Narmad mapped Gujarat but promoted Hindustani

The concept of Gujarat was introduced by Narmadashankar Lalshankar Dave, popularly known as Narmad, in 1873 in his poetry ‘Jay Jay Garvi Gujarat’.

‘Jay Jay Garvi Gujarat’ formed the foreword of his first Gujarati dictionary ‘Narm Kosh’. Narmad identified the region of Gujarati-speaking people.

The poem epitomises the sense of pride of the region. He clearly explained that the four points within which Gujarati-speaking population exists, are Ambaji in north, Pavagadh in east, Kunteshwar Mahadev in Vapi in south and Somnath, Dwarka in west. This largely became Gujarat’s boundary even though Saurashtra and Kutch would have differed with the view at that time. “Narmad gave birth to the idea of Gujarat through his poetry and writings. But he also wrote about one India and one language. He suggested that there should be only one language nationally which is Hindustani, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu spoken in north India in areas around Agra,” says Ramesh Shukla, a language researcher who specialises on Narmad.

Full report here Times of India