The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community

Gujaratis are an uncommonly industrious and resourceful people. In India alone, there are some 55 million people who consider Gujarati to be their mother tongue, and possibly 6 million more of them abroad, on every continent, if not in every country. They are known for their entrepreneurial spirit, and their love of business and the profitable deal. After all, paiso bole chhe—money talks. No wonder then, that some of India’s greatest industrial houses—Tata, Reliance, Wipro, and scores of others—owe their existence to brilliant Gujarati businessmen. Beyond business, Gujaratis have made their mark in politics (Mahatma Gandhi was Gujarati as was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel; there have also been two Gujarati prime ministers, Morarji Desai and Narendra Modi— three, if Rajiv Gandhi, whose father was Gujarati, is counted), science, culture, cricket, and many other fields of endeavour. Some of them have also become notorious as conmen, swindlers, and rioters—Gujarat ranks high among states in which communal riots have taken place. Gujaratis are renowned for their delicious vegetarian snacks (often mispronounced as ‘snakes’), stringent dietary restrictions, and love for the garba, natak nights, and sugam sangeet.

But beyond these stereotypical representations of the community, who are the Gujaratis, really? Where do they come from? Why are they the way they are? How do they earn, politick, pray, create, make merry, and even kill when they feel threatened? How do they build a sense of self and community and then take it too far, making ‘others’ out of Dalits, Muslims, and denotified tribes? No study of the Gujarati people has yet attempted to answer all these questions and more. Until now. In The Gujaratis, through wideranging scholarship, original research, and a lifetime of observing the community he was born into, and is proud of belonging to, distinguished journalist and writer Salil Tripathi crafts an engrossing account of the community.

From the holy town of Somnath, steeped in incense and distorted histories, to the high-octane corporate boardrooms of Mumbai, down the bustling avenue of Hovenierstraat, the heart of Belgium’s diamond trade, to lonely American highways dotted with Patel-owned motels, Tripathi dissects the Gujarati presence in India and across the world and observes the strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies of the community with acuity and wit. We learn about asmita, the essence of being Gujarati, and understand what it means to be ‘Gujarati’ as the author traces the epic story of his people through centuries of social, political, and cultural upheavals.