MahaGujarat Andolan – the movement which created Gujarat state

India is a huge country; rather we can say a subcontinent in a significant way. This huge terrain has very huge & diversified cultures, languages, traditions, customs and ethnicities. Since centuries they have been developing together, staying together and cherishing each other.

India has been a strong believer and follower of unity in diversity; but sometimes this diversity etymologizes a change, a differentiation and separation. Mahagujarat Andolan is the result of this.

Mahagujarat movement, locally known as Mahagujarat Andolan has its own history; prior to Freedom of India, there were many states across India. Among these states one state was Bombay state. This terrain included the entire western coast – also known as Bombay presidency. This was the area where bilingual people were there speaking Marathi & Gujarati language. Intellectual & wise leaders of those times anticipated the possible division of this state on basis of language in future; therefore famous writer – politician Mr. Kanaiyalal Munshi had concocted term Mahagujarat Andolan in 1937 at Karachi during the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad.

Rally supporting creation of new Gujarat state in India during 1956 Mahagujarat movement.

After independence of India in 1947, the demand of division of the Bombay state based on language came up. Mr. Rajendra Prasad set up the Linguistic Provinces commission in 1948 to authenticate the demand and recommend whether state can be divided based on language. The commission, known as Dhar commission (named on the leading officer of that commission) gave their report in December, 1948 that the division of the state merely on the basis of the language is not in the larger interest of the nation and therefore cannot be sanctioned.

On the other hand, all the Gujarati speaking people were determined to have region to be dedicated based on the languages spoken. During that time all such people were attracted in a mega conference called – Mahagujarat conference fighting for the cause of formation of Gujarat state. During that time, the Bombay state’s CM Mr. Kher and home minister of India Mr. Morarji Desai visited Dang region in 1949 and Mr. Kher came out with the statement that the tribal people in Dang speaks Marathi more and therefore there is no need of separate state formation. This statement created a controversy and therefore Mr. Indulal Yagnik and others visited Dang to authenticate Mr. Kher’s statement. Gujarati Sabha also sent their delegation to ensure there shouldn’t be any scope of laxity in this matter. The committee was in opinion that Dang is the majorly Gujarati language spoken area.

Meanwhile such movement in South India where Andhra state was formed from the Madras state in 1953 as a result of separate Telugu majority state. This incident has acted as a catalyst in Mahagujarat andolan. Not only this, this incident has inspired confrontations across the country for the reorganizing states based on the languages spoken.

Looking to the criticality of this issue, Prime Minister Mr. Nehru formed a committee – States Reorganization Commission – for studding and preparing the report whether states can be recreated based on languages. This commission also known as Fazal Ali commission (as it was headed by Fazal Ali) gave its recommendation to government in 1955 for reorganization of states based on languages spoken.

As a result, finally the government agreed to reform the Bombay state into two new states – Gujarat and Maharashtra on 1^st May, 1960. The Mahagujarat sabha then was dissolved on the completion of their purpose of forming Gujarat state and then the Gujarat state formed its first government under the guidance of Mr. Jivraj Mehta who then became the first CM of Gujarat.

Thus the Mahagujarat andolan resulted happily in the formation of our state Gujarat and we must pay our tribute to those who have contributed in this mammoth task; lets recall them and salute them – Indual Yagnik (the leader of this movement), Sanat Mehta, Satyam patel, Dinkar Mehta, Prabodh Raval, Ranjitrai Shastri, Markand Shastri, etc and many more.

Let’s spread this awareness to all Gujarat is and become proud of being a citizen of great state – Gujarat.