Word: gujarati
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...years ago, when the Gujarati community of Ahmedabad rioted against Nehru's plan to submerge them in a huge, new state dominated by the Marathas, Desai-a Gujarati himself-first tried to shame the rioters into submission by staging a public fast in the Gandhian tradition. When that failed, Desai ordered the police into action. They opened fire on the mobs, injuring at least 100 people...
...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...
Strange Allies. At first the helter-skelter mobs that raged through Ahmedabad's streets were led by Gujarati students. But as the days wore on and the death toll mounted to 18, there emerged a strange coalition of forces, united only by their interest in fishing in troubled waters. Indian Communists, who a few weeks earlier had been denouncing the Gujaratis as "moneybag oppressors" of the Marathas, now rushed to champion the Gujarati cause. Local Socialists jumped on the bandwagon. And huffing and puffing alongside these leftist troublemakers were Gujarati businessmen and mill owners who foresaw difficulties in handling...
...last-ditch attempt to stop the violence, local Congress Party leaders called in one of Gandhi's most respected followers, Morarji Desai, an ascetic, deeply religious Gujarati, who as Chief Minister of Bombay has proved himself one of India's best administrators and a likely successor to Nehru...
Some Indians argued that Desai's objective-"to make people attend a speech"-did not involve an issue "important enough for a fast." Others suspected that it had an unworthy political purpose: to reestablish Desai's threatened leadership of the Gujarati people...