Word: maharashtrians
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...often spoken of as Nehru's heir apparent. Before dawn, on Desai's orders, police arrested 435 Communist, Socialist and United Maharashtra Party leaders. The Communists had prepared for this eventuality, too. Secretly trained alternates swiftly swung into action. At their direction, hundreds of thousands of Maharashtrian workers dropped their work and swarmed out of dockyards, textile mills and railroad shops into the streets, shouting "Death to Nehru!" The rioters blocked streets with boulders and gasoline drums, tore up lampposts, ripped down fences. They smashed statues of Mahatma Gandhi (a Gujarati himself), burned Desai in effigy, flourished pictures...
Calcutta, Too. In his house above the city, Chief Minister Desai sadly looked over burning Bombay. Desai, who is a Gujarati, had warned Nehru against dividing India by lingual groups. "Maharashtrians have made a mockery of India's preaching to the world to be nonviolent," he mourned. "If the government yields to Maharashtrian violence, democracy in India becomes mobocracy, and India will be cut to pieces...
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