Salil Tripathi’s portrait of Gujarati pride and contradictions

INARGUABLY, these are Dickensian best-of-times to read a tome on the Gujaratis. If the opposition’s loud protests in India’s parliament are to be believed, a formidable foursome from Gujarat now runs the country: Narendra Modi as the prime minister, of course, and his home minister, Amit Shah; but also their capitalist cronies, the billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. These are also the worst of times for Gujaratis in how they appear to many eyes, as political rancour – narrow and nasty by nature – spawns stereotypes that are passed off as the essence of the community and its cultural history.

The author Salil Tripathi clearly had a difficult task: to stand in the eye of a cyclone of stereotypes and steer it towards landfall close to truth, without causing much damage. The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community should be read for what it is: a profile of an extremely diverse and complex community, presented from a subjective location.