The book of Gujarat opens with two cantos. The first, the great mercantile ethos, is a civilisational legend. The second, the equally great amnesia, survives in few memories. The first is about the business tycoons Gujarat is proud of, the second about the danseuses who could not become the state바카라s mascot. One is about the men who established oil refineries and ports, the second is about the men who founded academic and scientific institutions. The first tells us what Gujarat is, the second what it could have been.
And it applies to politics as well. When Digvijaya Singh was the Madhya Pradesh chief minister, he often advised young Congress MLAs, 바카라If you want to be in politics, leave every other profession aside. Politics is a full-time job.바카라 At the posh office of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Ahmedabad last week, party spokesperson Jayesh Vyas shared an important distinction. 바카라CVs of the north Indian politicians often have 바카라social service바카라 as a profession. In contrast, most Gujarati politicians are into various professions,바카라 Vyas told Outlook. 바카라Your profession gives you satisfaction and social success. You may be a party leader, but you also want self-fulfilment,바카라 he added.
The ethos pervades various spheres of life. Elsewhere, kids learn tables of 1, 2 and 3. In Gujarat, they also do dodh (1.5), sava be (2.25), pauna char (3.75) and the like. If it is all about dhandho (business), the great marketer will win politics too. It explains why despite both the Congress and the BJP firmly supporting the Sardar Sarovar Project, the BJP reaped the harvest. 바카라The Congress couldn바카라t convince urban voters that it had brought the project and fought for it as well. The BJP and Narendra Modi have taken all the credit,바카라 says Ahmedabad-based journalist Devanshi Joshi.
It also explains the BJP바카라s attack on Rahul Gandhi after Medha Patkar joined 바카라Bharat Jodo Yatra바카라. For several decades, the Congress argued that Patkar ignored the state바카라s interests. How can you now accommodate her without explaining your change of stance to your voters?
The Myth Makers
Significantly, the Vaishyas (trader community) form just around 5 per cent of Gujarat바카라s population. But the mercantile trait is not community specific. It comes from a distinct coastal geography that organically pushes the resident to trade and entrepreneurship. Cambay and Surat had been India바카라s leading ports before the emergence of Bombay. The great Harappan port of Lothal was just 80 km from the modern Ahmedabad. A senior Gujarati academic underlines that over 80 per cent of teachers in colleges and universities have websites related to the stock market always opened on their computers. Be it journalists in newsrooms, or people at a funeral, the dominant conversation is dhandho.
The 바카라Gujarat Model바카라, hence, is a marketing gem. The buyers ignore that the state always rode on high growth. When the nation was struggling under British rule, Gujaratis were doing great business and funding the freedom struggle, of which M.K. Gandhi바카라s Sabarmati Ashram was a prime example.
Contrarily, the state바카라s indices have slipped in the last two decades. At his Ahmedabad home, Hemant Shah, former principal of HK Arts College, shares the details of his well-researched book, Sachhai Gujarat Ki (The Truth of Gujarat). From 1980 to 2000, the average annual growth rate of Gujarat was around 15 per cent, while from 2001 to 2021, Modi바카라s period, it slipped to 8.21 per cent. With 919 women per 1,000 men, Gujarat has among the worst sex ratios in the country, substantially below the national average of 940. 바카라The Gujarat Model is an illusion created through propaganda. It is a Disneyland model of governance to satisfy kids of all ages,바카라 senior Gujarati journalist Urvish Kothari tells Outlook.
Another consoling myth is of vegetarianism. The BJP바카라s chief spokesperson Yamal Vyas proudly says that Gujaratis are vegetarian, ignoring the various surveys that say at least 40 per cent of the Gujaratis consume non-vegetarian food. Mahatma Gandhi is Gujarat바카라s most famous ambassador for vegetarianism. But his culinary habits were not native. His ancestral town of Porbandar has a predominant meat-eating culture. The port town바카라s economic and social life is dependent on fish. The town is lined with rows of trawlers and fishnets, with the smell of fish wafting in the air.
Similarly, notwithstanding the BJP바카라s repeated claims that the Congress destroyed Gujarat, the party does deserve some credit. India바카라s greatest cooperative movement that made the country the world바카라s largest milk producer happened under the Congress rule. It created India바카라s most adorable brand, Amul, and provided self-employment to millions of rural women, even prompting Shyam Benegal바카라s movie Manthan. Vyas listed the completion of the Sardar Sarovar Project among the party바카라s greatest achievements in the last five years. Never mind that the project was conceived during the Congress rule and its foundation stone was laid by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961. Not to mention premier institutes like the Indian Institute of Management and National School of Design.
