What drew you to the Nav Nirman movement?
After all, you belonged to a respectable, upper middle class family and your father was with the government. That is true. But I was a student activist even during those days. I mean, a Senate member, active participant in students union activities. Since the Nav Nirman agitation began as a student movement, I was drawn to it. Being fluent in English, I became an official spokesman for the students, particularly to the outsiders. Was ‘Nav Nirman’ a spontaneous agitation? Resentment had been building up among the students for a long time. Mess bills in college had skyrocketed. The LD Engineering College students were the first to agitate and were followed by others. The main problem was the soaring prices of edible oil. We all knew that Gujarat was being ruled by the ‘oil kings’ and the Chimanbhai Patel government was getting money from them to finance the UP assembly election of 1974. Was food prices the only issue which sparked off the agitation? Initially it was. But the government w
