants reconciliation and feels sorry for the wrongs done to the Muslim community. But he is afraid to speak because of the "repercussions." Leaders of civil society, the RSS and the BJP followers continue to preach separation as if Gujarat is a laboratory that will help them experiment with methods which they can apply elsewhere in the country.

The Left and its trade unions are conspicuous by their silence. The Gandhians who were initially afraid have come in the field. But they are only a few and have very little resources to disburse. However, a ray of hope has emerged in an otherwise somber environment. A few people, mostly Hindus, have constituted themselves into a group. Harish Mandir, a former IAS, is one of them. They have drafted one-year plan to help Muslims regain their confidence, if not property.

Unfortunately, the Muslims in the state are entrapped in a situation from where they see no escape. The 1984 anti-Sikh riots have not gone into oblivion despite the efforts of the Congress to the contrary. India is a secular country. This is the reason why people defeated the BJP in the last general election and returned the Congress. They have pinned their hope on the party to retrieve the nation from the creeping shadows of communalism. The failure of the Congress will be the biggest betrayal.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.