ABSTRACT
This essay examines the impact of the Navnirman mobilization of the 1970s and the anti-reservation Mandal agitations of the 1980s on Gujarat’s essentially bi-polar political landscape. It shows how, despite being marked by violence and the dominance of upper-caste elites, the two movements differently influenced politics in the state and India more generally. The Navnirman movement fizzled away without any tangible strengthening of the opposition in Gujarat but paved the way for the imposition of national Emergency in 1975. The Congress’s subsequent caste arithmetic and the KHAM policy alienated upper castes and ultimately provoked the anti-Mandal riots in 1985, which later turned anti-Muslim. The anti-reservation agitations coincided with the mobilization of Hindu right-wing forces and eventually helped consolidate the eventual political rise of the BJP in Gujarat.
