Dear Vipoolbhai:

Thank you for sending us your thoughtful Navneet/Samarpan article on the issue of being a Gujarati. You cite several Gujarati writers and thinkers such as Ishwar Petlikar, Professor B. K. Thakore, and Prakash Shah who all lament our general lack of sense of being Gujarati people. You extend their analysis to Diaspora Gujaratis.  As I understand, you are concerned that we identify ourselves not as Gujarati, but more in terms of what particular region where we come from (say, the Patels of five villages) or particular caste or subcaste that we belong to (say, Brahmin or Bania). You seem to assume that this kind of regional or caste distinction narrows our identity as common people and that we lose our national or cultural cohesion. I disagree.

During the 1950s and 1960s, one similarly heard about lack of national integration.  We thought that we were too fractured as people. That we don’t often think as Indian but as Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, etc. I personally heard such arguments at a symposium in the early sixties at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan where such luminaries as K.M. Munshi, Rajajee and C. P. Ramaswamy Ayer spoke. The noted scholar of India Selig Harrison published a book 1960, India–the Most Dangerous Decades that prophesied that the country might disintegrate due to fissiparous caste and regional divisions.  After some sixty years since the publication of the book, not only India did not disintegrate, but has emerged as a major world power. And the Gujaratis as people remained as among the most entrepreneurial people in the world.

Argument about our centrifugal tendencies also misses a universal human proclivity to be with and around others with whom we feel at ease.  It is a kind of social safety net that puts us at ease when we venture out of our social cocoon. It is presumed that such a splintered identity would mean that we will not be ready to forge when a larger force threatens our nation. This is a mistake. For example, during 1962, when there was Chinese invasion of India, the people of different regions put aside their regional identities and rose up as a united force. Similarly, in our response to anything Pakistani, it is never regional but always Indian.

Regional identification generally prevails in a large diverse country like India. A similar situation prevails in the United States where regional identification–Southern vs. Northern–is strong, yet when the country is under some sort of external threat, the regional identities are subordinated in favor of a united national front. This was the case when Islamic terrorists attacked New York and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001. Similarly, it is not uncommon to see young GIs from a particular region to congregate and socialize among themselves, yet this does not compromise their national mission to fight as a united force against an external force.

The most common tendency among Gujaratis settled outside of Gujarat, as eloquently stated in a poem by Ardeshar Khabardar and quoted by you, is that they always remain Gujarati. Once on a World Bank mission, I visited Nairobi. I went about the town to see and meet local Gujaratis. I was shocked to discover that they have essentially remained Gujarati fractured in their little communities even after being there for more than a hundred years.  Their culture including manners and mores, language and means of communication, temples and places of worship, social gatherings and festivals–practically every facet of their life has remained essentially their own brand of Gujarati. Only their working life–jobs, business, commerce and industry–involved contact with the host community. One can understand the affinity of the first generation immigrants to the home country’s diversity.  It can be explained as a necessary safety net to ease the pressures of living abroad.

However, when one sees that sense of exclusionary attitude among the second generation immigrants that I saw in Nairobi, it displays a steadfast refusal to assimilate, a downright hostility, even contempt for the people who had opened their doors to strangers. Such an attitude toward the host community ultimately endangers immigrant minorities as was seen during the Idi Amin regime in Uganda. To me, this is a profoundly worrisome prospect for Gujarati, or any other immigrant community.

Looking forward to discussing these and other issues that you raised in your thoughtful article as you have devoted your professional life thinking and writing about them.

Panna and I enjoyed your hospitality last week and look forward to reciprocating it next week when we meet for lunch with you and Kunjbahen.

Natwar