Sangh바카라s Spadework and Arrival of Modi
But myths alone cannot explain Modi바카라s sway. Even Hindutva is just one cog, though a major one, in the wheel. Before Modi arrived, the BJP바카라RSS had already laid the foundation by uniting the numerous OBC communities in the state under the Hindu umbrella. The BJP had also begun winning over the milk and sugar cooperatives, which were the backbone of the state바카라s rural life and were under the Congress바카라s dominance.
Third, the Sangh also co-opted various religious sects in the state that was already home to a Shankaracharya Pitha (Dwarka) and two jyotirlingas (Somnath and Nageshwar), besides being a major centre of Jainism. The Swaminarayans and Morari Bapus filled the religious vacuum of the upwardly mobile population in a rapidly growing Gujarat. Though these sects spoke a language of love and harmony, they allowed themselves to be appropriated by the BJP and overlooked the gradual othering of Muslims. The Hindutvaisation of the Gujarati middle class was thus distinct from north India. Being cushioned by a religious preacher with a benign image and moral lessons, it foreclosed any need for introspection.
Around that time, the Ahmedabad textile industry also marked a decline. The industry had created neighbourhoods of Hindu바카라Muslim workers. Their shared interests ensured that communal violence did not last long and people regrouped again. With the decline of the industry 1980s onwards, the Sangh Parivar could easily take the lower OBCs and the Dalits away from Muslims.
Notably, the Gujarati Muslims are not poor like those of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. Reflecting the state바카라s ethos, they run several businesses, hotel chains and NGOs. The community once dominated the underworld and bootlegging business, of which Abdul Latif, whose life supposedly inspired Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees, was the poster boy. A Robin Hood-like figure, he was seen as a justice provider during communal riots. In 1987, facing several cases, including some under the National Security Act, he won from five different constituencies in the Ahmedabad municipal elections. It was perhaps the first instance of the Congress losing the Muslim vote.
The BJP immediately sensed a major target. When Latif was arrested in 1996, the then chief minister Keshubhai Patel was hailed as 바카라Hindu Hriday Samrat바카라, a sobriquet the Congress could have never envisioned when its governments arrested Latif. Communal riots took place during the Congress rule as well. In fact, several Muslims say that many Congress workers are hostile towards the community. In 1969, Gandhi바카라s centenary year, the city of Ahmedabad, where he had made his great ashram, witnessed the worst communal riots the country had seen till then. But such violence was largely witnessed in urban centres. The massive land of Saurashtra was less communal than central Gujarat, and Kutch was even more peaceful. The 2002 riots mutated the state바카라s society as the communal violence reached the rural hinterland. Muslims were tactfully targeted in areas they were weaker.
However, the anti-Muslim stance alone cannot explain Modi. He also successfully established himself as a pan-Gujarat leader, a nath (protector). He skilfully exploited the anti-Congress sentiment that was always present in Gujarat and goes back to the Mahagujarat movement of the 1950s, a feeling that the Nehru government had wronged Gujarat by offering a clipped state. 바카라Many Gujaratis had been living with a sense of injustice they faced by the Congress바카라towards Sardar Patel, the Narmada cause, a truncated Gujarat state. Narendrabhai restored the Gujarati asmita. Attacks on him only intensified the Gujarati pride,바카라 says Jayesh Vyas.
As prime minister, Modi strengthened his claim. For a society that had not seen any pan-Indian leader since Independence, a community that believed Nehru was unduly favoured over Sardar Patel, Modi was the immaculate cultural바카라political brand. He could sell the desolate Rann of Kutch as a tourist destination. He could also show the Muslims their place.
But it has also made the party an ancillary unit. 바카라They want to make Congress-mukt Bharat, but they are also making neta-mukt BJP. In Keshubhai바카라s time, there were several strong parallel chief ministers, including Pravin Togadia. But now no one knows about him,바카라 says Kothari. Now, politics is about inventing new marketing strategies. One afternoon at the BJP office, Outlook met several students of the Ahmedabad School of Digital Marketing. The young girls handled social media platforms of the BJP as part of their 바카라internship with a corporate바카라. They were apolitical a month ago, but the stint with the party had made them Modi바카라s fans.
Collective Amnesia
Mercantilism has dissuaded higher pursuits of learning. Social scientists Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth note in their book, The Shaping of Modern Gujarat, that the 바카라single-minded focus on generating profits바카라 led to a 바카라steady decline of the intellectual tradition바카라, as 바카라Gujarat has not seen another towering personality since the twelfth-century scholar Hemchandracharya바카라. They add that 바카라the Gujarati word vediyo, which literally means 바카라a person who has studied the Vedas바카라, has become synonymous with bookworm or a learned fool바카라. In 1936, the great scholar Muni Jinvijay commented, 바카라The main aim of the people here (in Gujarat) is to figure out ways to make the most amount of money. That knowledge which enables them to achieve this aim is considered useful knowledge. All other knowledge, according to them, is useless.바카라
It leaves a few young writers who are experimenting with various genres anguished. 바카라There is an absence of intellectual culture in Gujarat. You find people in Bengali or Marathi discussing the likes of Neruda and Marquez but not in Gujarati. Most young poets here write popular ghazals or mediocre romantic poetry. It helps them earn a name among the masses,바카라 Mehul Devkala, a young Gujarati poet, tells Outlook.
