Centuries-old buildings that became central to the community, alongside those added during the Sultanate era, stand side by side in Khadia. In many ways, this part of Ahmedabad still mirrors the city’s spirit during the textile mill era. But then migration, primarily provoked by mills’ closure, changed the narrative. Ritu Sharma reports:
A STRANGER cannot go unnoticed in Khadia, people say. Here, word travels “within minutes” through its narrow streets and the myriad of neighbourhoods set up on them.
Here, broad main roads taper into arterial lanes, which further narrow into bylanes connecting the meandering pol or alleys, leaving the din of traffic far behind. These alleys can barely accommodate a two-wheeler. The quieter, narrower sheri opens into traditional homes with ornate wooden and lime-plastered facades. From the outside, they reveal little about the multi-room houses within, with large central courtyards standing over tanks that collect rainwater for harvesting.
Now a mix of traditional and contemporary buildings, Khadia lies at the heart of the 600-year-old walled city of Ahmedabad. Over time, many families have moved out, as the narrow streets offer neither parking space nor the lifestyle associated with modern real estate.
Dr Hemant Bhatt, 58, a BJP media cell convenor, owns a house in west Ahmedabad but prefers to live in Khadia. “Around 300 years ago, Khadia was called Akbarpura, for it was the abode of the elite of the Sultanate era. Even today, there are several dargahs and masjid (mosques), such as the Sarangpur Masjid, the Jama Masjid and Hazira Ni Pol, in the area. There used to be a wide road from the Sarangpur Darwaza to the Jama Masjid. Later, frequent Maratha attacks led to plunder… and the intricate, defensive structures you see today were developed during that period,” he tells The Indian Express.
The area has over 2,600 heritage structures. Preservation efforts began in 1996 with an initiative by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, alongside local participation aimed at encouraging residents to stay in their ancestral homes. “Khadia’s heritage restoration has been a 30-year process,” says conservationist Debashish Nayak, who has closely worked on heritage restoration in Ahmedabad.
“The movement started in 1996. It is a long psychological and social process that had to be triggered since it couldn’t have happened organically. To restore a town, one must restore its people,” Nayak adds.
Calling himself a true “Khadian”, Dr Bhatt, who has another house on the Sabarmati’s west bank, says he plans to spend the rest of his life here, along with his wife. “Mamta (his wife) and I have decided we will not leave Khadia. We want to spend our old age here. We have seen the contrast in the quality of life people have here and in the western parts of the city, especially when they turn grey and old,” he says.
As the couple recalls memories from their over 200-year-old home, an elderly woman knocks and hands Mamta a set of steel bowls and plates. “Vatki vyavhaar (sharing of food) is unique to the old city. In apartments or bungalows, people hardly interact. Here, even if someone cannot afford food, they don’t have to ask. Baa (referring to the elderly woman visiting them) lives alone and isn’t financially strong, so we cook extra for her,” says Mamta, who is a recognised tourist guide of the region.
Despite migration and the city’s expansion, people return to Khadia’s terraces every year to celebrate Uttarayan. Families prepare their small terraces with spools, kites and snacks for guests. The day begins with kite-flying contests and ends in evening revelry. It so happens that some even rent out their terraces for the celebration.
Charged, politically
The 1984 Lok Sabha election, held after the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, remains significant in Khadia’s political memory. The late Ashok Bhatt, then the BJP MLA from Khadia, was the party’s candidate for the Ahmedabad Lok Sabha seat. A participant in the Maha Gujarat movement that led to the separate state of Gujarat, Bhatt hailed from a family of socialists. His mother was a member of the Praja Socialist Party (PSP), which held the Khadia assembly seat until 1967, when the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) replaced it.
Although the BJS secured its first victory in Gujarat in the 1967 general elections from the Rajkot Assembly seat, its first corporators in Ahmedabad were elected in the neighbouring Dariyapur, which later came to be known as the home of Abdul Latif, a bootlegger-turned-gangster allegedly linked to Dawood Ibrahim.
A long-time party worker from Khadia, now a local leader, recounts the scene on the night of the counting for the 1984 elections: “The BJP had lost all but one of the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, including Ahmedabad, but the mood in Khadia was as if we had won: this was the only Assembly constituent that had given the party a lead in the parliament seat.”
The residents of Khadia point out how “anti-establishment” they were, a term “not to be confused with anti-national, which they are not”.
