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“Cross-cases” are a new phenomenon: complainants in riots cases are prosecuted for minor offences. Both sides finally drop charges as a “compromise”.In Sunderna, Shakil’s family found that his father Mohammed Bhai had been charged with stealing a Krishna idol from a temple. The family denied the charge. Finally both sides withdrew charges , and an official compromise was signed in Gujarati: “We shall live together in peace. We shall not create any trouble for each other.”

That last sentence can have a thousand interpretations, so the family has kept a low profile. They do not talk to most people in the village, they do not slaughter animals on their festivals and they do not harangue Hindu customers for long-pending grocery payments.

“There is a grudging acceptance that Muslims have to keep a low profile,” said Gagan Sethi, member of a monitoring committee formed by the National Human Rights Commission.

The government says things are close to normal in the villages. “There are no signs of fear, although minor tensions continue,” said MoS for Home Amit Shah. “I do not claim there is no communal tension, but it is not of a nature that will prevent the two communities from living with each other.”

Human-rights activists say more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in the riots; the government puts the figure at 1,300.

Litigations still continue and the social divide runs deep.

Sayeed Miyan Qazi, a grocer and head priest of Napa village, says he fled his home, after the men who were trying to protect him — from the state’s Special Reserve Police (SRP) force — were assaulted and wounded by mobs. Before leaving, he filed a first information report in the local police station about the arson.

Soon after reaching a relief camp at Vasad village, where he now lives, Qazi was told that police had charged him with firing from the roof of a mosque at the crowds below. But SRP personnel testified in court that Qazi was not at the site when the firing allegedly occurred. A verdict is expected soon.

In the meantime, as Jha says, “There are severe lifestyle changes. The Muslims’ economic spine has been broken.”

In Sunderna, by an old temple, one man said what was rarely heard in Gujarat’s villages. “Whatever happened was very wrong,” said Mambhai Melabhai Solanki, 41, the village headman. “If I was the sarpanch then, I would not have let it happen.” neelesh.misra@ hindustantimes.com Tomorrow: Thousands live in ghettos of riot-hit Muslims

IN A few months, it will be five years since Shakil Bhai last heard the call of the muezzin from the mosque by the village pond. In a few months, it will be five years since the life of the gentle grocer and his community changed.On March 1, 2002, as religious fury raged through Gujarat and hundreds fell to daggers and bullets, Shakil’s family fled, bare foot, from their home in Sunderna, 75 km southeast of Ahmedabad. Rioters vandalised Shakil’s grocery shop and home, and burnt down his lucrative kerosene depot. The four minarets of the village mosque were smashed and the dargah, or mausoleum, of a locally revered priest was damaged. The dargah has since been repaired but the mosque remains without a head.

“Yes, there were massacres and there was looting, but one has to move on,” said Shakil, 26. “We have returned. But the vil lage elders said, ‘If you don’t compromise, you cannot stay here.’” Seated on a bag of flour in his renovated shop, he added, “Now there is no azaan (the call to prayers from mosques).” The grocer’s tale resonates with thousands of Gujarati Muslim families, especially in many of the 16 districts worst-hit by the 2002 riots.

Business-like Gujarat knows its dealmaking and give-and-take. Thousands of Muslims, who returned to Hindu-majori ty villages after the riots, are rebuilding their lives. But often they have to live on harsh terms.

In many villages, Muslims have given up the azaan. In others, they cannot openly sell meat and must observe festivals as low-key affairs. Most significantly a large number of , Muslims have had to withdraw criminal cases they had filed against fellow villagers, a necessary condition for their return.

Manibhai Patel, a 45-year-old villager, said, “The Muslims mind their business, we mind ours. No fighting. But we don’t often go towards their houses.” Gujarat has a history of communal riots, but the 2002 one was the most brutal, spilling over to many of the 18,000 villages.

“Even now the whole system is wrapped up in this compromise business,” said Preeta Jha, coordinator of Nyayagraha, a voluntary group. As HT discovered, deals are still under way, brokered by village heads and at times by local officials.

Published online: 31 October 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061030-7

Report highlights native vegetables needing extra attention.

Emma Marris

The little-known moringa tree is “a sort of supermarket on a trunk”. Klaus Becker

Ever snacked on bambara beans or lablab? If not, it may be because these vegetables are among the “lost crops of Africa” identified in a new report by the US National Academies¹.

The report highlights 18 crops that the team of experts says suffer from a lack of attention, research and funding. These range from enset, a mammoth herb almost unknown outside Ethiopia, to okra, a more common side dish.

In Africa, home to more than 300 million hungry mouths, almost all the food is grown from no more than a couple dozen species, nearly all from off-continent. The most popular vegetables in Africa — sweet potato, cassava, peanut and plantain, for example — have been imported from aboard.

Such crops are suited to the climate and help to generate money as well as feeding the local population. But the authors, including agronomists, nutritionists, ecologists, entomologists and policy experts, argue that any native plant with good potential ought also to be encouraged.

The group, headed by Nobel Peace prize winner Norman Borlaug, say that developing native crops already more-or-less suited to local cultivation will combat malnutrition, ensure that more Africans have something to eat every day, and make farmers some money while being gentler on the land. As a bonus, they may cause less erosion and help preserve the ecology and genetic heritage of the continent. But many crops could use some scientific improvement and need to be promoted to farmers.

They recommend that scientists nutritionally analyze the local crops, toxologically test them, work to breed better varieties, study how best to grow them and how to maximize yield. They also encourage foundations and NGOs to give cash and spread the word.

Green revolution

Harvard biologist and development expert Calestous Juma, who grew up on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria eating one of the report’s featured vegetables — cowpeas — says that there is security in having many crops. He’d like to see “a new green revolution that is based on diversified crops rather than monoculture”, genome-sequencing for the crops and a blossoming of partnerships between African and American universities.

Perhaps the most compelling of the species highlighted is the moringa tree, described in the report as “a sort of supermarket on a trunk”. Without the benefit of any domestication, it provides extremely nutritious leaves, pods and seeds, and a tasty horseradish-flavoured root. It also produces a fine oil for lubricating delicate machinery or for lamps, wood, skin salve, traditional medicines and even a means to purify water. In the latter, the seeds are thrown into cloudy water in place of expensive alum to settle the silt. And it grows up to five metres a year.

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Klaus Becker, at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany, has spent 15 years working on the plant, most recently as a renewable fish feed for aquaculture. “It is a miracle tree,” he says.

The report is a sequel to a 1996 volume on grains, and will be followed by two additional volumes on fruits.

Visit our newsblog to read and post comments about this story.

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061030/full/061030-7.html