AHMEDABAD: On August 8, 63 years ago, a massive
protest began in Gujarat after the states reorganisation committee in Delhi, the previous evening, had recommended a bilingual state of Maharashtra-Gujarat.
A book by a scribe, Yashpal Parikh, recently discovered at the Gujri bazaar, contains an hourly description of incidents in Ahmedabad that had led to the statewide protests from August 9, 1956. Protesters demanded that their opinion be taken before the committee made such an announcement.
In the morning, two separate student rallies from Law College and Gujarat College met a third independent student rally from HK Arts. Some 500 students assembled near Ellisbridge police station. Though there were no leaders at this rally, the students agreed to gherao the Congress office in Lal Darwaza and raise slogans. Protesters gradually grew in numbers. These included students from nearby schools. Around afternoon, Parikh writes in the book, ‘Mahagujarat Nu Jang’ some among the already restless crowd began entering the Congress office by force. Around 2.10pm, when local leaders Trikamlal Patel, K T Desai and Natwarlal Medhawala were trying to calm students, the police opened fire.
Three youngsters were killed on the spot — Kaushik Vyas (19) a first-year science student at St Xavier’s College, Suresh Bhatt a Class XI student of Thakkar High School and one D G Daraswamy, whose age could not be ascertained. A total of seven people were killed in incidents of firing that day. The book also mentions the song written for the movement, ‘Gujarat Nu Gaurav Geet’.
“Desai and Patel had kept pleading with the police not to shoot. Parikh in the book states how later both superintendent of police Mr Miranda and district magistrate Lalchandra Dalal denied giving firing orders,” says city-based historian Rizwan Kadri.
That day, the crowd pelted stones at the cars of the mayor, Chinu Sheth, and the chief fire officer, J K Munshi. By 3pm, the crowd had begun engaging police at the Lal Darwaza Maidan, which continued till 5.30pm. By 8pm that day, several student leaders met at the Gomtipur ward office and resolved to demand their MP Morarji Desai’s resignantion and abolition of the states re-organisation committee’s decision and to push for a separate state. The protests soon spread across Gujarat.
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