1. In using the term elite in reference to the most highly educated in the city, I mean to suggest only the privileged place these figures came to enjoy within the civic arena and as intermediaries between the colonial rulers and local society. Within Surti society, many of these figures were far less influential

than the most substantial sheths and other urban magnates. I hope that my narrative also makes clear that it is these persons who constituted the "elite" and not the larger caste groupings from which they came.

2. Thakkoram Kapilram Mehta, Vadnagar Nagaro: Nagarona Prachin ane Arvachin Itihas Sahit Suratna Vadnagar Nagar Grahastha Kutumboni Vanshali, p. 15.

3. For the Anavil Brahmans, see Jan Breman, Patronage and Exploitation, esp. pp. 32-33, 98; Klaas van der Veen, I Give Thee My Daughter, pp. 8-16.

4. See pp. 96-97.

5. The movement of the Vaniyas into English education and the professions more generally in Gujarat is substantiated in Neera Desai, Social Change in Gujarat, pp. 59, 414-27; Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India, p. 162.

6. For the beginnings of English education in Surat, see I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 1, pp. 139-40. For education in the Bombay Presidency more generally, see Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India, pp. 33-40; Ellen E. McDonald and Craig M. Stark, English Education, Nationalist Politics and Elite Groups in Maharashtra, 1885-1915.

7. For the best study of the process of English education in India, see the excellent work by David Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation.

8. In 1886, for instance, there were five doctors, five lawyers, one newspaper editor, and one high school master, but only three businessmen, among the fifteen elected councillors. In 1896 five doctors, four lawyers, and six "merchants, contractors and private gentlemen" won elective office. In 1914, soon after the number of seats open to election had risen to twenty, eight lawyers, three doctors, one newspaper editor, five merchants, and three landlords were chosen by the voters. And even the elected merchants, landowners, and private gentlemen were often people with a great deal of English education. SMR, 1886, p. 102; SMR, 1896, p. 93. I collected much biographical information on the municipal councillors of Surat from the files of the Centre for Social Studies, Surat. My thanks to Dr. Ghanshyam Shah, who provided me with access to this material.

9. For the house-tax struggle in Surat, see BA, GD, 1892, vol. 97, comp. 600; GD, 1893, vol. 92, comp. 600, pt. I; GD, 1895, vol. 101, comp. 1041.

10. See C. A. Bayly, "Patrons and Politics in Northern India"; Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial Politics. For Surat, note, for example, the role of Parsis as brokers of the English in the Mughal court. Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 9, pt. 2, pp. 196n, 197n.

11. "No. 1699 of 1893, G.D., Bombay, May 1893," in BA, GD, 1893, vol. 92, comp. 600, pt. 1, p. 212.

12. I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 1, pp. 189-90; pt. 3, pp. 34-35; Nuruddin and Sharaf, Patani Co-operative Society Souvenir, p. 136; interview with Chandravadan Shah, 1980.

13. I. J. Catanach, Rural Credit in Western India, pp. 99-102.

14. P. T. Parikh, A Brief History of the Cooperative Movement in Surat District, esp. pp. 6-7.

15. GM, 8 September 1901, p. 1.

16. GM, 5 March 1911, p. 2.

17. GM, 9 January 1898, p. 2.

18. "Memorial from the Secretaries, Praja Hit Vardhak Sabha to Secretary to Government, G.D., Bombay, 27 March 1889," in GD, 1889, vol. 124, comp. 351, pp. 96-97.

19. GM, 5 August 1906, p. 2.

20. GM, 19 July 1903, p. 7; 26 July 1903, p. 1; 22 July 1906, p. 8.

21. "Petition from the Committee Appointed by the Public Meeting of the Inhabitants of Gopipura, 1 June 1892," in BA, GD, 1892, vol. 97, comp. 600, p. 87.

22. "Secretary, Gopipura Ward Committee, Surat to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 19 April 1893," in BA, GD, 1893, vol. 92, comp. 600, pt. 1, p. 199.

23. Native Opinion, 7 August 1892, quoted in BA, GD, 1892, vol. 97, comp. 600, p. 81.

24. GM, 27 December 1891, p. 1298.

25. "No. 1699 of 1893, G.D., Bombay, May 1893," in BA, GD, 1893, vol. 92, comp. 600, pt. 1, p. 212.

26. "Remarks on the Draft Municipal Act, 1899, 6 April 1899," in BA, GD, 1901, vol. 7, comp. 347, p. 33.

27. "Surat Collector's Letter, no. 32, 20th Jan. 1893," in BA, GD, 1892, vol. 92, comp. 600, pt. 1, p. 65.

