Education: Chunilal passed the Matriculation Examination quite creditably as he was awarded a prize by the school. He was 1919-1920 in enter Baroda College.

Biography: Mota was born on September 4, 1898, in Savli, a village the district of Panchmahals, Gujarat to a poor low caste family of the Bhavasars. Owing to his fondness for singing hymns, the father, Asharam, was called ‘Bhagat’ who was an opium addict. Surajba, was the name of the child mother. Bhaichand, the grandfather managed their dyeing business. The couple had four sons, the second of whom was Chunilal, affectionately shortened into 'Chunia' or 'Chunio', he was also called 'Saniyo' as born on Saturday.

Despite the poverty Chunilal lived in he was able to attend an Anglo-Vernacular school in Kalol with the help of the Head Master who helped him to cover the first four years' course in one and a half. He worked at the school for a monthly salary of a rupee and a half performing more menial tasks. In between work he would study.

Chunilal left Baroda got himself admitted to Gujarat Vidyapith, a national college. After some time, the atmosphere in Gujarat Vidyapith also became totally unfit for serious study. There were frequent rallies to promote the movement and the Vidyapith students joined them enthusiastically. Then there were visits by noted political leaders, whose address to the students consumed with keenness. All this made the essentially quiet life of a student an impossibility in those hectic days. Added to this was an exhortation by Gandhiji himself: "The Congress resolution apart", he said in effect, "my personal object in drawing you out of your colleges was not to provide you a change from the protected shelter of one college to that of another. I wanted and want you to spread out to our villages in order to bring the new light of freedom to their doors. What you did was simply to change your moha (infatuation) for one kind of 'degrees' to that of another." The cutting remark went home. It spurted Chunilal to a new resolution. One of Chunilal's principles was to immediately follow up in action a decision once made.