The Mahatma Gandhi District (popularly known as Hillcroft or occasionally Little India) is an ethnic enclave in Houston, Texas, United States, named after Mahatma Gandhi, consisting predominantly of Indian and Pakistani restaurants and shops and having a large South Asian population. The area is commonly referred to by locals as "Hillcroft," after Hillcroft Avenue, a major thoroughfare which houses much of the Mahatma Gandhi district.
In 1983 Rupa Vyas, owner of Indian-American grocery store Jay Stores, moved the store from Rice Village to the Hillcroft area. [1] Soon after, in 1985, the Gahunias, an Indian American family, opened Raja Sweets. [2] The founder of the business was Joginder "Yogi" Gahunia (died 2002). [3] Within a three-year period, India Grocers opened a location in the area. [4] As time passed, more and more Indian American and Pakistani American businesses moved to the area. Existing Indian American businesses in the area expanded. [5]
While being made up of Indian shops and having a large Indian population for a long time, it was not officially named until January 16, 2010 when the City of Houston held a naming ceremony. [6] The Mayor of Houston, Annise Parker, and the Consul General of India in Houston, Sanjiv Arora, announced the name change. The Indian American community proposed marking the area as a South Asian enclave for a seven-year period until the founding of the Gandhi District. [7] The India Culture Center and several South Asian merchants originally wanted to rename a stretch of Hillcroft Avenue to Mahatma Gandhi Avenue; however that required signatures of 75% of commercial property owners of the given part of the street. Manisha Gandhi Mehta, a spokesperson for the opening event that was held on January 16, 2010, said that the organizers of the district found difficulty in getting non-South Asian merchants to agree to the renaming of the street. In 2009 the head members of the India Culture Center and several South Asian merchants agreed to pay $10,000 for the street signage that designates the area as the district. [6]
The district is along Hillcroft Avenue, bordered by U.S. Highway 59 (Southwest Freeway) to the south and the Westpark Tollway to the north. Katharine Shilcut of the Houston Press said that "[t]he three roads combine in such a way as to form a little triangle within the tangle of streets and strip malls,[...]" [8] Aku Patel, the owner of Karat 22, a jewelry store, said that continued development along Hillcroft was going to happen, but that the district would find difficulty in expanding to the other side of U.S. Highway 59 (Southwest Freeway) because a large Hispanic and Latino American population is already there. Patel said that instead the district will expand along Harwin Drive in an east-west direction. [9]
Shilcut said that the Gandhi District's central location within the City of Houston, the district's increased visibility, and the increase in Greater Houston's Indian American and Pakistani American population caused the district to prosper. [8] Yatin Patel, a Zambian-born ethnic Indian who is the owner of India Grocers, said in a 2011 Houston Press article that originally the Gandhi district did not have a significant Indian-American presence and consisted of several Indian stores and restaurants. [5]
Since the Indian and Pakistani businesses moved to the district, it became a center for the sale of Indian cuisine, Bollywood films, saris, and gold jewelry. Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press said that the high education and income levels of Indian Americans caused businesses in the district to thrive. Shilcut added that "it was clear the rest of the city had taken note" when the district received its formal name. [8] Lynn Ghose Cabrera, the cofounder of "Desi Living," a blog covering Greater Houston's South Asian diaspora, said that "If you talk to longtime Houston Desi residents, they'll tell you that the establishment of the Hillcroft area as the 'Gandhi District' is a milestone. It's one signifier among many that as a community, we've come of age." [8]
Yatin Patel said in a 2011 Houston Press article that as of that year, about 20–25% of his business originates from people who are not ethnic Indians. He attributes the increased business from non-Indians to the increased proliferation and exposure of Indian cuisine in the United States and his store's Caribbean and English products. Sharan Gahunia, a member of the Gahunia family, said that by 2011 Raja Sweets had a lot of African American, Chinese American, and Latino American customers even though her restaurant does not Americanize the food. [5] After the owners of Raja Sweets decided that they needed to designate a day off and the restaurant began closing on Tuesdays, [10] other Indian restaurants on Hillcroft began closing on Tuesdays. [11]
In 2016 Emma Green of The Atlantic wrote that due to high levels of competition, restaurants tended to focus on employing other family members. [12]
The India Culture Center is in the district. [13]
Mayor of Houston Annise Parker designated January 16, 2010 as "Mahatma Gandhi District Day". [14]
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā, first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.
Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, commonly known as Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was an Indian independence nationalist and barrister who served as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India from 1947 to 1950. He was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress, who played a significant role in the country's struggle for independence and its political integration. In India and elsewhere, he was often called Sardar, meaning "Chief" in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Persian. He acted as the Home Minister during the political integration of India and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.
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Rajmohan Gandhi is an Indian biographer, historian, and research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US. His paternal grandfather is Mahatma Gandhi, and his maternal grandfather is Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari. He is also a scholar in residence at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar.
Stanley Albert Wolpert was an American historian, Indologist, and author on the political and intellectual history of modern India and Pakistan and wrote fiction and nonfiction books on the topics. He taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), from 1959 to 2002.
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The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its independence, India had been ruled as an informal empire by the United Kingdom. The empire, also called the British Raj and sometimes the British Indian Empire, consisted of regions, collectively called British India, that were directly administered by the British government, and regions, called the princely states, that were ruled by Indian rulers under a system of paramountcy. The Dominion of India was formalised by the passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947, which also formalised an independent Dominion of Pakistan—comprising the regions of British India that are today Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Dominion of India remained "India" in common parlance but was geographically reduced. Under the Act, the British government relinquished all responsibility for administering its former territories. The government also revoked its treaty rights with the rulers of the princely states and advised them to join in a political union with India or Pakistan. Accordingly, the British monarch's regnal title, "Emperor of India," was abandoned.
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Southwest Management District, formerly Greater Sharpstown Management District, is a district in Houston, Texas, United States. The district is split into 6 neighborhoods: Sharpstown, Chinatown, Mahatma Gandhi District/Little India, Westwood, Harwin, and University.
Hillcroft Avenue is an arterial road in western Houston, Texas, United States. The street spans 8 miles (13 km) and is between Beltway 8 and Westheimer Road. To the south Hillcroft has a wide boulevard, and many single family homes surround Hillcroft; some subdivisions use fences and shrubs as a barrier between Hillcroft and the houses. To the north Hillcroft is surrounded by strip centers and multifamily developments. Hillcroft runs through Brays Oaks, Gulfton, and the Mahatma Gandhi District.
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