1. Chawls were working-class housing arrangements consisting of one- or two-room dwellings, with shared facilities. Many of these structures have been embellished in bits and pieces over the years. They were common in the mill districts of Ahmedabad and Bombay.

2. The Congress Party was a national-level political party founded in 1885 that played a significant role during the Indian independence movement and continues to play a crucial role in national and local politics.

3. Raychaudhuri, Siddhartha, “Colonialism, Indigenous Elites and the Transformation of Cities in the Non-Western World: Ahmedabad (Western India), 1890–1947,” Modern Asian Studies 35 (2001): 677–726 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. The Bombay Presidency was a province of British India, which included the cities of Bombay and Ahmedabad. The struggle for separate statehood, which began in 1956, demanded three states: Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Bombay.

5. I have changed the names of the localities in order to protect the identities of my informants. Given that many of my informants are public figures still active in the community, it is of utmost importance that their identities not be disclosed.

6. SEWA was founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt. It emerged from the Textile Labour Association, the city's dominant trade union, and continues to command a certain presence in the mill neighborhoods.

7. A councilor is an elected member of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The term “councilor” is often colloquially referred to as a corporator. In this article, as in colloquial speech, these terms have been used interchangeably.

8. Notable exceptions remain Chandavarkar's magisterial work on Bombay, Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan, Imperial Power and Popular Politics Class, Resistance and the State in India, c. 1850–1950 (Cambridge, 1998)Google Scholar, and Joshi's examination of masculinities in working-class Kanpur, Joshi, Chitra, Lost Worlds: Indian Labour and its Forgotten Histories, Anthem South Asian studies (London, 2005)Google Scholar. For more contemporary work on the figures of the dada and the goonda, see also Berenschot, Ward, “On the Usefulness of Goondas in Indian Politics: ‘Moneypower’ and ‘Musclepower’ in a Gujarati Locality,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 34 (2011): 255–275 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shani, Ornit, “Bootlegging, Politics and Corruption: State Violence and the Routine Practices of Public Power in Gujarat (1985–2002),” South Asian History and Culture 1 (2010): 494–508 CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also other contemporary accounts such as Michelutti, Lucia, Price, Pamela, and Ruud, Arild Engelsen, “Wrestling with (body) Politics: Understanding ‘Goonda' Political Styles in North India,” Power and Influence in India: Bosses, Lords and Captains (2010): 40–69 Google Scholar, which discusses the significance of the figure of the dada in electoral machinations and Hansen's exploration of popular politics in Bombay, Hansen, Thomas Blom, Violence in Urban India: Identity Politics, “Mumbai,” and the Postcolonial City (Delhi, 2005)Google Scholar.

9. Mazumdar, Ranjani, Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City (Minneapolis, 2007)Google Scholar.

10. I use “his” since the figure of the dada, during this period, was almost uniformly male. During my fieldwork in 2011–2012, I did come across women leaders whose public image and styles of functioning would echo those of the earlier dadas.

11. The relationship between the union and its members has been explored in some detail in Breman, Jan, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class: Sliding Down the Labour Hierarchy in Ahmedabad, India (New Delhi, 2004)Google Scholar. And Spodek, Howard, Ahmedabad: Shock City of Twentieth-Century India (Bloomington, IN, 2011)Google Scholar. See also Patel, Sujata, The Making of Industrial Relations: The Ahmedabad Textile Industry, 1918–1939 (Delhi, 1987)Google Scholar. Spodek, , “From Gandhi to Violence: Ahmedabad's 1985 Riots in Historical Perspective,” Modern Asian Studies 23 (1989): 765–795 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. A term used to imply a dada’s power and his particular performative style. This would include his bravado, his aggression, his ability to inflict violence as well as his ability to offer patronage and protection.

13. Anasuyaben Sarabhai was the sister of Ambalal Sarabhai, one of the city's most prominent mill owners. She began her work in the textile mill districts with an educational initiative in 1914. She remained the president of the TLA until her death in 1972. Ambalal Sarabhai was closely associated with the Ahmedabad Millowners Association, as well as the city Municipality.

14. Shankarlal Banker, a close associate of Anasuyaben, was one of the original founders of the Majur Mitra Mandal, the social service organization that predated the formation of the TLA.

15. Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class. For a more detailed exposition on the formation of the TLA, see also Patel, The Making of Industrial Relations; Kamath, M.V. and Kher, V.B., The Story of Militant but Non-violent Trade Unionism: A Biographical and Historical Study (Navajivan Mudranalaya, 1993)Google Scholar; Mehta, Makrand, The Ahmedabad Cotton Textile Industry: Genesis and Growth (Ahmedabad, 1982)Google Scholar. For a broader history of the city, see also Gillion, Kenneth L., Ahmedabad: A Study in Indian Urban History (Berkeley, CA, 1968)Google Scholar; Yagnik, Achyut and Sheth, Suchitra, Ahmedabad: From Royal City to Megacity (Delhi, 2011)Google Scholar; Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India.

16. Though I will be not be focusing on the AMA in detail, the Mill Owners Association and municipal politics were also closely tied. Ambalal Sarabhai and Kasturbhai Lalbhai, both prominent members of the AMA, were members of the Ahmedabad Municipality in late 1920s. In 1942, another member of the Lalbhai family was elected to the city municipality as a Congress candidate. Chinubhai Chimanbhai went on to become the first mayor of the AMC, from 1950 to 1961. Until 1965, the triumvirate of the Congress Party, the TLA, and the AMA reigned in city politics. After Chinubhai's term as the mayor of AMC, another prominent mill owner, Jaykrishna Harivallabhdas, from the Ambica Mills family, succeeded him and was mayor until 1965.

17. Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India. I owe the notion that the city's political field was shaped by the tensions and collaborations between these four key institutions to Howard Spodek.

18. Raychaudhuri, “Colonialism, Indigenous Elites and the Transformation of Cities in the Non-Western World.”

19. A term of self assertion used to signify historically disadvantaged caste groups, especially formerly untouchable castes.

20. Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India. See also, Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class: Sliding Down the Labour Hierarchy in Ahmedabad, India.

21. Gulzarilal Nanda was a member of the TLA and was later appointed as Labour Minister and served as the Prime Minister of India for two short terms.

22. Promilla Kalhan and Indian Association of Social Science Institutions, Gulzarilal Nanda: A Life in the Service of the People (New Delhi, 1997)Google Scholar, 186.

23. Spodek, Ahmedabad: Shock City of Twentieth-Century India; Kumar, Ravindra, Life and Work of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (New Delhi, 1991)Google Scholar, 94.

24. Kacharabhai won again from Saraspur—this time though, not uncontested as was Gulzarilal Nanda from the same constituency. In the 1936 elections, five candidates were elected, two of them from the staff of the union, and three mill workers. Many of these Municipal councilors went on to be elected to the state legislative assembly.

25. Times of India (henceforth referred to as ToI), July 1, 1950.

26. Six decades of the TLA: 1917–1977. http://www.indialabourarchives.org. Accessed on September 13, 2013.

27. Karnik, Vasant Bhagvant, Indian Trade Unions: A Survey, 2nd rev. ed. (Bombay, 1966)Google Scholar, 97.

28. Six decades of the TLA:1917–1977. http://www.indialabourarchives.org. p. 17.

29. In the municipality later that year, Gulzarilal Nanda, the TLA Secretary, allied with the leadership of the AMA, Ambalal and Kasturbhai, instead of with Patel, thus further deepening the divide.

30. The floods of 1927, which devastated the mill areas, did not receive any attention from the municipality, which was headed by Sardar Patel at the time. Similar tensions are reflected in the debates over the introduction of free English education in the mill areas. See Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class, and ToI, May 11, 1928.

31. Workers spontaneously downed tools during this heady period of industrial action. The mill owners retaliated by dismissing gangs of workers and employing new jobbers to keep the mills running. For instance, in Rajnagar Mills no. 3, jobber Shamsher Khan joined work with 200 new mill hands, breaking picket lines. See ToI, May 10, 1933; June 20, 1933.

32. Court orders were issued that prohibited the assembly of more than four people around textile mills. The police were deployed to contain strike activity. See TOI, January 28, 1935, and January 29, 1935.

33. Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India.

