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An explosive situation in Rajasthan : Pitfalls of quota politics |
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B.I. Saini
The clashes between members of the Gujjar and Meena communities in Rajasthan are an indication of pitfalls of electoral politics which feeds on playing community against community to gather votes. The BJP, which is the ruling party in the state, has nobody, but itself, to blame for the mess in which the party and the state have landed.
The Jats, the Gujjars and the Meenas are three of the major communities in Rajasthan vying for a stake in the reservation in Government jobs for specified categories. After the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report on job quotas for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the competition for getting a slice of the cake has been getting fiercer. The Jats were not initially included in the OBC category and the Gujjars in Rajasthan, along with other OBCs, were getting a fair share of the job quota for OBCs. In a move aimed at getting the support of the Jat community, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of the state’s population and is the dominant player in the farm sector, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance Government included them in the OBC category in 1999 on the eve of elections. The move went through without much examination as all parties including the Congress, which was then in the opposition, did not want to annoy the powerful Jat community, which calls the shots in the rural areas.
The inclusion of the Jats in the OBC list benefited the community immensely as it was in a position to gain from the quota regime because of its strong economic position. The result was that over the years, the community was able to corner anywhere from 25 to 90 per cent of the jobs available for the OBCs under the reservation scheme. This hit the Gujjars adversely as they were not able to get what they thought to be a reasonable share in the reservation pie.
At the same time, the Meena community, which initially was at almost the same socio-economic level as the Gujjars, was able to make rapid progress because of its inclusion in the scheduled tribe category. People of the Gujjar community compared their position with that of the Meenas and were not too happy at the picture which was emerging. As a result, there was an increasing clamour among the Gujjars for inclusion in the scheduled tribe category on par with the Meenas.
In November 2003, just before the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, the BJP talked about considering recommending inclusion of the Gujjars in the ST category if the party came to power in the state. The BJP Government led by Vasundhra Raje has set up a number of committees to go into the issue, but did not take up the matter seriously as alleged by Gujjar activists. They said that the committees held very few meetings and some of the committee members were not even aware that they had been nominated to the panels.
Indications of the Gujjar anger at the promises made to them not being kept were available for some time and the BJP cannot escape the responsibility for ignoring the tell-tale signs of that. Last week’s explosion of Gujjar anger could have been foreseen and perhaps averted by timely steps by the BJP Government in Rajasthan.
The task now is to first cool down the passions and then take immediate steps to address the roots of the problem. The Vasundhra Raje government in Rajasthan and the UPA Government at the Centre have to devise steps which will address and meet the basic aspirations of the people belonging to different communities including the Gujjars and the Meenas.
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