And thus, the islands of excellence remain ignored. Rajni Kothari was the founder of one of India바카라s greatest academic institutes, the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. A fellow Gujarati Dhirubhai Sheth was among the founding members and later became its director. Two of India바카라s greatest contemporary dancers, Mrinalini Sarabhai and Kumudini Lakhia, lived a few kilometres from each other for decades in Ahmedabad. The state has given some of the finest modern painters ranging from Bhupen Khakhar to Gulam Mohammed Sheikh and Tyeb Mehta, with Vadodara as a major centre for the arts. And above all, Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India바카라s space programme?
Several of these illustrious names could be the state바카라s brand ambassadors. During my travels in Gujarat, I asked academicians and writers: What accounts for the great amnesia about the state바카라s cultural treasures? Why was there hardly any obit in Gujarati media for Kothari or Sheth? One of the answers offered was that they did not influence Gujarati life, because they left for Delhi and wrote in English. 바카라Gujarat unki karmbhoomi kabhi nahin raha (Gujarat was never their place of work)바카라 was a reply over a traditional Gujarati dinner. Somewhat understandable, but contrast this with the Bengalis바카라 love for Amitav Ghosh or their embrace of Amitabh Bachchan as Banglar jamai (Bengal바카라s son-in-law) even though Jaya Bhaduri never lived in West Bengal.
If the native Gujaratis can be proud of the diaspora industrialists spread across the globe, the distance from scholars who moved to Delhi or London seems tragic. 바카라We don바카라t celebrate our literary giants the way other languages do. People are not even aware of the difference between a newspaper columnist and a writer,바카라 adds Devkala.
The biggest question Gujarat바카라s civil society faces is its silence over the 2002 riots. Gujarati Hindus are generally benevolent. One does not see everyday lawlessness, but the state has silently acquiesced to the Muslim becoming the invisible 바카라other바카라. After 2002, a large number of Muslim victims came to the ghetto of Juhapura on the western edge of Ahmedabad. Unlike Delhi바카라s Seelampur, an urban slum of poor Muslims, Juhapura바카라s residents include business tycoons, builders and activists. During the 2002 violence, Justice M.H. Kadri, a serving judge of the Gujarat High Court, had to leave his official residence and seek shelter elsewhere.
바카라I teach the Constitution of India, but was forced to vacate my office in Naranpura and shift to Juhapura. Imagine my pain and sense of defeat,바카라 says Sophia Khan, a senior activist, who has been working on gender and legal issues for decades. 바카라My Muslim identity became prominent only after 2002. Before that, I was a citizen of a secular country. My icons were never based on religious identity. I had been living in a cosmopolitan locality since my birth,바카라 she says, sipping coffee at Cafe Coffee Day near Judges Bungalow Road. These Muslims wear their Gujarati identity and underline that despite the ostracisation, they focused on education and business. Kherunnisa Pathan, a native of Bhavnagar district, lived with her parents in Chandkhera locality of Ahmedabad before they were forced to come to Juhapura in 2002. When I asked her whether the locality바카라s name is one word or two, she said in Sanskritised Gujarati: 바카라Sanlagn (joined).바카라
Will the silence ever catch up with the Hindu Ahmedabad, especially those who drive all the way to Juhapura at night for a guilty bite of kebab at 바카라Magic Chickens바카라? Will it be remembered that the creator of Hindi cinema바카라s most iconic image of a woman, Mother India, was a person named Mehboob Khan, born in a village of Surat? Will Wali Mohmmad Wali, the 17th century poet who wrote a poignant poem about separation from Gujarat, ever find a place in the pantheon of Gujarati asmita?
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?
His shrine, situated right opposite the police headquarters in Ahmedabad, was demolished by the rioters in 2002. On the other side of the city last week, a Gandhian volunteer at the Sabarmati Ashram was spinning the charkha, demonstrating how the wooden loom works. He also showed Gandhi바카라s river that had 바카라turned into an artificial stream바카라. 바카라It바카라s no longer our Sabarmati,바카라 the old man said, pointing at the Narmada water that now feeds the Sabarmati.
In the ocean of amnesia, it is perhaps inevitable for the rivers to acquire new waters.
(This appeared in the print edition as "Decoding the Gujarati Psyche")
Ashutosh Bhardwaj in Ahmedabad, Porbandar and Dwarka
