Muslims protest against the serial blasts in Ahmedabad on Sunday. (Reuters)

Citizens of India have accepted conflict in cities as a way of living. This is dangerous. They have delegated their safety to their governments. This is fatal.

Blasts in Ahmedabad are a warning of the days to come if this acceptance and delegation continues. The citizens have just not taken charge of their own safety or cities.

Cities are roads and real estate but also people. And people feel — feel left out or neglected or oppressed. People have grievances.

Our urban renewal missions focus on sewers and roads but never on justice or harmony. Conflict resolution is not part of our urban development plans. There are funds to beautify riverbanks and airports but not for cross-community interactions.

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Citizens have right to water and work. They also have right to safety and peace. This will not be given to them by any government but must be demanded and gained by themselves.

Conflicts — violence resulting from communal, religious, economic or political hazards — are becoming widespread and numerous in fast-developing to middle-income cities.

They will continue to cause greater loss of life and immense damage to Indian cities. Infrastructure will be damaged and national economy will suffer shocks.

Neither city planners nor city authorities nor even national agencies has bothered to explain such rise in conflict. Setting up a commission of inquiry that takes decades to produce a report is no way to reduce risk.

Citizens must demand a white paper from the Government of India on the trends leading to blasts in Indian cities over the past decade. A time-bound, comprehensive, and honest document in public domain is overdue.

The citizens of Ahmeda-bad must set up a third-party civil society commission to investigate the immediate and long-term trends that caused the blasts. Such an introspective exercise is overdue in Ahmedabad.