34. This spate of strike activity was a reaction against the 25 percent wage cuts of weavers. Predominantly Muslims, the weavers were already alienated within the TLA's Hindu style of functioning and came out en masse in support of the strike. See also, Neera Chandhoke, “Civil society in conflict cities: The case of Ahmedabad,” Working paper no.64, LSE (2009).

35. The Mill Kamdar Union was formed by a collaboration between the communists and the Congress Socialists. In an earlier form, it was the Mill Mazdoor Union, banned in 1934. The union continued much of its activity underground; it was rehabilitated as the Mill Kamdar Union in 1935, as the Congress Socialists and the communists joined forces in Ahmedabad. For a more detailed analysis of this period, see also Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India; Manju Parikh, “Labour-Capital Relations in the Indian Textile Industry: A Comparitive Study of Ahmedabad and Coimbatore” (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1988).

36. The Mill Kamdar Union concentrated on building networks within the neighborhoods, forming chawl committees and devising strategies to circumvent the promulgation of Article 144, which declared the congregation of more than ten people unlawful; see TOI, November 22, 1937. The strike of 1937 also alerted the TLA to the importance of securing a hold upon the working class areas.

37. Parikh, “Labour-Capital Relations in the Indian Textile Industry,” 152.

38. Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class Sliding Down the Labour Hierarchy in Ahmedabad, India.

39. Ibid.

40. On August 7, the proposal for the formation of three separate states of Bombay, Gujarat, and Maharashtra was rejected and instead, a larger bilingual Bombay state was to be carved out. This decision was apparently endorsed by the leaders of the Gujarat Congress. Following this, protesters took to the streets in Ahmedabad. They gathered outside the TLA office and Congress house. Some student leaders threw stones and were fired upon by the police without any prior warning. Four people were killed and fifty injured in this incident.

41. Yagnik, Indulal, The Autobiography of Indulal Yagnik, trans. Spodek, Howard, Pathak, Devavrat N., and Wood, John R., vol. 3 (New Delhi, 2011)Google Scholar, 450.

42. Morarji Desai was the Chief Minister of Bombay State (1952–1957) and later the Prime Minister of India.

43. Yagnik, The Autobiography of Indulal Yagnik, (New Delhi, 2011)Google Scholar, 459.

44. Textile Labour Association Annual Report, 1961–1962, 2.

45. Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India, 151; Chinubhai was a member of the Ahmedabad Mill Owners Association. AMA continued to be a key player in city politics.

46. Congress captured both the central and the state elections. The influence of the MGJP was concentrated around the city of Ahmedabad and its adjacent districts of Mehsana and Kheda. The southern parts of the state, historically more connected to Bombay, were less moved by the zeal of the Maha Gujarat agitation. Twenty-five of the twenty-nine seats won by the party in the state elections, and all of the five Lok Sabha seats came from the districts of Ahmedabad, Mehsana, and Kheda. In Ahmedabad, Indulal Yagnik defeated TLA leader Khandubhai Desai for the Lok Sabha seat. For the state assembly, there was a close fight between the TLA secretary and the INTUC president at the time, S.R. Vasavada, and the Maha Gujarat Janata Parishad candidate, Dinkar Mehta, locally known as the “surprise man.” For a detailed analysis of these elections, see Spodek, Ahmedabad: Shock City of Twentieth-Century India. See also. ToI, March 11, 1957, and March 12, 1957.

47. Papers relating to Ahmedabad police firing inquiry commission, 1958, File no. 76, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

48. Yagnik, who would go on to cement his image as a working class leader, had not entirely gained a strong presence in the mill districts until the mid-1960s. By his own admission, it was only during the Maha Gujarat agitation in the mid-1950s that Indulal Yagnik ventured into the working-class districts for the first time.

49. Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India. The TLA figures for these elections are somewhat different. The 1961–1962 annual report states that Congress put forward candidates for all sixty seats. They won fifty of those, out of which twenty went to TLA candidates. Of these, seventeen were mill workers (see page 2).

50. A voluntary organization established in 1946 comprised mainly male mill workers and their sons.

51. TLA Annual Report 1961–1962, 2.

52. Quoted in Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India, 138.

53. TLA Annual Report 1961–1962, 30.

54. Yagnik's popularity with the working class was evident when again in the 1962 Lok Sabha elections he defeated the TLA leader S.R. Vasavada. Spodek's interviews with Rameshbhai Parmar attest to how Yagnik's charisma stemmed partly from his ability to connect with the mill workers. See Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India, 157.

