Urban Upheaval in India: The 1974 Nav Nirman Riots in Gujarat Author(s): Dawn E. Jones and Rodney W. Jones Source: Asian Survey, Vol. 16, No. 11 (Nov., 1976), pp. 1012-1033 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2643482 Accessed: 11-08-2015 19:01 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Asian Survey. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.83.205.78 on Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:01:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions URBANUPHEAVAL IN INDIA:THE 1974 NAV NIRMANRIOTS IN GUJARAT Dawn E. Jones and RodneyW. Jones* FOR THE FIRST ten weeks of 1974, the Indian state of Gujarat faced an emergencyof locally unprecedented proportions. Waves of riotsand politicalagitation swept through its citiesand towns, causingover one hundredreported deaths, many more seriousinjuries, massive arrests,and the destructionof huge amounts of public and privateproperty. The Nav Nirman ("social reconstruction")movement spreadlike a firestormthroughout urban Gujarat in January,continued in the face of Armyintervention, and subsided only afterthe leaders secured key political objectives.The most importantof these was the overthrowof the state government,partially realized on February 9 when the Chief Ministerresigned under pressurefrom Delhi and Pres- ident's Rule was clamped on the state, and completed on March 15 when the Prime Minister reluctantlyacceded to dissolution of the Gujarat legislativeassembly.' The upheaval has since had major repercussionson Indian na- tional politics. The Gujarat riots, togetherwith the anti-government * This article is based on field work carried out in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and Delhi between September 1974 and January 1975. We relied heavily on field inter- views, supplemented by research in the newspaper clippings files of the Saprlu House Library in New Delhi. We wish to express our gratitude to the American Institute of Indian Studies for financialsupport; to Dr. Amrik Singh of Delhi Uni- versityfor his thoughtfulguidance; to Shri K. C. Parikh, Registrar,and Professor Devavrut N. Pathak, Director of the School of Social Science, at Gujarat University for their hospitalityand support; and to Dr. Rajni Kothari and D. L. Sheth at the Centre for Developing Societies, Delhi, for commentson an early draft. Others too numerous to mention have been generous in their help. We assume sole respon- sibility,of course, for the views expressed and any errors that may remain in the final product. 1 An excellent comparative overview of the Gujarat and Bihar movementshas just appeared: see John R. Wood, "Extra-ParliamentaryOpposition in India: An Analysis of Populist Agitations in Gujarat and Bihar," Pacific Affairs,Fall 1975, pp. 313-334. A good preliminarytreatment of Nav Nirman, with additional details, is Ghanshyam Shah, "The Upsurge in Gujarat," Economic and Political Weekly (Spe- cial Number, August 1974), pp. 1429-1454; this periodical is hereafter cited as EPW. For a Gujarati language account, see Babulal Dave, et. al., Gujaratnul Lok Andolan (Ahmedabad, 1974). 1012 This content downloaded from 128.83.205.78 on Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:01:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NAV NIRMANRIOTS IN GUJARAT 1013 movementof JayaprakashNarayan in Bihar, which theyhad inspired, were evidentlya key factorin Indira Gandhi's decision to declare a national State of Emergencyon June 26, 1975. When queried as to whetherIndia's internalstability was really threatened,Mrs. Gandhi replied: We had a movementin the stateof Gujarat, we had a movementin the state of Bihar. in Gujarat the members of our legislative assembly were threatenedand intimidatedand forced to resign. There was vio- lence. Students were not attending college. We had strikes. there was such indisciplinethat even governmentfunctioning was becoming extremely difficult.. [the opposition] tried to paralyze the govern- ment of . Gujarat and Bihar. But it is obvious that if this happened on a nationwidescale-and this was what was announced [Narayan had called for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign, to begin on June 29]-there would have been wide-scale violence. I think there was grave internaldanger to the country.2 While many observersthought that the "grave internal danger" most immediate was to Indira Gandhi's personal power, the prospect of widespread violence paralyzing the central governmenttemporarily should not be lightlydismissed. The salient threatto the Prime