Passing the buck

Kirori Singh Bainsla, president of the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti.-PTI

Gujjars are unhappy with the Chopra Committees report, and the State government passes their demand for S.T. status to the Centre.

IN May-June 2007, when most parts of north and northwestern India were engulfed in an agitation by the Gujjar community, demanding inclusion in the list of Scheduled Tribes (S.Ts), it was felt that the Rajasthan government would not be able to emerge unscathed from the mess it had created for itself. Six months later, and with less than a year to go before the 2008 Assembly elections, the Vasundhara Raje-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has, in a deft move, shifted the onus of looking into the demand to the Central government. Gujjars of Rajasthan are included in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category.

In the wake of criticism and political isolation over the handling of the Gujjar agitation, the State government constituted a three-member committee under the chairmanship of Justice Jas Raj Chopra, a retired Judge of the Rajasthan High Court. The situation was brought under control. But there were other problems.

The committee, which was meant primarily to look into the eligibility of Gujjars for S.T. status, has questioned the relevance of extending the policy of reservation itself. Arguing that the creamy layer was an issue to be dealt with, the report concludes that it is difficult to take caste as the basis for favoured treatment. It is the geography of the habitat that defines the sociology of deprivation. Replacement of caste by an area-based strategy seems to be the only way out. It has suggested that the State government take up the issue of abrogating the criteria used for providing S.T. status with the Central government, claiming that such criteria have become obsolete and outdated. Instead, there should be quantifiable data that can stand judicial scrutiny.

The committee is in favour of an economic criterion for evolving a socio-economic package and has suggested that a Board for the Underdeveloped and Inconvenient Areas be set up to address the problems faced by both Gujjars and non-Gujjars. The government, it said, should allocate sizable funds to such areas. Arguing that Gujjars would be the main beneficiaries as they would be preponderant in the areas studied, the report expresses the optimism that there will not be any disagreement from the Gujjar leadership for such a strategy. More importantly, it argued that the demand for reclassification meant that gaining OBC status had not helped much the members of this community It is this desperation that led the leaders of this community to compare their lot with others included in the S.T. category...

While not addressing directly the question whether Gujjars could be classified under the S.T. category or not, the committee has recommended a special package arguing that in the absence of higher education, they stand no chance to gain from such reclassification. What they need is an improvement in their living conditions until the children of these remote and isolated areas [sic] educate themselves, reservation in government jobs or in political institutions would only have symbolic value and these benefits will naturally accrue to the most advanced sections of this umbrella group, without helping those who need instant help, the report says.

The committee has interpreted the demand of the Gujjar movement to say that it was to bring home the point that development had not reached all sections of the society despite several years of positive discrimination as part of the policy of reservations. The Gujjar leadership, the summary chapter of the Chopra Committees report says, wanted either to have reservation or to scrap the policy altogether and alternatively employ the economic criterion in extending such privileges. The demand, it says, involves a broader agenda: first, a re-examination of the policy of reservation itself leading to the removal of the creamy layer from the groups that are currently enjoying the privileges; secondly, extending the privileges to other sections of society that have so far been deprived; and thirdly, employing the non-ascriptive criteria of economic and educational backwardness. A cleverer interpretation has been that the representations made by Gujjar leaders concerned the deprived sections of the community living in remote areas and pursuing a subsistence economy.

The report is deliberately vague. It is definitely not in favour of granting S.T. status to Gujjars. Evolving a socio-economic package is certainly not an answer to the basic demand of Gujjars. In a sense, it tries to dissuade the Gujjar movement from looking at reservation as the ultimate utopia. The committee does not address issues of economic and social mobility that have accrued as a result of the absence of a proactive, affirmative policy. It dwells more on the failures of the reservation policy by giving the staid argument that the policy has not benefited everybody and that the creamy layer needs to be excluded. It also exhorts the State government to design a special package for those Gujjars who exhibit primitive traits. The area approach, where affirmative action is required and where Gujjars share their poverty with others, envisages the coverage of other indigent families as well.

The problem with this approach is that many of the facts about the backward living conditions of Gujjars in certain areas of Rajasthan are not new. Gujjars demand for S.T. status has to be seen in this context. Meenas, a numerically and politically dominant tribal community, and Gujjars inhabit the same geographical localities in several of the 32 districts. Meenas, by and large, have benefited from the reservation policy while the other tribes, such as Bhils, Sahariyas and Damors, have benefited far less. The flaw, if any, lies with the State government and not with the policy itself.

The Meena community has resisted the inclusion of Gujjars in the S.T. list mainly because it does not want a vocal caste to make inroads into its domain. Predictably, the Meena leadership is happy, but cautious, about the committees recommendations. The resignation drama staged by Food and Civil Supplies Minister Kirori Lal Meena was interpreted as a ploy to put pressure on the government.

