Migrants, slums and the construction of citizenship in Gandhi's Ahmedabad (1915 - 1930)

This article explores Gandhi’s engagement with the industrial workers of Ahmedabad city and his effort to integrate them into urban society. As the emergence of a large textile industrial sector shaped Ahmedabad as one of the first industrial cities in India, migrants flowed into the city in search of work, and settled in makeshift slums surrounding the textile mills. Concepts such as citizen and citizenship were progressively redefined so as to place the whole city in counterpoint to the countryside. For the migrants, becoming a citizen meant conforming to a lifestyle which reflected the ideal model of urbanity. In 1918, one year before launching the first national satyagraha, Gandhi led the mill workers of Ahmedabad in a ‘righteous struggle’ in opposition to the city’s industrialists. While he led the workers in their quest for higher wages, Gandhi also acted on a broader level to help workers integrate in the city as ‘citizens’.