ABSTRACT In 2002, barbaric communal violence broke out all over the western state of Gujarat in India. Over 2000 Muslims were killed and more than 96,000 displaced through violent attacks by Hindus in retaliation for the burning of a train carrying 59 Hindu pilgrims. After 2002, the Gujarat government implemented the Gujarat Development Model (GDM), an economic development model based on neoliberal politics and late-capitalistic policies. Using a rhetorical lens, I argue that the GDM performs memory work to forget the minority Muslim identity after the Gujarat pogrom of 2002. GDM is a rhetorical move that uses sectarian-neutral language circulated via newspapers to perform a simultaneous forgetting of the pogrom and the atrocities against the Muslims but remembering the moment of Godhra valorizing the majoritarian Hindu identity.