Ahmedabad’s first cotton textile mill was founded by Ranchchodlal Chhotalal, whose grandson Chinubhai Baronet founded the first girls’ school in Khadia in 1892. His is among the grander and preserved havelis or bungalows in Khadia.
Long-time residents recount stories of communal harmony — of temples and mosques coexisting, and of Lalshankar Umiyashankar, the co-founder of Anjuman-e-Islam Trust, bringing Swami Vivekananda to Gujarat in the early 1890s.
“Swami Vivekananda visited Ahmedabad in late 1891 (some sources claim that the year was 1893) and stayed as a guest of Lalshankar Umiyashankar, a sub-judge and later president of the Gujarat Vernacular Society. He stayed at Lalshankar’s residence in Khadia (36 Amritlal’s Pole) before moving to another location, engaging in deep study of Jainism and Ahmedabad’s culture,” Ramakrishna Math, Ahmedabad, says on its official website.
People’s migration intensified after the textile mills began to close down in the 1985-90 period and the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, sparking riots across the country, says a local resident.
Long before it actually took off, the people of Khadia had sensed what the migration would do to the place’s politics, because most of those moving out to areas such as Paldi, Navrangpura, Naranpura, or Maninagar, were Hindus.
Former Union minister Harin Pathak, who grew up in Khadia–rising from the ranks of a corporator in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to a Union cabinet member, tells The Indian Express how the migrants began registering as voters in their home states. “The demography began to change. And then there was the delimitation. I too moved to Maninagar”.
Pathak won from the Ahmedabad Lok Sabha seat until a delimitation exercise was taken up in 2010. Now both Khadia and Maninagar are now part of the Ahmedabad West Lok Sabha seat.
“Because of the migration from Khadia, and its surrounding areas such as Dariyapur, its population declined. It became imperative to add more areas into the constituency. These areas were Raikhad, Behrampura, Jamalpur and Kalupur, which were Muslim pockets. After this delimitation, it became the Jamalpur-Khadia Assembly constituency, with nearly 65 per cent Muslim and 35 per cent Hindu population. What was once a BJP bastion became the safest seat for the Congress. In the 2011 by-election, necessitated after MLA Ashok Bhatt’s death, his son Bhushan Bhatt won because the poll was not as per the delimitation. Bhushan, however, won again in the 2012 Assembly election — a victory largely attributed to Independent candidate Sabir Kabliwala, who contested and divided the Congress’s Muslim votes. It was then that the Muslim voters realised the fallacy of division of votes,” another BJP leader – who did not wish to be named – said.
On the recent civic election results (which saw the Congress winning Khadia), Chetanbhai Sukhadiya, 58, who runs a 60-year-old family business in Khadia but lives in Maninagar, says: “I spend my entire day here… I don’t think traders should worry. There are still thousands of Hindu families here. But the future is uncertain.”
Preparing for 2027
BJP leaders say the party may not win the Jamalpur-Khadia Assembly seat until another delimitation exercise is carried out, expectedly in 2029.
Thus, a defeat in the segment, which had given the BJP high votes once, has hit the party severely.
Former Khadia corporator Mayur Dave says, “Now our people will have to go to the Dariyapur corporator to get their work done”.
But the BJP has not given up hope. Sources in the party say there are serious discussions happening about appointing “shadow corporators”. “To look after the basic issues of residents, we may soon have shadow corporators. Everyone, including the Congress, is well aware of the fact that in a BJP-ruled corporation and state Congress corporators will not be able to work and get their issues resolved,” a senior party member observes.
An ex-BJP corporator now, Pankaj Bhatt, who lost the recent election by nearly 475 votes, has resumed visiting the area since Thursday.
“After a darshan at the Bhadrakali temple, I have started going out in public again. The people of Khadia are regretting and telling me this is wrong…people’s confidence has broken and they are now giving me confidence… saying that they will back me next time,” he says.
State BJP spokesperson Dr Anil Patel, who is a general physician and lives in west Ahmedabad but runs a clinic in Dariyapur, says Khadia lacks a “mass leader”. “In areas like Thaltej or Navrangpura, you do not need a mass leader because of the ecosystem there. It has core BJP voters. But areas like Khadia and Dariyapur are politically and demographically sensitive.”
Khadia political shift: Once a BJP stronghold in Ahmedabad, the area’s changing demography and migration patterns have altered its electoral dynamics over time. 
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