55. The Praja Socialist Party and the Janata Samiti won a total of 19 seats in the municipal corporation, none of which were from the mill neighborhoods. Until 1960, the MGJP had primarily been concentrated in the middle-class areas of Khadia, Kalupur, Maninanagar, and Ellisbridge, and the working class areas had received somewhat limited attention from Indulal Yagnik and other leaders.

56. Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class, 85.

57. “Trade union ke andar bhi bahut bare bare movement hue hai … jaise yahan pe joh Harikrishna Vallabhdas, Ambica mill ka malik tha, bahut sare mill the uske paas, aur us samay unko hara kar, kamdaar trade union leader, Indulal Yagnik chun ke aya, municipality ke elections mein. Jo yahan channa khata tha, aur yahein basti ke logon se saath rehta tha … Woh corporation mein bhi jeete, aur doosre. Dinkar bhai Mehta, jo communist party ke saath taluk rakhte the. Who bhi mayor ki taur pe aye. In election mein, mill on ke, aur mazdooron ke bahut ahem role tha.” Interview with Jigneshbhai Vaghela, Ravipur, October 2011.

58. Interview Sanjaybhai Parmar, Ravipur, 2012.

59. During the TLA labor day meeting on December 4, 1962, Yagnik convened a rival meeting and, by his account, a far bigger one at the Kankaria football grounds. In his speech, Indulal exhorted the city's workers to free themselves from the control of the TLA and chart a new future for themselves and claimed,

Yagnik cited in Spodek, Ahmedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India, 158.

60. TLA Annual Report 1962–1963, 6.

61. The Sangram Samiti was formed in 1963. It grew into Mahagujarat Mill workers union with 50,000 dues-paying members and twenty-six full-time party workers. Yagnik and Mehta were elected president and vice president, respectively.

62. In mid-1963, when the Mill Kamdar union and the communist parties organized a large protest against rising prices, the TLA issued several dire warnings to their “labour brothers and sisters” not to be “misled by the communist mischief.” Protests against rising prices had gathered momentum; and on August 5, 1964, the MGJP called for a Gujarat bandh. Ahmedabad was again at the center of this agitation. The mills closed down, some shut down by strikers, others by the owners who anticipated violence. Thousands of Harijan workers joined this strike for the first time, joining forces with non-Harijan workers. Police brutality was unleashed on the protestors, and six people were killed and many injured in the ensuing violence. See Spodek, Ahamedabad Shock City of Twentieth-Century India.

63. This defeat was roundly lamented in the TLA reports, declaring “the representatives of the union especially in the suburban areas received a setback, with the result that after a long time, the voice of Ahmedabad labour ceased to be heard in civic councils.” TLA Annual Report 1964–1965, 7.

64. The different factions within the MGJP, however, ensured that municipal governance was fraught with tensions. Each party sought to promote their own candidate as mayor, and, as result, the position rotated each year. Matters were not helped by the fact that the Congress in power in the state assembly and the MGJP in the Municipal Corporation were often locked in an impasse.

65. In 2002 the state of Gujarat experienced large scale, organized communal rioting, following the arson of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express. There is strong documentary evidence implicating the state machinery and the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi (then the Chief Minister of Gujarat) in instigating and enabling this genocidal violence against the minority Muslim community.

66. Shah, Ghanshyam, “Communal Riots in Gujarat: Report of a Preliminary Investigation,” Economic and Political Weekly 5 (1970): 187–200 Google Scholar.

67. Vasavada, Shyam Prasad, Majoor Charwal (Ahmedabad, 1968)Google Scholar.

68. Goel, S. K., Gandhian Perspective on Industrial Relations: A Study of Textile Labour Association, Ahmedabad, 1918–48 (Delhi, 2002)Google Scholar, 126.

