Word: ahmedabad
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...city in India is more closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi's bloodless revolution against the British Raj than the prosperous, crowded (pop. 922,000) mill town of Ahmedabad, 275 miles north of Bombay. It was in Ahmedabad that Gandhi set up his chief ashram (model community). The shrewd, industrious Gujaratis (Gandhi was one himself) gave his independence movement its first mass following. In Ahmedabad last week two of Gandhi's most effective weapons against the British-satyagraha (soul force) and fasting-rose up to plague the new nation they had created...
...confounded the Communists, who multiply upon the sting of linguistic hatreds, and infiltrate smaller states more easily. "No, no, no!" the Communist M.P.s cried when the outcome was announced. Next day the Communists got some comfort when Gujrati students raged through the squalid streets of the textile center of Ahmedabad demanding a separate Gujarati state, attacking police and politicians in confused skirmishes that cost the city 16 dead...
...permitted outside their convents for such reasons as an air raid, requisition of convent property, voting, surgery, or visits to medical specialists; "minor," permitted outside for these reasons, and also to educate the young. ¶ After eight months of collective bargaining, some 105 Jain priests from 21 temples in Ahmedabad. India won most of their demands (TIME. Nov. 7). The settlement includes 40 days' annual leave with pay (which may be accumulated up to three years), retirement pay to priests with over ten years of service. Temple authorities agreed to hire substitute priests on their days off, so that...
...temper of a secularist age is penetrating even to Ahmedabad: some Jain priests have recently been seen to remove their masks in public, to eat and drink in restaurants and to use lamps without thought for the safety of moths. Last week things went even farther. One hundred of the boldest priests met and announced that, since intercession with the gods is industrial employment like any other, they had formed themselves into the Ahmedabad Jain Temple Priests Trade Union. From temple committees they demanded: an $8 minimum monthly wage, one day off a week, seven days' paid sick leave...
Between the gods and the faithful who worship at the 100 Jain* temples of Ahmedabad in western India stand 600-odd priests. Theirs is a hard and holy life; they say ritual prayers, guard temple treasures, abstain from smoking and drinking, sup before sundown (for lamps lure moths to destruction), and wear white cloth pads over their noses and mouths (lest their breathing destroy gnats or germs). Their wages never exceed $5 a month...