The Chopra report does not give any categorical mandate. In addition, the political interpretation by the government is not favourable to us, Roop Singh, a spokesperson of the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, told Frontline. He said that the District Collectors of Tonk, Dausa, Ajmer, Sikar, Kota, Jaipur, Jhunjhunu and Dholpur had written to the committee that Gujjars there fulfilled all the five criteria for redesignation. In Chittorgarh, Karauli, Bharatpur, Alwar and Sawai Madhopur districts, almost all the five criteria (primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact and backwardness) were present.

The five criteria were evolved by the Lokur Committee and on that basis, 700 communities were classified as S.Ts. According to the Chopra Committee, Gujjars did not fulfil the criteria all over the State. Gujjar representatives maintained that nine of the S.T. groups, excepting Sahariyas, fulfilled the basic criterion of having primitive traits. They also argued that in the original list of denotified tribes, Gujjars were listed at number 14 and Meenas at 22. That was history and maybe such historical injustice cannot be undone. The fact is that the majority of Gujjars in the State are not well-off and neither are they represented adequately in government (Frontline, June 16, 2007).

It is learnt that the Chopra Committee toured 147 villages and received over 40,000 representations and 35,000 affidavits. Experts and government surveyors helped it in its task. Nearly 200 compact video discs on Gujjar habitations were submitted to the Collectors, who in turn presented their own findings to the committee. The entire report is available only selectively. The government has put only the concluding chapter on its website.

It is a different issue that the National Tribal Policy drafted by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in July 2006 felt that the criteria laid down by the Lokur Committee were hardly relevant, that very few tribes could be said to possess primitive traits, and that more accurate criteria needed to be fixed. It also observed that while many S.Ts had benefited from reservation, a small section of the community had cornered most of the jobs. However, the same policy reiterated that the system of reservation would be continued and strengthened through legislation.

It observed that the human development indicators of the S.Ts as a whole were also poor. While the Infant Mortality Rate (per thousand) was 83 for Scheduled Castes, it was 84.2 for S.Ts; the under-five mortality rate was 119.3 for S.Cs and 126.9 for S.Ts, with the national average at 94.9. Similarly, the under-nutrition rates were found to be much higher for S.Ts and S.Cs compared with the national average. Literacy rates for S.Ts were far lower than the national average. A large segment of the tribal population lived below the poverty line, suffered from severe malnutrition and various communicable diseases, and, overall, had an extremely slow pace of development, the draft policy said. There were also wide gaps in social and physical infrastructure, it observed.

The Chopra Committee has put the onus on the Centre. It has selectively quoted from the policy document, highlighting the section on scheduling and rescheduling of tribes. The policy says that a process of de-scheduling will be put in place to exclude those communities that have caught up with the general population. In what appears to be an ambiguous assessment, it says: Exclusion of the creamy layer among the Scheduled Tribes from the benefits of reservation has never been seriously considered. As we move towards and try to ensure greater social justice, it would be necessary to give this matter more attention and work out an acceptable system.

The problem with this approach is that even if the creamy layer among the S.Ts is excluded at any time in the future, it still does not address the fundamental demand of Gujjars. The State government is not going to send any letter of recommendation as the Chopra Committee itself has not made any concrete recommendations pertaining to their main demand.

Gujjars are not happy with the recommendations. Already demands for launching fresh agitations have been made. The Chopra Committee has conducted a pedantic exercise, said Kirori Singh Bainsla, president of the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti. Mildly unhappy about the report, he told Frontline over telephone from Jaipur that a third round of agitation seemed inevitable. The Chopra Committee has not said No to our demand for S.T. status; it has suggested that the norms for deciding who is an S.T. are outdated. As for the State government, we are appalled by its indifferent attitude, he said. For six days in June, he sat with the bodies of six people who were killed during the agitation on National Highway 11, forcing the government to call for a truce.

The Gujjar movement, which has now splintered into several factions, including some led by Vasundhara Rajes detractors from within the party and government, was highly sceptical of the committee. Some of them openly accused Bainsla of having betrayed the movement by agreeing to call off the agitation.

The violent Gujjar struggle in mid-2007 not only paralysed the State but spilled on to the neighbouring States of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh and Delhi (Frontline, June 2, 2007). A full-scale caste war seemed imminent, with Meenas threatening to take to the streets in a big way if the government conceded the Gujjar demand. The BJP promised in the 2003 Assembly elections that it would look into the demands of the Gujjar community, especially that of granting it S.T. status. The Gujjar movement was a reminder of the promise.

The various factions among Gujjars have announced action plans for January. The Samyukta (joint) Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, a new front led by expelled BJP Minister Prahlad Gunjal, has announced a Mahapadaav on January 21, while on January 13 Gujjars under Bainsla are expected to hold a meeting at Bayana. Dispelling rumours of a split in the movement, movement spokesperson Roop Singh said that while there were different approaches, the demand remained the same. However, the impact of any future agitation might be confined to the State.

By shifting the responsibility of looking into the demand, the State government may have got a reprieve, but this may be short-lived if the Gujjar groups insist on a letter of recommendation from the State to the Centre, and if their protests are mishandled.