Textile Industry's patronage toward a polarized Ahmedabad

The History of Ahmedabad, India, is rich with the prominence of Architecture and Textile Industries. Concurrently, it is also infamous for its communally violent past (riots between Hindus and Muslims), that has divided the city physically and psychologically.

The Textile Industrialists and their Architectures, played a significant role in morphing the city’s urban plan into Civic Migration leading to present day homogenous communities divided economically, geographically and religion-based.

This might play a crucial part in biased geographical and economic segregation with the Muslim communities being marginalized and pushed into their own cities.

However, can the division of the city instead be morphed into decentralization and sharing of Power, rather than division? Maybe in that case, the physical boundaries might prevail, however, with the lack of mental ones, the city isn’t divided, just decentralized.

Ahmedabad Textile Mill Owners’ Association Building

The History of Ahmedabad, (India’s first UNESCO World Heritage City), is rich with the prominence of Architecture and Textile Industries. Concurrently, it is also infamous for its communally violent past (predominantly riots between Hindus and Muslims) that has divided the city physically as well as psychologically. This piece of writing and the accompanying Map explores the role the Textile Industrialists and their Architectures, played in morphing the city’s urban plan into the present day homogenous and polarized communities. The aim of this writing is to speculate future implications of these factors on the city.

Ahmedabad - Old City

Along the eastern banks of River Sabarmati, the old city of Ahmedabad was founded by Ahmed Shah in 1411. The Muslim community was a majority in administrative positions; hence, they occupied the then central area- the citadel and riverbank. Hindus settled in the neighboring localities (Shah 1982). The city’s architecture, having prospered during the rule of Ahmed Shah till 1511, saw bouts of ups and downs through the rule of Mughals and Marathas respectively. From 1818 to Indian Independence in 1947, it further developed under the British Rule, with establishment of Municipality and Railways.

Architecture and Industrialist Patronage: Textile Mill Owners’ Association – The Cause

During the British Rule, Industrialization was felt with the introduction of the city’s first textile mill in the year 1861 (Shah 1982) - The Ahmedabad Spinning and Weaving Company Ltd, founded by Ranchhodlal Chhotalal. By the end of the 19th Centaury, Ahmedabad came to be known as “Manchester of the East” (Vyas 2019), with around 60 Mills having been established in and around the old city (Vyas 2019). This spell of industrialization deeply impacted the physical and power structures of the city. The nearby areas were now flooded with mill workers in densely populated spaces (Williamson 2016). During the same time, western banks of the River opened up in around 1970 (Shah 1982), and the wealth and prosperity of the Mill owners extricated themselves from the old city (Williamson 2016). This proved to be the turning point in the history of the city’s plan.

“Independence in 1947 shifted the textile mill owners’ perspective to the global network of modern architecture and institutions, just as it shifted their aspirations for Ahmedabad from an exemplary colonial city to a cosmopolitan one” (Williamson 2016). In the name of economic sustainability, in 1956, Madanmohan Manganldas, the Chairman of the Ahmedabad Mill owners’ Association, announced the inauguration of Mill Owners’ Association Building, commissioned by Le Corbusier (Williamson 2016). This was the beginning of a series of Modern Architectural Establishments, majorly associated with Textiles, on the Western Banks of the city. Over the years the western Ahmedabad started modernizing. Examples of these modernized architectures included the housing schemes for the Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association (ATIRA) designed by Balkrishna Doshi, Louis Kahn’s faculty housing at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), National Institute of Design (NID), and several other educational and cultural institutions. Mill Owners’ vision of an urban Ahmedabad deliberately excluded their employees, the mill workers, in the other densely populated and part of the city (Williamson 2016).

The Impact – The conflict

This transition of economy and power, and shift of interest in geographical location of the city’s patrons, directly and significantly affected the communities during the time of communal riots in the city. The 1969 riot, driven by political hatred between Hindus and Muslims post separation of India-Pakistan, was majorly targeted in the old city, and it largely comprised of unemployed mill workers (Williamson 2016). As a result, the old city being Muslim dominated region since its early foundation, led the outwards migration of Hindus towards the west of the river (Vyas 2019).

