Word: gujarat
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Last week some of their apprehensions seemed about to be realized. To the sound of conch shells and church bells, India's bilingual state of Bombay was formally divided into Marathi-speaking Maharashtra, with Bombay as the capital, and Gujarati-speaking Gujarat, with Ahmedabad as its capital. Even before the noisy celebration died down, Maharashtra police in Nagpur 400 miles away were teargassing 40,000 demonstrators demanding still another state of their own-Vidarbha...
...want a Gujarat state!" they chanted as Nehru prepared to begin. The Prime Minister tried to banter with them. "I detect a sort of mild fever here." The chant persisted, so Nehru dug in. "The bilingual state of Bombay will come into being on November 1, and there is no power on earth which can flout the decision of Parliament," said he. From the audience came the roar: "It will not happen!" "You want to bet?" shouted Nehru, his face taut...
That did it. The students waved their flags and cried in unison: "We want Greater Gujarat!" Some rushed the platform, only to be repelled by police wielding lathis. "This is the law of the jungle!" Nehru shouted above the melee. "You are monkeys...
Sweat pouring down his face, Nehru tried again and again to get back to his speech. The well-organized students hooted him down. The Prime Minister abandoned his text. "You have no guts. This is fascism! Communism is its brother. Before all this, Gujarat is a small problem. This tendency is suicidal." The booing persisted. Nehru shouted: "You know what would happen if you did this in China? You know what happened in Poland recently? You want India to shape the way you have behaved? Juvenile delinquents!" Eighty-two minutes after he had started talking, Nehru gave...
...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 threw stones at the dais and interrupted him repeatedly with cries of "Long Live Gujarat." Before the day was over. Ahmedabad's police had twice opened fire on frenzied mobs, and at least a hundred were injured...