Minis- ter's leadership arose from fracturesin the Congress party,which a successfulreplay of the Gujarat rebellion in the urban areas of the Hindi-speaking heartland-clearly Narayan's intention-would cer- tainlyhave exacerbated.In that event,the Congressparty's capacity to governwas also at stake-a matterof more profoundconcern than Mrs. Gandhi's survival.Our primarypurpose forreporting on the Nay Nir- man agitation-to explain its originsby uncoveringthe centralrole of educationalforces-pre-dated the national emergency,but we are struck by the extentto which the Gujarat eventswere symbolicallyimportant in JayaprakashNarayan's confrontationwith the Prime Minister.The memoryof Nav Nirman,essentially, is of the capacityof an indignant middle class to paralyzeand overthrowelected governments. Besides being based in the urban middle class, the Nay Nirman agitation exhibitedother significantfeatures. Though spearheadedby studentactivists, who receivedmost press coverage,it was inspired,or- ganized and coordinatedby associationsof teachersin the colleges and schools.3Underlying the agitation,in fact,was a strugglefor power in the educationalsystem between teachers and privateinstitutional man- agements.The strugglewas elevated to the state level in 1973 when 2 NBC, "Meet the Press," broadcast August 24, 1975; reprinted in India News (Washington, D.C.: Embassy of India, September 5, 1975). 3 On this point, our analysis differsfrom that of John Wood, who argues that "The Gujarat agitation revealed a capacity for spontaneous, localized action, but almost no coordination on a state-wide basis." "Extra-ParliamentaryOpposition," p. 323. Our findingis that such coordination existed, if not decisively among stu- dents, certainlyamong teachers' associations. This content downloaded from 128.83.205.78 on Tue, 11 Aug 2015 19:01:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1014 D. E. JONES and R. W. JONES Chimanbhai Patel, a formerEconomics professor and political agent of private college managements,became Chief Ministerof Gujarat, and subsequentlythe targetof the 1974 agitation.The Nav Nirman leaders were professedlynonviolent and nonpartisan;while unable to prevent violence, they largelysucceeded in resistingpenetration by political parties.But political partiesand factionsdid exploit the riots forpur- poses of theirown and thuscontributed to the successof the movement. Linkageswith the centerwere important,both in aggravatingeconomic conditionsunderlying the riotingand in deciding how the government would respond. The movementgathered its overwhelmingforce fromthe broad, largelyunorganized involvement of the urban middle and lowermiddle classes,particularly white-collar employees of privateand public bureau- craticenterprises, but also professionals,including journalists, lawyers, and even doctors.Unionized industrialworkers remained aloof, but nonunion workersparticipated sporadically. The affluentclasses were uninvolved,except as intermediatetargets of the riots,mainly traders and merchants.The immediatecauses of white-collarrioting were eco- nomic-food scarcitiesand inflatedprices-but frustrationswere com- pounded by the belief that theseproblems were artifactsof "manipula- tive politics."Collusion between politiciansand businessmenin fixing pricesby controllingmarket supply for mutual profit,and the open use of largesums of moneyin politicsto win electionsand to break or make cabinetministries, were perceivedas the underlyingcauses of economic distressas well as the erosion of middle class influencein government affairs. Partyand FactionalPolitics in Gujarat The 1969 split in the Congressparty hastened the ascendancyof manipulativepolitics in Gujarat; it shatteredpersonal expectations, scrambledgroup loyalties-sometimeseven down to the familyand neighborhoodlevel-and impelled much greaterintervention by the centerin state and local politics.Although the Gujarat Congress(0), led by Morarji Desai and Chief MinisterHitendra Desai, initiallysur- vived in the state government,it was toppled in May 1971 by the maneuversof a formerprotege, Chimanbhai Patel. Chimanbhai had defectedthe previous December to the Congress,the ruling party at the center,along with other dissidentsrepresenting the rural middle classes. Chimanbhai's contacts with the affluentfarmers, especially with the Patidar caste to which he belongs,were indispensableto the overwhelmingCongress victory in the 1972 Gujarat elections.The Con- gresswon 140 out of 168 assemblyseats, the Congress(0) only 16, the Jan Sangh 3, Communists1,