Word: ahmedabad
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Signs of trouble flapped in the breeze when 4,000 students gathered in the textile town of Ahmedabad last week to hear Prime Minister Nehru make a speech. They carried black flags-a traditional advance warning that the audience was not going to like the speech, whatever it said. The Gujarati-speaking students were sparkplugs of the movement opposing merger with the more numerous Marathas in the new bilingual state of Bombay...
...Prepare My Pyre." To spike Desai's guns, Ahmedabad's students promptly called a janata, i.e., a "people's curfew," for the day he was to speak. At dawn large bands of students began to swarm through Ahmedabad's streets warning shopkeepers to close up for the day. Only people with "passes" signed by local Socialist leaders were permitted on the streets and pigtailed girls of 15 or 16 stopped pedestrians to check on their passes. By midafternoon the student curfew was almost 100% effective, and at 4:15, shortly before Desai was due to speak...
Shocked and angry. Desai declared in a strained voice: "So long as the citizens of Ahmedabad do not hear me peacefully, I shall not take food. If Gujarat is eager to cremate me, I am ready. Let it prepare my funeral pyre." Then Desai, who normally eats only one meal a day anyway, hurried off to his brother's Ahmedabad home and began fasting...
Niqht Call from Delhi. While Desai fasted, his supporters gradually rallied. In Ahmedabad's 66 mills 120,000 workers who had kept apart from the rioting started each day with a prayer for the Chief Minister's success. In Bombay his well-wishers formed huge lines at the telegraph office. And from New Delhi Prime Minister Nehru called nightly to inquire after Desai's health...
With his only nourishment a glass of bicarbonate of soda every 24 hours, Desai within a week had lost 8½ Ibs. He was, announced the eight doctors who hovered over him, "extremely weak." At week's end, on the urging of 40 leading citizens of Ahmedabad, who assured him that the people would now listen with respect, Desai took his first nourishment in eight days-a glass of orange juice-and once again tried to make his speech. The leading citizens turned out to be sadly mistaken. While Desai spoke, a surly, milling crowd of 1,000 Gujaratis...