Patidar leader Hardik Patel is no stranger to adulation, and huge crowds await him wherever his rallies or meetings are scheduled. Last week, at Vallabhipur Crossing in Bhavnagar district, thousands of his supporters waited for him at Umrada to make the 250 km from a court at Visnagar in Mehsana and address them. Only hours ago had the court granted him bail in an old case of alleged ransacking of a BJP leader’s office, and he drove down to address the public meeting.
He arrives two hours late at 6 p.m., as the journey’s second half “became a roadshow”. As Mr. Patel’s cavalcade approaches, the drumbeats get more frenzied, the cries of “Jai Sardar, Jai Patidar” louder.
As his SUV slows down, it is showered with marigold garlands.
Mr Patel is sitting in front, next to the driver shaking hands with supporters through the window. Suddenly he leaps up, his torso and head vanish through the window. The crowd goes mad. The vehicle sways dangerously as Patel youth surround it, beating at the windows. Finally, he slides back into his seat, rolls up the window and turns to speak.
Mr Patel may be just 23, but he has a practised air. The demand for reservation for the Patidars, he says, need not clash with that of other sections such as the OBCs and Dalits. “There are ways in which our demand for reservation can be accommodated, perhaps through a constitutional amendment,” he says.
Social changes, he says, are key to political changes. “The social changes are already taking place — people are coming out on the streets and raising their voices. This will be followed by political changes,” he says.
He clarifies that neither he nor his colleagues in the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti will join politics, form a political party or contest elections. “If the people are strong, then their voices will be raised inside [the government] ... We have to become conscious first, not our politicians.”
At Umrada, Mr. Patel’s supporters, a majority of them young men, have been waiting patiently. The public meeting has been dubbed a “Yodha Sammelan” (a gathering of warriors).
Photos of Sardar Patel, Shivaji, Bhagat Singh and Hardik Patel stare out at the crowds from the backdrop on the stage. Just beneath the stage, the secular and the religious mingle on a little table: a brass lamp stands before images of Sardar Patel and of Khodiyar Ma and Umiya Ma, the community deities of the Leuva and Kadawa Patels, respectively, belying the BJP line that Mr. Patel only represents the Kadawas. Conscious perhaps that the emphasis on Patels — or Patidars — could alienate other communities, Mr. Patel is greeted on stage by members from the Kshatriya, Ahir, Muslim and other communities, recalling Madhavsinh Solanki’s KHAM politics — with a twist.
But that’s not the only surprise: the Patidar goddesses are propitiated with an unusual arati that only the 20-somethings could have thought up. An announcement is made and the entire audience switch on the torches on their mobile phones. In the darkness, the thousands of torches create magic for a few moments.
As he rises to speak, the crowd breaks into a frenzied chant of “Hardik, Hardik”. Mr. Patel calms them down and says he is fighting not for power, but for education and jobs so that they can “live with honour in society”. But the prosperous society he dreams of will be for all Gujaratis, he says. The BJP must be defeated.“We don’t believe in their cry of “Jai Shri Ram”, we just say, “Ram Ram [a common greeting in Village India]”.
Ultimatum to Congress
Mr. Patel also issued ultimatum to the Congress to clear its stand on the Patidar community’s demand for quota by November 3. “The Congress must clarify how it proposes to give reservations constitutionally by November 3, 2017,” Mr. Patel tweeted.
(With Mahesh Langa)
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