THE SHAPING OF MODERN GUJARAT: PLURALITY, HINDUTVA AND BEYOND By Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth Penguin Price: Rs 350 Pages 344

I have only one question to authors Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth: Why did they allow a masterly socio-political history to degenerate into a leftist pamphlet in the last 40 pages of their 293-page manuscript? Not only did they foist an agenda on the readers, but the addition of the sub-title "Plurality, Hindutva and Beyond" to the title The Shaping of Modern Gujarat also gives the misleading impression that their work focuses on the emergence of one of India's most prosperous states into "a laboratory of Hindutva". In fact, the book is anything but that. Consequently, it seems there is a commercial motive to appeal to the secular fundamentalist constituency. This devalues the scholastic content and there is a distressing disconnect between the bulk of this impartial historical study and the two chapters on Hindutva politics, which are in the nature of a harangue.

PICTURE SPEAK

TATTOO TOUCH: The traditional dance form Garba has a new look in Gujarat

The authors set out to establish the making of the Gujarati identity from the earliest times, using an array of sources, especially literary and cultural. The emergence of the Gujarati mind and the state's syncretic culture is superbly structured. In fact, they do not suffer from the ideological blinkers that characterise the recent work of Marxist matriarch Romila Thapar on the Somnath temple in which she questions the popular history of the shrine's destruction by Mahmud of Ghazni. Yagnik and Sheth faithfully write about Somnath's agony down the ages and chronicle the oppression of Hindus and Jains by a succession of Muslim rulers. Simultaneously, they point to the cordial coexistence of the region's major communities, particularly the equation among traders that remained harmonious. The authors make no attempt to whitewash the bigotry of Aurangzeb and point to the collective sense of hurt experienced by the majority community at the hands of certain Muslim kings.

The rise of modern entrepreneurial skills and the urban Gujarati's ability to adapt to changing commercial norms following the advent of the British traders are studied with finesse. The writers elaborate on Gujarat's long exposure to outsiders-from the Arabs to the English merchants-and their contribution to moulding the Gujarati mind. The contradictions inherent in Gujarati society, rabid social conservatism on the one hand and openness to changing mercantile norms on the other, are brilliantly brought out. Considering the size of the Gujarati diaspora today, it seems odd that just over 150 years ago, one Mahipatram, a Nagar Brahmin social reformer who had travelled abroad in defiance of kalapani rules, could not find a Brahmin to perform the funeral rites of his father because of the social boycott imposed on his family.

Although it is not the central theme of the book, the authors have done an equally commendable job in describing the rise and acceptability of Mahatma Gandhi in Gujarati society. One thing, however, becomes clear from their study: Gujarat has a tendency to oscillate between periods of extreme violence and supine peace. In other words, the conventional understanding of Gujarati society as inherently and necessarily peaceful and evolutionary is a bit of a myth. It is also a fact that collective memory has always been very powerful in Gujarat and that through different periods of its history, Hindus have smarted under assaults on their places of worship. Even during the uprising of 1857, Gujarat was largely unaffected and mass disturbances took place only in 1858 following the re-conquering British Army's attacks on Hindu and Jain temples. This resulted in a traders' strike that was withdrawn only after the British capitulated and agreed to help rebuild the shrines.

With the advent of mass politics in the 20th century, Hindu-Muslim differences sharpened, resulting in communal violence and a steady ghettoisation of the Muslims. Gandhi's attempt to link the Khilafat issue to his Non-cooperation agenda met with fierce resistance, while Swami Dayanand Saraswati's Arya Samaj gained steady currency. It is interesting to note that some of the key personalities of the Indian freedom struggle and thereafter had a strong Gujarat connection. While Gandhi was a Bania from Porbandar, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel emerged as the leader of the swarthy Patidars (peasant proprietors); M.A. Jinnah was of Gujarati origin while Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto (father of Zulfiqar Ali) served as the dewan of Junagadh and advised the princely state's ruler to accede to Pakistan. Perhaps the most significant political movement since Independence was led by a man whose family settled in Gujarat after Partition: L.K. Advani.

There is an inescapable feeling that the two concluding chapters on Hindutva, the last one focusing on the 2002 riots, are in the nature of an afterthought. These chapters are an eloquent lament over the Sangh Parivar's success in re-establishing the hegemony of the upper castes over the rest of the Hindu society and the marginalisation of the Muslims. It is more the tone and tenor of the narrative than the assemblage of facts that have a sermonising zeal. Of course, certain inconvenient facts do not find mention. While the Narendra Modi Government is castigated for its "extreme reluctance" to act against the rioters, the fact that over 200 Hindus (more than three times the number of Muslims) were killed in police firing during the riots is quietly omitted. The once-upon-a-time poster girl of secular fundamentalism, Zahira Sheikh, is airbrushed out of the narrative, Soviet-style. In a final flourish, the authors exhort the Dalits and the Adivasis to think about "the future that awaits them in a society and political system where Hindutva dominates". Judging by Modi's electoral popularity, it seems the authors might have to wait a long time, indeed, for the BJP to be eased out of Gujarat's body politic as they fervently wish.

AUTHORSPEAK: LIZZIE COLLINGHAM

Mistress of Spices In the hypermarkets of the world, curry is another item on the shelf to be microwaved for two minutes. For many, it is enough to glance at the short list of ingredients on the pack and not confuse their kormas with their kedgerees. Not for Cambridge-trained historian Lizzie Collingham. She had to trace the evolution of the curry, a spicy trail marked by the Mughals and the red chilly masala, conquests and colonisation and even a bit of Ashoka's kitchen on the side. The result is Curry: A Biography (Chatto and Windus). The idea of doing "an original history of curry" came to Collingham when she was working as a research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge. "The British enjoyed their curries in India, but in Britain there was hardly any interest," says Collingham, whose book looks at the dish's migration from the Mughal durbar in Delhi to the balti houses of Birmingham. But to give the name curry to everything from rasam to rogan josh is a bit of a generalisation. Collingham agrees but says it has always been so. It began with the Portuguese who wondered at the spicy broths in south India, called "kari" in Tamil, and turned it into a generic name for Indian dishes. While in the late 15th century, Mughal emperor Babur brought with him the flavours of Persian cooking, the Portuguese got the red chillies soon after. By 1530, there were three types of the fiery red condiment being grown in Goa. Even though Collingham leaves out the ancient Indian culinary tradition, especially the huge spread of milk products and meat laid on by the Aryans, she talks about ayurveda and its influence on Indian cooking. The book is filled with anecdotes: from Chalukya king Somesvara III, who loved his roasted black rat, to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was horrified by the "spongy slices of mutton and thick boiled wads of watery cabbage" served in London and resorted to porridge and stewed fruit. Curry is a potboiler packed with colourful characters and some unheard of recipes, though it ends with the old theory that Indian food is an incredible fusion of different traditions. -By Vijay Rana