69. Ibid., 140.

70. The establishment of the Bombay Improvement Trust in 1898, for instance, sought to both reorder the city as well as regulate working-class housing. These interventions were partly shaped by the needs of capital and partly by policies of social improvement. By the early twentieth century, both Kanpur and Calcutta saw tentative measures being made in social housing through the formation of city improvement trusts and other civic bodies. See Kidambi, Prashant, The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920 (Farnham, 2007)Google Scholar; Sharma, Sita Ram, Municipal Administration and Education, vol. 2 (New Delhi, 1994)Google Scholar; Gooptu, Nandini, The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth-Century India, (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society) (Cambridge, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71. Shankarlal Banker quoted in Spodek, Ahmedabad: Shock City of Twentieth-Century India, 101.

72. Kalhan and Indian Association of Social Science Institutions, Gulzarilal Nanda: A Life in the Service of the People, 185.

73. TLA Annual Report, 1950.

74. Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class, 100.

75. Ibid., 101.

76. Ibid.

77. Interview, Sanjaybhai, December 2012.

78. Interview with Jigneshbhai Waghela, December 2012.

79. Jhabvala, Renana, Closing Doors: A Study on the Decline of Women Workers in the Textile Mills of Ahmedabad (Ahmedabad, 1985)Google Scholar, 23.

80. Patel, Sujata, “Contract Labour in Ahmedabad Textile Industry,” Economic and Political Weekly 21 (1986): 1813–20Google Scholar. Interview with Manubhai Patel, former editor of Majoor Sandesh, December 2012.

81. “Aur unke gaon se aane waale koi log hain, ya koi aur karibi insaan hai, toh who bolenge inko dakhla de do… toh yeh bhi unki ek acchi baat thi… toh iss tarah unka ek dabdaba rehta tha.” Jigneshbhai interview 2012.

82. Berenschot, “Riot Politics: Communal Violence and State-Society Mediation in Gujarat, India” (PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam, 2006), 90. The prime minister that the TLA official refers to is Gulzarilal Nanda.

83. TLA Annual Report 1967, 29.

84. Kalhan and Indian Association of Social Science Institutions, Gulzarilal Nanda: A Life in the Service of the People, 185.

85. Ibid.

86. Majoor Sandesh, April 23, 1977. I thank Siddhi Shah for the Gujarati translations.

87. Majoor Sandesh, March 18, 1950; January 13, 1951; February 10, 1951; April 4, 1951; May 13, 1964; March 3, 1964.

88. TLA Annual Report 1951, 2.

89. TLA Annual Report 1950, 58.

90. Ibid, 58–59.

91. Ibid.

92. TLA Annual Report 1965, 24.

93. Jeevanbhai and Jigneshbhai Interviews, 2011–2012.

94. “Pratinidhiyon ke paas ekdum power tha, aur wohi pratinidhi, either corporation ke election mein aaye, ya assembly ke election mein. Aur woh puri vote bank joh hain, woh puri vote bank woh log le jaate the ... Member joh bole, usko vote dena hai, kyuni aap ka joh kaam hai, woh sab usko karna hain na ... aap ki ghar mein paani nahin aa raha hai, nal lagana hai, woh aap member ko bol denge, aur woh corporator ko.” Sanjaybhai interview, December 2012.

95. TLA Annual Report 1962–1963.

96. For a more detailed analysis of the akhada as a site of masculine self-fashioning, see also Alter, Joseph S, The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in North India (Oxford, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gooptu, The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth-Century India.

97. TLA Annual Report 1963–1964.

98. TLA Annual Report 1949–1950, 55.

99. Shaheed's analysis of labor leaders in Pakistan details the qualities that were valued in these intermediary figures—physical prowess, courage, and “hot-headedness.” This attribute of “hot-headedness” finds a certain resonance in the mathabhari figures of the Ahmedabad textile industry. Shaheed, Zafar, The Labour Movement in Pakistan: Organization and Leadership in Karachi in the 1970s (New York, 2007)Google Scholar.

100. TLA Annual Report 1967, 15. Panchsheel means five principles.

101. The jobber was another important intermediary figure in the world of South Asian labour. He functioned as a recruiter of labor, as well as in a supervisory and disciplinary role. Entrusted with the tasks of managing the supply of labor and mediating between the employers and workers, the jobber exercised considerable authority in the textile mill industry. A fairly extensive body of scholarly literature exists on the jobber system and its contentious sphere of influence. See, for instance, Kooiman, Dick, “Jobbers and the Emergence of Trade Unions in Bombay City,” International Review of Social History 22 (1977): 313–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morris, Morris David, The Emergence of an Industrial Labor Force in India: A Study of the Bombay Cotton Mills, 1854–1947 (Bombay, 1965)Google Scholar; Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan, “The War on the Shopfloor,” International Review of Social History 51 (S14) (2006): 263–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102. Vasavada, Majoor Charwal vol. 1, 20.

