Last week I visited two of the largest relief camps in Muzaffarnagar with the Oxfam humanitarian team. My only previous experience was with flood relief in Bihar and I suppose I expected something similar: stories of deaths, heroism, luck, some mixture of initiative and callousness on the part of state officials, families contemplating their changed lives and how best to rebuild them, slowly making their way back to what they had left behind.

Over the course of the day I realised how much harder it is to find relief from human conflict. Responses to it are intensely political, facts often misrepresented and the prospect for a return to normalcy remote.

The first surprise was the almost complete absence of state relief. The Malakpur camp, which was our first stop, had 649 families and 1,157 children of school going age, none of whom had seen a school since they fled in early September. Several children had been born, either in the camp or in a private facility nearby.

No health officials had visited and the few women who travelled to the public health centre in the block (Kairana) or the district hospital in Shamli either met with empty facilities or were told their treatment was too complicated to be tackled there. Amazingly, the state ambulance service at 108 did respond with a couple of hours’ delay but refused to bring the mother back with her newborn child.

Helping hand The camp was located on forest land and the district authorities had allowed it to be cleared by local villages to house the refugees, but no food was subsequently provided. In contrast to this state apathy, support from the local Muslim community has been overwhelming.

They first shared their houses and then regularly provided food, labour and anything else that was urgently needed. The big remaining problems of daily functioning were the lack of cooking fuel and toilets. The sugarcane fields that were used would soon be cut bare, denying them what little privacy they had. Sugarcane also provided work as agricultural labour but most men struggled with this, having been petty traders with no experience working on the land. That income will also end with the harvest.

An obvious question in their minds and ours was, What next? Every one of the dozens of people we spoke to was clear that they were not going back. Repeatedly we heard “ hum mar jayenge par vapas nahi jayenge ” (we will die but will not go back). The surprise here was that nobody reported a history of violence.

The Muslims were at most 10 per cent of the village population and could no longer trust the Jats even though they had both lived there for many generations. The “ nafrat ki deevar ” (wall of hate) had no antecedents and yet was now solid and indisputable. There was talk of families receiving a grant of Rs 5 lakh each to start a new life, but it was not clear where. No family in the camp had received this so far.

In the slightly smaller camp at Loi, about 25 km from Muzzafarnagar, life was easier in some respects and more traumatic in others. The camp was close to Phugana, one with the worst-hit villages, which meant that some children could continue to attend their former school. Some government rations had come in and there were bundles of firewood by one of the tents.

But the terror and trauma were greater. There were stray killings every few days. Many of the families had locked themselves in their houses when the violence had started, their calls to the police were unanswered and they were rescued by army trucks in the late evening. Memories were fresh and bloody and poured out painfully.As I was rushing out of the house early that morning, I hesitated before placing the usual bindi on my forehead.

Driving back, I was glad it was there — a symbol that empathy could and must cross sectarian lines to start the process of healing.

(The author is Professor of Economics at Delhi School of Economics)

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