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The meticulously planned Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan has thrown the state machinery out of gear. Chitleen K. Sethi gives a first-hand account of this hardy community’s fight for reservation
The Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan has revived the debate on reservation and vote-bank politics. The sustained intensity of the agitation led by retired Col Kirori Singh Bainsla and the emergence of a new form of protest are challenge to the powers that be. It is election year in Rajasthan and the Gujjars, led by Bainsla, have struck hard with the demand that they should be classified as a Scheduled Tribe. With the tactical precision of an army waging war, the Gujjars have put the BJP government in the state in an impossible bind. Desperate to go down the caste ladder for securing the future of its children, the community is waging a do-or-die battle. Armed to the teeth, thousands of men and women are ready to strike and this year (this is the third consecutive year of Gujjar protest) they have no patience for committees or compromises. The state government appears helpless. Much Gujjar blood has been spilled during the three years of the five-year reign of BJP’s Vasundhara Raje. As many as 70 persons have died in the various bouts of protests since last year and the Raje government cannot afford more violence. The protest
Gujjars are settled in many parts of India but their largest concentration is in the Dang area of Eastern Rajasthan bordering Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Pilukapura in Bharatpur district, which is the epicentre of the current agitation, is also located in this area. On a single call by Bainsla, East Rajasthan has been converted into a virtual tinderbox by the protesting Gujjars. The state police wakes up each day to find thousands, including women, sleeping on roads or railway tracks blocking traffic. With the armed Gujjars taking on the police, clashes have become the order of the day. Gujjar protesters have withstood teargas shells, rubber bullets and water canons. "It is a well organised and coordinated effort. The very selection of this site (Pilukapura) for the protest proves beyond doubt that the Gujjar leaders have planned their moves well," said Rohit Mahajan, Superintendent of Police, Bharatpur. Unlike last year, the protest site was chosen with care this year. As many as 84 Gujjar-dominated villages surround the protest site, which ensures that there is no dearth of food, water and other resources for the protesters. In fact the sit-in protest site has the ambience of a traditional festival. Every two hours the protesters rush to check the arrival of the latest pakwaan. The lunch of puris and sabzi makes way for the freshly packed halwa. Mounds of wasted food can be seen lying at the site and there is no shortage of chaach rabri. Water, stored in mobile tanks, is brought from the nearby villages. Women in the villages are busy cooking throughout the day and the food is sent to the protesters in locally fabricated vehicles called jugaad. Mass base "The leaders are ex-servicemen and have a fair amount of organising ability. The strength of the movement lies in its mass base. Every Gujjar has a stake in the cause, so it is easy to mobilise the community as whole," adds Mahajan. The local Gujjar leaders are also among the protesters. "But the effective leadership is now with the ex-army men and the local leaders have no option but to join in and carry out their orders," says Mahajan. "At least 10 per cent of the protesters comprise unemployed hooligans, who are here to taste the virtually unbridled power that they can wield in such protests. But it will be a challenge to handle these persons after the protest ends," says the Superintendent of Police. Bodies of those killed during the violent clashes are being used as an emotional bond to keep the protesters together. The bodies kept at the protest site have not only lent urgency to the protest but have also sustained the frenzy of the agitation. "We have kept the bodies in our custody so that the government does not fabricate the post-mortem reports," explains Colonel Bainsla. In a desperate move to end the deadlock, the Chief Minister even gave in to Bainsla’s demand for a post mortem at the site of the protest on the railway tracks. A state in crisis Though similar protests were organised around the same time last year, the government grossly underestimated the perseverance of the protesters, who have been planning the 2008 movement for months. Last year’s protests were more widespread, but this year the agitation has created history by its sustained intensity. All possible steps were taken to contain the numbers and limit the duration of the protest: The protest site was fenced in, water and electricity supply to the villages feeding the protesters cut off and jammers put in place to cripple the mobile phones. The Army was called in though never used. But all government efforts to check the supply of food, water and ice slabs (for the dead bodies) have failed. The protest site could not be sealed off as several rural roads lead to the site. One side of the site opens into ravines and dacoits (incidentally, Jagan, one of the most dreaded dacoits of the area, is a Gujjar) emerge from there from time to time to show their solidarity with the protesters. Faced with a community which is not ready to go down without putting up a fight, Raje did not want a crackdown that would result in more deaths. Hence, the government had no choice but to watch helplessly as the protesters held the state to ransom. A dozen trains were cancelled each day, road traffic was stopped on many state highways, cost of food items soared and tourism and business were badly hit. The Raje government did its best to handle the crisis. Alternate train routes were put to use to minimise the loss, passengers waiting at bus stands and railways stations were provided food and lodging by BJP workers, and round-the-clock police, railway and road helplines were set up. Gujjars in Rajasthan are pitted against the dominant Meena tribe in the current battle for the ST status. The population of the Meenas in the state is almost double than that of the Gujjars, who are included in the OBC list. Meenas are primarily landowners and have subsisted on agriculture while the Gujjars took to agriculture only recently. The Meena tribe was classified as a Scheduled Tribe in the 1960s. The Gujjars had demanded ST status in the 1970s but the state government had rejected the demand, as Gujjars did not meet the criteria for being included in the ST list. Over the years, the Gujjars who lived in the same villages as the Meenas saw how almost every educated person in a Meena household got a government job and was well placed while their own educated sons and daughters barely managed to make ends meet. The Gujjars of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh were granted the ST status while those in Rajasthan were added to the OBC list in 1994. The inclusion of Jats in the OBC list in 1999 by the BJP-led NDA government came as a big blow to the Gujjars. The Jats, who were in a better social and economic position, began cornering most of the OBC quota government jobs and educational opportunities in Rajasthan. The Gujjars’ demand for ST status started gaining ground in 2000. Political twists Any move for modifying the list of STs begins with a recommendation by the state government to the Centre. Thus the protesters, who are squatting on the rail tracks, are adamant that only Raje’s recommendation letter would make them end their protest. "During the 2003 assembly elections, Raje had promised Gujjars that if she came to power, she would urge their inclusion in the ST list to the Centre," says Dr Roop Singh, a Gujjar leader. The BJP Chief Minister denies having made any such promise and says she cannot get the ST status for the Gujjars as it is a Constitutional issue and has to be dealt with by the Central Government. In spite of severe criticism from all quarters, including her own party members, for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, Raje has stuck to her stand. Political analysts point out that Raje has more to lose by granting the ST status to the Gujjars because of the powerful influence of Meenas in the state. The Meenas, on the other hand, fear that if the Gujjars’ demand is met then their community’s share of being a Scheduled Tribe would be reduced considerably.
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