Mahagujarat Aandolan

What the official syllabus says

GPSC Main Examination, Paper IV: General Studies-I, (A) History.

• Mahagujarat Aandolan.

Topics in detail

The movement for a separate Gujarati-speaking state ran from 1956 to 1960, in parallel with the Samyukta Maharashtra movement. Learn its background, course, leaders and outcome.

Background

• Linguistic states: the Dar Commission and the JVP Committee (1948-49); the creation of Andhra State (1953)
• States Reorganisation Commission (Fazal Ali, 1955) and the States Reorganisation Act (1956)
• The bilingual Bombay State of 1956: Gujarati areas, Saurashtra and Kachchh joined with Marathi areas
• The question of Bombay city and the competing claims of the two language groups

Course of the movement

• Student protests in Ahmedabad in August 1956 and the police firing near Congress House
• Indulal Yagnik and the Mahagujarat Janata Parishad
• Hartals, processions, the martyrs' memorial (Shahid Smarak) and public meetings
• Role of students, workers, writers and the press
• Relationship with the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti

Outcome

• The Bombay Reorganisation Act (1960)
• Formation of Gujarat on 1 May 1960 (Gujarat Day); inauguration by Ravishankar Maharaj
• Dr Jivraj Mehta as the first Chief Minister; Ahmedabad as the first capital, later Gandhinagar

Issues to analyse

• Language and regional identity in India's federal design
• Peaceful and violent forms of protest in the movement
• Lessons for later demands for new states

Timeline

Roots of Gujarati identity

• Gujarati language and literature as a shared identity: Narmad's 'Jay Jay Garavi Gujarat', the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad
• Gandhi's use of Gujarati and the Gujarat Vidyapith
• Integration of Saurashtra, Kachchh and Baroda after 1947

Constitutional angle

• Article 3: Parliament's power to form new states and alter boundaries
• Language as a basis of states, and its critics
• Bilingual states as an experiment and why it failed in Bombay

Making of the new state

• Division of territory, assets and services between Gujarat and Maharashtra under the 1960 Act
• The capital question: Ahmedabad first, then the planned city of Gandhinagar, named after Gandhi
• Gujarati as the language of the state's administration
• Building a single administration for former British districts, Saurashtra, Kachchh and Baroda

Writing about the movement

• Causes: language and identity, economic interests, the Bombay city question
• Nature: student-led, popular, largely urban at first, with periods of violence and of peaceful protest
• Outcome and significance for Indian federalism and later state demands

Overlaps

• Prelims General Studies: post-Independence India and Gujarat.
• Federal and Centre-State questions: General Studies-II.