28. "Letter from Collector of Surat to Chief Secty, to Government, G.D., Surat 28th July 1892," in BA, GD, 1892, vol. 97, comp. 600, pt. 1, p. 36.

29. "No. 1699 of 1893, G.D., Bombay, May 1893," in BA, GD, 1893, vol. 92, comp. 600, pt. 1, p. 212.

30. Ibid.

31. "Petition from Chandrashankar Bhimanand, Chairman of a Meeting held at Vithalwadi, dated 26th September 1909," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, p. 177.

32. BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, p. 63. The following treatment parallels to some extent Dipesh Chakrabarty's interesting analysis of the "spastic" nature of trade-union organizations in Calcutta. See Rethinking Working-Class History, Bengal, chap. 4.

33. GM, 11 October 1888, p. 617.

34. BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, p. 91.

35. For instance, see GM, 31 January 1915, p. 7.

36. The concept of nation as an imagined community is developed in Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities.

37. For instance, see GM, 22 March 1903, p. 13.

38. I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, pt. 3, p. 215; GM, 21 December 1890, p. 1220.

39. GM, 23 November 1893, p. 1.

40. GM, 15 July 1906, p. 2; also 22 July 1906, p. 8.

41. For the development of nationalist organization in Surat before World War I, see G. J. Desai, "Surat under the Britishers," chap. 5; the files of GM; I. I. Desai, Surat Sonani Murat, vol. 1, pp. 208-24, and Surat Congress; Shirin Mehta, Gujarat Politics on Eve of Congress Session of Surat, 1907, pp. 451-55, and "Social Background of Swadeshi Movement in Gujarat."

42. For example, GM, 24 April 1890, p. 385; 16 November 1890, p. 1099; 19 March 1891, p. 282.

43. GM, 13 September 1908, pp. 2-3.

44. GM, 23 November 1893, p. 1.

45. GM, 24 January 1909, pp. 6-7. Though he was one of the three notables who traditionally called public meetings, Edrus for some reason accepted the district association's effort (the two other notables did not).

46. "Collector's No. 2784, 6th October 1888," in BA, GD, 1889, vol. 124, comp. 351, p. 156.

47. For the development of the consultative form of the durbar, see GM, 29 August 1909, p. 2.

48. "Petition from Chandrashankar Bhimanand," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, pp. 177-79.

49. BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, p. 221.

50. "Petition from Chandrashankar Bhimanand," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, pp. 187-89.

51. "Petition from Prasanavadan Motabhai Desai and Others of Surat, 12 Sept. 1909," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, p. 41.

52. "Memorial from the Surat District Association, 26 April 1909," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, pp. 69-70.

53. "The Humble Petition of the President and Other Members of the Surat Cloth Merchants and Grain Dealers' Association Adopted at Their Meeting Held on the 28 Aug. 1909," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, pp. 95-97.

54. "Collector, Surat, to Commissioner, N.D., 4th Jan. 1910," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, pp. 360-61.

55. GM, 5 July 1908, p. 12; 25 October 1908, pp. 9-10; 3 January 1909, p. 3; 8 August 1909, pp. 95-97.

56. GM, 29 August 1909, p. 2. Obviously, such a statement carries with it the assumptions of English-educated men about the appropriate logic that should be used in the municipal-national arena.

57. GM, 5 August 1906, p. 6.

58. Compare BA, GD, 1885, vol. 96, pp. 65-66, with SMR, 1908-9, p. 155.

59. Voting qualifications were quite complicated. The two most important criteria were property worth more than 2,000 rupees or payment of more than 9 rupees municipal tax. Other criteria were payment of income tax or land revenue in excess of 40 rupees. In addition, educated voters could vote in an "intelligence," or "general," ward that selected three councillors. Qualifications included a university degree, a substantial salary or pension from the government, a title, etc.

60. SMR, 1895, pp. 89-90.

61. SMR, 1898-99, p. 71.

62. "Memorial from Iccharam Nagindas Vakil and Others 26 Feb. 1885," in BA, GD, 1885, vol. 94, comp. 351, p. 4.

63. Interview with Gordhandas Chokhawala, 1980.

64. Ibid.

65. GM, 18 March 1917, pp. 2-3.

66. "Petition from Prasanavadan Motabhai Desai and others of Surat, 12th Sept. 1909," in BA, GD, 1910, vol. 117, comp. 210, p. 41.

67. BA, GD, 1915, comp. 72, pp. 27-30.

68. For a somewhat different treatment of Indian politics acknowledging the use of multiple idioms by powerful men, see Morris-Jones, "India's Political Idioms," pp. 133-54.

69. GM, 10 September 1899, p. 10.

70. SMR, 1904-5, p. 40.