A probing took beyond Hindutva to get to the heart of Gujarat THE SHAPING OF MODERN Many aspects of mortem Gujarati society and polity appear pulling. A society which for centuries absorbed diverse people today appears insular and patochiai, and while it is one of the most prosperous slates in India, a fifth of its population lives below the poverty line. J Drawing on academic and scholarly sources, autobiographies, G U ARAT letters, literature and folksongs, Achyut Yagnik and Such Lira Strath attempt to Understand and explain these paradoxes, t hey trace the 2 a 6 :E e o n d i n a U t V a n y history of Gujarat from the time of the Indus Valley civilization, when Gujarati society came to be a synthesis of diverse peoples and cultures, to the state's encounters with the Turks, Marathas and the Portuguese t which sowed the seeds ol communal disharmony. Taking a closer look at the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the authors explore the political tensions, social dynamics and economic forces thal contributed to making the state what it is today, the impact of the British policies; the process of industrialization and urbanization^ and the rise of the middle class; the emergence of the idea of '5wadeshi“; the coming £ G and hr and his attempts to transform society and politics by bringing together diverse Gujarati cultural sources; and the series of communal riots that rocked Gujarat even as the state was consumed by nationalist fervour. With Independence and statehood, the government encouraged a new model of development, which marginalized Dai its, Adivasis and minorities even further. This was accompanied by the emergence of identity politics based on the Rindutva ideology, and violence In multiple forms became increasingly visible, overshadowing Gujarat's image as one of the most industrialized, urbanized and globalized societies in India. The authors conclude that this trajectory of Gujarat's modern history has been propelled by its powerful middle class and future directions would depend on how this section of society resolves global -local tensions and how they make their peace with the past Cover photograph by Ate it Partkfi Cover design Nandini Varma A PENGUIN ORlGiNAL issn 0 “-LN -MClCS^lfi-S Nan-fictian India Rs 350 www. peng lii ntoooAsi ndia. com \ PENGUIN BOOKS THE SHAPING OF MODERN GUJARAT Achyut Yagnik is the founder-secretary of Setu: Centre for Social Knowledge and Action, an Ahmedabad-based voluntary organization which has been working with marginalized communities since the early 1980s. He was a journalist and has also taught development communication as visiting faculty in Gujarat University. He is co- author of the book Creating a Nationality: Ramjanmabhoomi Movement and Fear of the Self Suchitra Sheth studied visual communication at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. She is associated with Setu and has been visiting faculty at NID and the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Gandhinagar. The Shaping of Modern Gujarat Plurality, Hindutva and Beyond ACHYUT YAGNIK and SUCHITRA SHETH PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) This book is dedicated to Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Akshara my granddaughter, Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New — Achyut Yagnik Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Aniruddh Johannesburg 2196, South Africa my children , Ayesha and — Suchitra Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England And all the children of Gujarat First published by Penguin Books India 2005 Copyright © Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth 2005 All rights reserved 10 9876543 The international boundaries on the maps of India are neither purported to be correct nor authentic by Survey of India directives. ISBN-13: 978-0-14400-038-8 ISBN-10: 0-14400-038-5 Typeset in Sabon by R. Ajith Kumar, New Delhi Printed at Sanat Printers, Haryana This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book. Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix PREFACE xi 1 SYNTHESIS AND CONTINUITY 1 2 MERCANTILE ETHOS 19 3 OPPRESSIVE ENCOUNTERS 39 4 WELCOMING THE BRITISH RAJ 61 5 INDUSTRIALIZATION AND SWADESHI 98 6 THE CALL FOR SWARAJ 132 7 GUJARAT, GUJARATIS AND GANDHI 157 3 ‘HINDU’ AND ‘MUSLIM’ 193 9 SOCIAL LANDSCAPE AFTER INDEPENDENCE 226 10 RISE OF HINDUTVA 252 11 HINDUTVA AND BEYOND 276 PICTURE CREDITS 294 NOTES 295 REFERENCES AND SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 306 INDEX 319 Acknowledgements This book owes its existence to Kamini Mahadevan, our first editor at Penguin, and we would like to express our heartfelt thanks for her unwavering trust and support. Her comments and suggestions on early drafts forced us to think through many facets in a new way and greatly enriched our presentation. In the early phase we were helped by Shalini Randeria, Shiv Visvanathan and D.L. Sheth, who gave us feedback on the outline of the book and encouraged us to take up this work as a challenge. We would like to thank Harsh Sethi and Vimal Balasubrahmanyan, who read several chapters and commented on them, and Jyotirmaya Sharma, who cheered us along throughout. Many friends facilitated our search for books and references and we are thankful to Kirit Bhavsar, Gaurang Jani, P.M. Parmar, Ramesh Dave, Priyavadan Randeria, Raman Modi, Ravindra Vasavada, Hanif Lakdawala, Sheela Bhatt and Kavita Sivaramakrishnan. We are indebted to Jitendra Desai of Navajivan Trust and Amrut Modi of Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya for permission to reproduce material related to Mahatma Gandhi. We thank Jitendra Shah of L.D. Institute of Indology for permission to reproduce an illustration from a Jain miniature in the institute’s collection. We are grateful to our colleagues at Setu who supported us throughout the period we were at work on this book. Bhalubhai Desai not only encouraged us but went through early drafts of the book and made many suggestions. Even when he was in the United States, he learnt how to operate email just so that he could send us detailed comments. Ashok Shrimali helped with the research and also shouldered extra responsibilities in the organization to leave us free to write. Among other colleagues are Nina Haeems, Hina Patel, Parul Shah, Parvin Saiyad, Ramsinh Thakore and Udaysinh Thakore, and we appreciate their support as well. Acknowledgements We would also like to thank our copy editor Jaishree Ram Mohan, who worked meticulously on the prose and ironed out numerous wrinkles. Preface Finally, many thanks to the members of our families for their patience and encouragement throughout the writing of this book. The idea of Gujarat and pride in Gujarati identity is pre-modern. Probably the earliest reference to Gurjardesh occurs in the eighth-century Apabhransh work Kuvalayamala by the Jain monk Udyotansuri. A glimpse of Gujarati pride can be seen in ‘ the fourteenth-century Sanskrit poem Nabbinandan-jinoddbar Prabandh ’ by another Jain monk, Kakkasuri. He glorified Gurjardesh in the poem, describing in detail the flora of the land, its prosperous ports and the wealth of those who conducted business there. Interestingly, he indicated the boundaries of Gurjardesh through a catalogue of the religious places that were situated within the region, which corresponds roughly to Gujarat of today. About a hundred years later, poet Padmanabh used the word ‘Gujarati’ to refer to Gujarat in his ‘ historical poem Kanhadde Prabandh Half a century after him, ‘ poet Bhalan of Patan took pride in his Gujar bbakha ’ or Gujarati language. By the late seventeenth century, Premanand Bhatt, one of the greatest poets of the Gujarati language, ‘ Gujaratji\ proclaimed in his work Nalakhyan , Garvo desh Gujarat is majestic! One of the most moving expressions of ‘ identification with Gujarat is found in the poem Dar Firaaq-e- Gujarat\ On Separation from Gujarat, by Wali Muhammad Wali, a junior contemporary of Premanand’s: Parting from Gujarat leaves thorns in my chest My heart-on-fire pounds impatiently in my breast What cure can heal the wound of living apart? The scimitar of exile has cut deep into my heart And thank God’s mercy, O Wali! He let that passion remain The heart’s still anxious to catch a glimpse of my Gujarat again 1 xii Preface Pre face xiii In fact, Wali and dimensions. For instance, M.S. Muhammad Wali, who is considered a pioneer of on specific periods, areas three volumes, published Urdu language and literature, was referred to by his Commissariat’s History of Gujarat in contemporaries century, covers the period from the as Wali Gujarati. in the mid twentieth describes mainly We are neither poets nor historians and we have not even fourteenth to mid eighteenth centuries and Gujaratno Rajkiya attempted to express our perception in the style of Kakkasuri political developments.