gherao

English

WOTD – 13 January 2015

Etymology

From Hindi घेराव (gherāv, “encirclement”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡɛˈɹaʊ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

gherao (plural gheraos or gheraoes)

1. (India) A protest in which a group of people surrounds a politician, building, etc. until demands are met.
   • 2002, Bharti Kirchner, Darjeeling‎^[1], St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 26:

     They had done a gherao and trapped the manager in his office for a whole day.

   • 2007, Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy‎^[2], Macmillan, →ISBN, page 425:

     This was an invitation to strike: according to one estimate, there were more than 1,200 gheraos in the first six months of the first UF-LF government.

   • 2011, Arun Sinha, Nitish Kumar and the Rise of Bihar‎^[3], Viking, →ISBN, page 40:

     They led us in a mob to the administrative office of the Patna University, blockaded the main entrance and besieged the vice chancellor's office in a gherao […]

Verb

gherao (third-person singular simple present gheraos, present participle gheraoing, simple past and past participle gheraoed)

1. (India, transitive) To surround for this purpose.
   • 1996, Kavery Nambisan, The Scent of Pepper‎^[4], Penguin, published 2010, →ISBN, page 215:

     One day the city magistrate asked the army for help to curb a protest march by women Congress workers who had threatened to gherao the officials in the divisional office.

   • 2006, Shakuntala Devi, Employment of Labour and Rural Development‎^[5], Sarup & Sons, →ISBN, page 53:

     In reply, the cultivators, apparently now protesting under the banner of the BKU gheraoed the power station.

   • 2010, B. G. Verghese, First Draft: Witness to the Making of Modern India‎^[6], Tranquebar Press, →ISBN:

     Further incensed by the findings of two Citizen's Inquiry Committees that he had set up to probe the earlier police firings in Gaya and Patna, JP now announced a programme that involved picketing the Assembly, gheraoing the residences of MLAs, […]