What is Gujarat’s identity?

What does Gujarat stand for? What is Gujarat’s identity? These are seemingly simple but very difficult questions to answer. Probably there will be a myriad correct answers. Ask visitors from other parts of the country and they will go gaga over the state’s roads and infrastructure, warmth of the people and overall sense of security and well-being.

However, all that and much more has been achieved due to adventurous entrepreneurship of a diligent people over centuries. But it was in the 20th century that Mahatma Gandhi added a new dimension to Gujarat’s identity.

However, the first decade of the 21st century has not been kind to the state. Our state has been associated with disasters and blemishes. It was the nerve-wrecking earthquake in 2001, followed by the abominable riots in 2002 which sparked a range of events that beat the state’s much-endeared image.

At the turn of 50th year of statehood, the biggest challenge before every Gujarati is inventing a new and more relevant identity for the state. Since Gujarati spirit is inclusive in nature, it doesn’t distinguish between ethnic Gujaratis who are Gujaratis by descent and people who have settled in Gujarat by choice. When rest of the country is afflicted by fragmental parochialism, its this multi-cultural society that can shape a new Gujarat by the time the state celebrates 100 years.

Ironically, Gujarat gave Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, who is held responsible for partition and also Sardar Patel who forged a nation out of hundreds of princely states. Of late, it’s Dhirubhai Ambani’s one-man capitalist endeavour that transferred the business-scape of the country and it’s his legacy that has made his son, a Gujarati,  the world’s fourth richest person. So the challenge is  whether we want to continue being identified as entrepreneurs, nation-builders or something else?

We need to emphasise that there is much more to Gujarat than communalism. The perpetrators of riots should get highest punishment, but the punishment of imposing a communal identity on crores of innocent people should immediately stop. Ironically, in the brouhaha over communalism most people forget that it was Gujarati traders who exported Islam to the world’s largest Islamic nation - Indonesia!  We need to commit ourselves to finding a new, lasting and more relevant identity for the state in the next 50 years.