103. A mechanical frame used for spinning cotton.

104. Majoor Sandesh, June 28, 1950.

105. Breman, The Making and Unmaking of an Industrial Working Class, 103.

106. Majoor Sandesh, March 10, 1951; March 17, 1951; September 8, 1951; February 10, 1968; April 6, 1968; May 5, 1976; May 15, 1976.

107. “Unke do cheez the … pakkad unki thi pratinidhiyon ke dwara aur pratinidhi ek week mein ... hamesha usko wahan jana hi parta tha … paise jama karwane ... ya mazdooron ki joh bhi complaint hai,complaint pauchane ... roz roz ka kaam tha, toh mazdooron ke upar pakad toh hogi hi hogi ... woh log joh bare log the, secretary wagera ... woh log baat toh pratinidhi ki hi sunenge ... aur pratinidhi ki baat agar sunte hain, toh pratinidhi ka pakkad bhi hoga ... yeh unka pura structure tha ...” Sanjaybhai Parmar interview, December 2012.

108. ToI, July 21, 1958.

109. The umbrella trade union of the Congress Party.

110. Franco, Fernando, Macwan, Jyotsna, and Ramanathan, Suguna, Journeys to Freedom: Dalit Narratives (Kolkata, 2004)Google Scholar.

111. Ibid.

112. Majoor Sandesh, July 23, 1958.

113. “Mazdoor log the, woh sab mahajan ke virudh ho gaye . . . kyunki joh pratinidhi the, unka dadagiri ka saamna karna tha. Toh Indulal Yagnik ne Sangram Samiti banayi, aur uske karan joh mahajan ka ek dar tha, who pura dar khatam ho gaya . . .” Sanjaybhai Parmar interview, 2012.

114. TLA Annual reports, 1960–1970.

115. We can perhaps speculate that the rise of TLA membership after 1965 shows a dissatisfaction with the Sangram Samiti and other unions that were in opposition to the TLA. Workers returned to the TLA fold, though this does not necessarily imply that there was great faith in the union or in its functioning.

116. “Jaise jahan jahan trade union movement hue, millon ke kaamdaron ke adhikaar ke liye ki agar koi ladta hai . . . toh phir goondon ko bhej ke kaamdaron ko dhamki dena, raste mein rokh ke kaamdaron ko maarna, Lekin kaamdar jab apna cycle leke kaam pe niklega . . . chalte chalte niklega, ya bus se jayega . . . Sangathit ho rahe the zyada . . . toh isko todne ke liye, jab koi cycle pe ja raha hai, toh use dhamkayenge pehle, phir nahin maanega toh phir maarenge . . . aisa hota tha . . .” Jigneshbhai interview, 2011–2012.

117. A colloquial formulation that often uses rhyming though meaningless words as a narrative device.

118. The late 1960s saw early encroachments, though the bulk of the mobilization took place during the 1990s during the Ram Janambhoomi movement. Ashokbhai interview, 2012.

119. Jeevanbhai Parmar interview, 2011–2012.

120. “Yeh log mere bhai ban te the … bhai kehla te the.”

121. “Koi nahin reha ab, mere saathi ... Mein akela hi reh gaya.” Jeevanbhai interview, 2011–2012.

122. “Mathabhari . . . jaise anti-social log hoten hain na? joh kuch bhi kar sakte hain, use mathabhari kehte hain . . .” Sanjaybhai interview, 2012.

123. “Mere samne kissiko baat karne ki bhi himaat nahin thi..main kissi ko bhi maar sakta tha.” Jeevanbhai interview, 2011–2012.

124. “Jaise woh bol te the, ki humko koi lena dena nahin . . . unko bol dete the, mahajan ko bhi bol dete the . . . aur congress ko bhi bol te the . . . ki bhai hamare vistaar ke andar garbari nahin honi chahiye . . . iske liye main bolta ki woh acche goonde the . . .” Jigneshbhai interview, 2012.