Similarly, with each communal distress (1985, and then major massacre in 2002), and economic polarization due to the Housing schemes of the Textile Industrialists, the communities started becoming more homogenous, the migration pattern reflected the communities’ preferences to stay together and safe in numbers from the ‘others’ (Vyas 2019). As a result, with the influence of affluent, and more importantly Hindu Textile Industrialists, middle-class Hindus migrated to the west, where as lower-class Hindus and majority of the Muslims were forced to form their safe harbors in the city’s underdeveloped areas, and suburbs outside the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s reach, under challenging conditions.

The interactive map below shows the temporal and geographic evolution and milestones of the changing landscape of Ahmedabad.

Mapping and timeline of Textile Industry's patronage toward the polarized Ahmedabad

Speculation

“The intensity of the division between the two communities is so large that there are now Bordered Cities within Ahmedabad. The economic interests are also inter-mixed in this process of marginalizing the Muslims and pushing them into their own cities” (Vyas 2019). Observing the history of the city and how influential industrialists, along with religious differences played a major role in creating homogenous societies and communities in the city, it is very likely for the leftover amalgamated areas to disintegrate to form separate cities dominated by religions with extremist views. Based on the existing dwellings of the communities, most of the Muslim community has been forced to take shelter in the less developed areas of the city such as Kalupur, Shahpur, Juhapura, Dani Limbda, Jamalpur, and Juhapura, majority of which are in the eastern side of the city. The role that the textile industrialists played in curating the economic division, along with geographic and religious one, might play a crucial role in biased geographical and economic segregation with the Muslim community getting the shorter end of the straw.

To forecast on the basis of existing patterns is the traditional understanding of Speculation. However, the crucial questions are, ‘Why to ponder just over the known and predict from that?’ ‘What external influences can change the course of the set pattern?’ Can the division of the city instead be morphed into decentralization and sharing of Power, rather than dividing it? Maybe in that case, the physical boundaries might prevail, however, with the lack of mental ones, the city isn’t divided, just decentralized (Williamson 2016).

Design Process

One’s homeland provides a distinctive inspiration. The aspiration to understand my roots, and willingness to accept both, the bright and dark realities of my history has been the driving force behind pursuing this subject. As a textile designer, as well as a resident of Ahmedabad, this particular part of the history is something I carry with me throughout.

The research process began with interviews with Architects, who had once studied in Ahmedabad. Browsing various thesis documents from their personal libraries laid the foundation of the research. Familiarity with the city’s geography provided further clarity, and guidance while speculating. The crucial and focal point of the research had been learning about the Mill Owners’ influence in aforementioned perspective. History has been studied and narrated by many, about both, the traditional architecture, as well as the communal riots, however the impact of the industrialists and the conflict developed because of that, is often lost behind their affluent attempts at sustaining Post-Independence Economy, and urbanization. This draft and map has brought forward an important aspect of Historical learning- to not reiterate the existing history, but learn and observe the underlying factors to discover the less noticeable facts.

Bibliography

1. Elfversson, Emma and Sjögren, Anders; Do Local Power-Sharing Deals Reduce Ethnopolitical Hostility? The Effects of ‘Negotiated Democracy’ in a Devolved Kenya; Taylor and Francis Online; 2019

2. Mahadevia, Darshini; A City with many Borders: Beyond Ghettoisation in Ahmedabad; ResearchGate; 2007

3. Shah, Vinay; Street Developments: Case of Ahmedabad, India; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 1982

4. Ar. Vyas, Parul; Urban Polarization: Case of Riot Affected Ahmedabad; IOSR Journal of Engineering, Vol.9, Issue 3; 2019

5. Williamson, Daniel; Modern Architecture and Capitalist Patronage in Ahmedabad, India 1947-1969; New York University; 2016