Are Gujaratis an international embarrassment to India?

I want to discuss the international furore caused by the demand made by the largely Gujarati Swaminarayan sect to evict all women from the Eiffel Tower.

But first, we need to talk about today’s Gujaratis as a whole.

 

Let’s face it. Gujaratis have never had it so good. The two most powerful men in the country are Gujaratis. So are the two richest people. Any list of India’s wealthiest people will be full of Gujaratis: around 40 percent at least.

 

   These glory days for Gujarat and Gujaratis are a surprise. When the textile industry collapsed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many great Gujarati fortunes were destroyed. Textile mills that had long been a symbol of Gujarat’s prosperity were shut or shuttered, unemployment grew and an air of demoralisation spread through the state.

 

   Nor did Gujarat become more significant politically. You can count the number of Gujaratis who became major national political leaders in the two decades before Narendra Modi came along on your fingers. When it came to trumpeting Gujarat’s contribution to national politics people had to go all the way back to Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel and possibly Morarji Desai.

 

   I have always argued - from the time he became Chief Minister - that one reason why so many Gujarati Hindus are fiercely loyal to and protective of Narendra Modi is because they identified him early on as the man who could restore Gujarat’s stature and bring prosperity to the state.

 

   Whatever your views on Modi it is hard to deny that he has delivered on those expectations. Gujarat is more prosperous than before. Its towns and cities are booming. There are more Gujarati millionaires (and billionaires) than there ever have been and Gujaratis take pride in their regional identity.

 

   Which, ironically enough, may be how the problem began.

 

   The Swami Narayan sect is a mostly Gujarati operation so people in the rest of India don’t know very much about it. It may even have a higher profile abroad with well known temples in such places as New Jersey and the London suburb of Neasden. While there has been criticism about its beliefs from some Hindus who are uneasy about the sect’s tendency to regard Swami Narayan who founded the movement in the late 18th/ early 19th centuries as a figure to be worshipped, most Hindus accept that the sect is entitled to its own beliefs within the broader Vaishnavite tradition.

 

   For instance Prime Minister Narendra Modi was extremely friendly with Pramukh Swami the sect’s late leader to the extent that when Pramukh Swami died in August 2016 Modi flew directly to Gujarat right after his Independence Day address to pay his respects. Modi has often praised Pramukh Swami and the sect itself and the sect loves him.

 

   None of this evoked much comment till the Swami Narayan sect made global headlines this week because it asked the management of Paris’s Eiffel Tower to evict all women from the structure when its members came visiting. This drew condemnation from every political party in France.

 

"As time goes on and our smugness increases the behaviour of Gujaratis in public becomes more and more questionable."

   As a Gujarati I know a little about the Swami Narayan’s medieval view of the world. But even so I am shocked that they made such a demand. The sect’s rule, dressed up in the usual cant about brahmacharya, is that its monks should not ever look at women.

 

   This may be fair enough. There are Christian sects which keep monks locked up in monasteries far away from women and as long as the monks don’t object I treat it as their own business.

 

   The problem arises when the Swami Narayans try and engage with the outside world on their medieval terms. Nearly four decades ago when I was editor of Sunday, a delegation of swamis came to see me to ask for coverage of their operations in New Jersey. Would I send someone to visit their temple?

 

   I said I would. At which stage they made it clear that the journalist assigned would have to be male. So naturally, I assigned a woman correspondent.

 

   The swamis were upset but not so upset that they were willing to forgo coverage in a national news magazine. A young woman correspondent from Sunday duly went to New Jersey and wrote the story. My correspondent told me later that a well known Gujarati female journalist had also covered the event and the organisation had cooperated though, she added that every time a monk saw her, he would begin running away in the opposite direction.

 

   It’s hard to operate in the modern world if your prejudices are rooted in medieval times and some of the swamis I met eventually agreed with me that this no-women policy would be impractical in the 21st century.

 

   So, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that, decades later, not only were the Swami Narayans sticking to this policy they now had the nerve to demand that famous global attractions had to be cleared of women. What’s more they were getting their own way perhaps because the Swami Narayan sect is extremely wealthy and as we have seen, extremely well connected at the highest levels in India.

 

   Some people see this as a Hindus versus the Rest issue. I don’t. I see it as a Gujarati problem.

 

   Over the last decade or so as Gujarati wealth and influence have grown, something strange has happened to my people. We are now so conscious of being rich that we flaunt our wealth in the most ostentatious manner possible at oversized functions and big weddings. We act like everything is for sale. Why can’t we have the Eiffel Tower emptied? Why can’t we have streets in an European town shut down so that our wedding parties can proceed? And because Gujaratis have the money we find ways of getting what we want. It’s as true of Gujarati industrialists as it is of Gujarati religious sects.

 

   And sadly, it is also true of those who lack the billions but have the bossiness and the vulgarity. So Gujaratis will think nothing of turning an aeroplane cabin into a private jamanwar. Whereas once Gujarati families would pack a few theplas and eat them quietly, now they pack a feast and take over a whole plane as loudly as they can.

 

   Never before have I heard of Gujaratis deciding to dance the garba on the airport tarmac before they board their flights. They must realise that this is not normal behaviour because no other passengers are doing it. But they don’t care. They will follow their own rules.

 

   The ostentation and vulgarity are only one part of the story. There is a nasty underside to this new confidence too. They will impose vegetarianism wherever they can. They will ban Muslims from attending harmless dances where once every one was welcome. They will turn festivals into occasions for displays of bigotry by refusing entry to those of a different faith.

 

   As time goes on and our smugness increases the behaviour of Gujaratis in public becomes more and more questionable. Some people call us an international embarrassment to India. That may or may not be too harsh. But it worries me that so few powerful Gujaratis speak out against this kind of behaviour. For instance I can’t think of very many powerful Gujaratis who have condemned the Swami Narayans.

 

   There is a cost to be paid. A national backlash against Gujaratis is growing. Our arrogance and insensitivity are slowly turning the rest of the nation against us.

 

   People forget that we are the land of Gandhiji and Sardar Patel. We need to remind ourselves of that; of our culture and our heritage. The strongmen and the oligarchs will come and go. But there is more to Gujarat than the sad spectacle of Gujaratis travelling the world and embarrassing our nation.