125. “Bhai, maine form bhara hai . . . ab yahan ka ilaqa tumhe hi sambhalna hai. Vistaar wale sambhal te the ... Cha pani ka kharcha woh deta hai. Koi daaru peeta hai, use daaru peelana parta hai, joh khane wala hai, use khilana parta hai. Jab vote deta hai. Aise khali khali koi jeet ke nahin ata.” Jeevanbhai interview, 2011–2012.

126. The oral narratives that I have collected, unfortunately, do not reveal much about the dada's way of engaging with the women of the mill neighborhoods. This remains a lacuna in my understanding of this figure.

127. Joshi, Chitra, “On ‘De-Industrialization’ and the Crisis of Male Identities,” International Review of Social History 47 (S10) (2002): 159–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heuzé-Brigant, Gérard, “Populism and the Workers Movement: Shiv Sena and Labor in Mumbai,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 22 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

128. The threat of emasculation takes on a different form as Ahmedabad grew to be increasingly communalized. Reclamation of Hindu masculinity against the Muslim “other” is a common trope employed by Hindu fundamentalism. I encountered this narrative several times during discussions of the communal violence of the 1990s and 2002. An extensive body of work exists on this subject, including Hansen, Thomas Blom, “Recuperating Masculinity Hindu Nationalism, Violence and the Exorcism of the Muslim ‘Other’,” Critique of Anthropology 16 (1996)Google Scholar; Gupta, Dipankar, Justice Before Reconciliation: Negotiating a ‘New Normal' in Post-riot Mumbai and Ahmedabad (Routledge, 2013)Google Scholar; Sarkar, Tanika, “Semiotics of Terror: Muslim Children and Women in Hindu Rashtra,” Economic and Political Weekly (2002):2872–2876 Google Scholar.

129. For a detailed account of these practices, see Berenschot, , Riot Politics (New Delhi, 2013)Google Scholar.

130. Literally meaning the bandits of the Chambal region, an area in central India that is topographically marked by ravines and scrub land. Historically, this area has seen competing gangs of outlaws. These figures and their exploits have been powerfully represented in popular cinema.

131. Jeevanbhai interview, 2011–2012.

132. Jigneshbhai interview, 2012.

133. Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics Class, Resistance and the State in India, c. 1850–1950, 112.

134. Famous or in this case, notorious.

135. Unfortunately, I do not have more information about how exactly this peace was brokered.

136. Eunuch, a term mostly used as a slur.

137. “Ek time hota tha, akha Ahmedabad ka dada yahaan ikatha hote the. Randiyan naach te the. Bombay se late the, yeh randiyon ko.” Randi is a pejorative used for sex workers. I would imagine that these dance performances would be set to popular Bollywood or Gujarati music of the time. Jeevanbhai interview.

138. “Ravipur post office ilaqa ka dada mein hoon, toh mein dekhne jao toh mere saath aur 20–25 aadmi hona chahiye. Marne ki liye tyaar ho ke jana chahiye … Tyaari mein jaate the. Kayi log hockey leke ata the, chaku rakhte the.” “Usme itni takat hone chahiye, doosre aadmi ko dabane ke liye,” Jeevanbhai interview.

139. The KHAM (Khastriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim) alliance formulated by the Congress Party in the mid-1970s set in motion a new caste-based politics. The caste violence of the 1980s, which quickly morphed into religious violence, led to new configurations of caste and communal alliances. For a detailed analysis of this period, see Shani, Ornit, Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat (Cambridge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

140. Report of the Laththa Commission of Inquiry (First), Ahmedabad, 1978; Miyabhai Commission, 1983; Engineer, Asghar Ali, “Communal Riots in Ahmedabad,” Economic and Political Weekly 27 (1992): 1641–43Google Scholar.

141. A politician from Ravipur who was given a BJP ticket to contest the Legislative Assembly elections in 2002.

142. Gayer, Laurent and Jaffrelot, Christophe, Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation (New York, 2012)Google Scholar; Berenschot, “Riot Politics: Communal Violence and State-Society Mediation in Gujarat, India.”

143. ToI, July 12, 1992.