The ongoing agitation by the Gujjar community in Rajasthan is a reminder of the dangers of playing competitive caste politics. The immediate provocation for the agitation, which has erupted time and again on the reservation issue over the past five years, was the State government's decision to recruit people for 100,000 posts — jobs to which the Gujjars, who have been demanding a five per cent reservation, want the quota extended. Although both the ruling Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party declare their commitment to giving them a five per cent quota in government jobs and educational institutions, the problem lies in giving effect to this. At one level there is the legal impediment, something the Rajasthan High Court called attention to recently when it stayed the operation of a 2008 Act that provided reservations for various caste groups, including the Gujjars. The level of reservation under this please-all Act, which earmarked quotas for poor upper castes as well, increased to 68 per cent, considerably above the 50 per cent limit set by the Supreme Court in the Mandal case. At another level there are serious practical problems about extending a special quota for Gujjars. It was the Rajasthan unit of the BJP that promised to include Gujjars, a pastoral community, in the Scheduled Tribes list in the run-up to the 2003 election, which it won. But the violent opposition this evoked from the numerically stronger Meena community saw the State government back down.
While the violence and disruption that has attended Gujjar agitations for reservation must be roundly condemned, it must be recognised that the resentment of the community is largely a result of cynical vote-seeking politics. The anger and political consolidation within the community assumed worrying dimensions only after the Vajpayee government decided to reclassify Jats as an ‘Other Backward Class'. Having promised the Gujjars ST status in 2003, BJP Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje was forced to expend considerable time and energy in trying to appease the community with all manner of sops. Eventually, she bought time by declaring a new quota regime that classified Gujjars as a “separate backward community,” a proposal that found expression in the legally unsustainable 2008 Act that now stands suspended by the Rajasthan High Court. In a bid to woo communities, political parties often forget that the reservation pie is limited and that any attempt to provide quotas for one community will have adverse implications for others. This is exactly what has happened in Rajasthan. And the cost has been an intermittent cycle of agitation, social unrest, and violence.
Keywords: Gujjar community, agitation, Rajasthan High Court, Other Backward class, agitations, protests, rally
The right thing should reach to the needy at right time as well. The poor of all castes live desolated and the benifits goes to middle or high profile people of the reserved caste. Hence the avaluation of reservation is not correct if it is not considered on poverty basis. Hence to avoid much hassle and violence, the casteism shall be abolished from the system and fair avaluation of poverty shall be derived at grass root level. Then the required quota of jobs or education shall be provided to the actual needy for their upliftment. The messed-up caste-based reservation is to be removed to prosper the needy and garnering of harmony in the society.
Questioning the current policies of reservation brings to the question, why was reservation started in the first place? Reservation was an opportunity for the deprived section to to be at par with society.Since cities are developed in the sense one can get good education in institutes and better job options are available for them ,while scarce choices are left for rural peoples.Since at that time some tribes were living in villages far away from modern cities.So ,in order to provide them choices reservation was started.It makes sense to give reservation in the educational institutes,but giving reservation in skilled jobs such as teaching just brings more harm to job providing institutions and hence hinder the efficiency as they never become so dexterous to go upto the mark.Reservation on the basis of any criteria will bring more corruption and political manipulation into picture.Be it basis of rural-urban,underdeveloped-high developed.People will always want to be benefited.every group not considered into reservation will demand reservation.Even distribution of BPL status has underwent gutter of corruption and nepotism to rant BPL status to well-established office clerks and officers.
its very unfortunate that even after 60 years of indipendence the judiciary,the government and the people have not gathered the courage to completely finish the case based reservation.Reservation is not doing any good to any comunity just bringing bad name to the country.its realy unfortunate that we have to remember about our caste amd also our friend's even after 60 years of modern india.
The government must end caste based reservations. Only those poor who are really in need of concessions to come up in life should be given reservations since reservations are cornered by those rich in a community and the poor are made to lurch in the sun. So the entire reservation policy needs to be overhauled.
You have succinctly mentions all the nuances causing recent Gujjar stir of Rajsthan. I agree with you that this filthy caste politics must be stopped at any cost. This murky caste politics played by politicians- throwing our diverse and peaceful society into chaos and hatefulness. Judiciary is nicely playing its role in protecting our constitutional and national integrity by forbidding the callous and corrupt politician, in the government, from going at will. Not only in Rajsthan, many caste politics, which is being practiced in the state of Bihar and U.P., will leads society into serious predicament - if not stopped by time. I think general public awareness on this can only decelerate, and ultimately, stop this dark and gloomy politics. Public must understand that facing competition and getting job - on the basis of one's ability makes one's more perfect and tougher than on the basis of reservation and quota.
In this political and social imbrogleo let alone the scams, we shold do the agitation. WE know the polarised polics, we know cronyism and nepotism in politics, we know this "CAST" thing is deviding our society like anything - in anutshell we know more or less every thing. But why cant we do any thing to uproot this pernicious political body, why cant we move towards a meritocratic society? The politicians know one simple logic to rule the roost. They always "TRY" to satiate the hunger, only after creating the same.
Provide the intensity of Gujjar agitations in Rajasthan, there seem to be only two options to bring this to an end.
1. Provide the Gujjars the promised reservation. But this will encourage similar agitations by other so called backward communities, to grab their chunk of the pie.
2. Put an end to reservation based on caste, altogether. Afterall it has been more than 60 years since independence and even the people who included the caste based reservation in our Constitution would have visualised an end to this practice after a few decades.
bad politics. vicious cycle of caste politics must be stopped. our system is individual based, and we need to assess type and amount of support needed on individual basis. caste by no way represents each individual needs. we need to work for national interest.
It is really a shameful act by Gadkari and BJP leaders to initiate and revive Gujjars agitation for reservation against the government as reported by Gehlot. BJP is at new low by involving themselves in such activities, creating issues from nothing, and jeoperdising parliamentary proceedings.
I agree that Political Parties played a big role in messing this up. But i found the article unbalanced and blame is made to BJP only. It is equally right to mention here that Congress also won the next election in 2008 and played equally dirty politics. One more thing is that best part of Rajasthan politics is that people here give there verdit one sided. Even then if congress govt cannot solve this problem then they should be out. Yes, Politics is being played all along the history of India but Gujjars deserves equal reservation to Meena which has really benefited with it and Positive impact of reservation can be seen in rajasthan.
It is high time to scrap this policy of reservation based on castes. This policy is dividing India and at the same time making people lazy. It should be replaced by reservation to poor.
Politicians have been messing up everything in the country since the independence. They are little men and women and cannot address a problem with wisdom and authority when authority is required to address an issue of national or local issue, with right kind of argument, logic and charm. We, as a nation are in deep trouble on many fronts but look at the attitude of the largest opposition in the Parliament, behaving like a spoiled brat. There are limits in a democratic style of government but there are enormous limitations in the Indian style of democratic setup. This limitation is a profound one but sadly no one in the length and breadth of the country is bothered to address. Mamta Banerjee for example would do anything to become the next chief minister of West Bengal. Is it for the welfare of the people of the state? Certainly not. Politicians are not even diplomatic when they address the people. They have been using the word 'rule or ruling' when they talk about their party in power. Are they the new ruler of our nation? Of course they are. At least they are honest on this issue. It is a sad state of affairs and sadder it looks in the future, as there is not light at the end of the tunnel.
In India political parties always play with the minds of people and mislead them by enticing through various ingenuiously farmulated measures that never seem to get fructified or deserve materialization.This is the epitome of political chicanary worth deploring in severest words.This vote bank politics reflects the power concern of our politicians rather than the concern for empowerment and emancipation of our civil society.It is true rather the realization of the policy of emancipation enunciated in our constitution that we should empower downtroden classes through various legislations but such policy formulations should be much deliberated over and much ingenuity should go into such formulations that they can be easily translated into actions rather than remaining confined to papers.There should be no impediment in their implementation.If we go dividing our civil society into different tribal and backward classes,then this is a never-ending process.Instead we should concentrate on resoloving their issues constructively and potentiate and strengthen delivary systems in their areas,which will not only redress their grievances but will effectively improve their participation in government.Attempt to redress their grievances through various ill_concieved formulations not only perpetuate their problems but also lead to agitations,intermittant or contineous,that plunge the nation into crises and trivialize the good governance.
The only resort by politician to woo the gullible citizen vote is by playing the caste politics. Lacking a complete sense of moral responsiblity they vowed to follow, they misguide their follower. Short term gain to them do not answer the problem. The only solution to such uprising is the growing level of maturity not only among the politician but also among the agitators. Afterall the national integrity and harmony should not be disrupted.
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