Deal and discontent

Kirori Singh Bainsla, the leader of the Gujjar movement, salutes Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje after the agreement was announced at their media conference in Jaipur. - PTI

The Gujjar agitation ends after the Vasundhara Raje government accords the community 5 per cent quota under a special category.

THE year-long Gujjar agitation, which claimed 70 lives and disrupted rail and road services on a large scale, was called off on June 18 after an agreement was reached between the communitys delegates and representatives of the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan. The leader of the Gujjar reservation movement, Kirori Singh Bainsla, who participated in the marathon discussions, declared it was time for a truce. But the community is overcome by a sense of betrayal.

Gujjars have actually not got what they demanded: a letter from the Bharatiya Janata Party government recommending the inclusion of the community in the Scheduled Tribes list. Instead, the Gujjar delegates settled for much less and even agreed to certain humiliating pre-conditions. The agreement arrived at between the 11-member delegation of the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti and an eight-member government delegation revolved around granting 5 per cent reservation to Gujjars, Banjaras, Gadia Lohars and Raikas under a special, separate backward class category. These groups currently figure in the list of Backward Classes.

The agreement states that the 5 per cent reservation for these socially and educationally backward classes will not in any manner disturb the existing reservation for the Scheduled Caste, S.T. and Other Backward Class categories. However, in an action aimed at appeasing the other castes, the government announced a 14 per cent reservation for economically backward Rajputs, Brahmins, Vaishyas and Kayasthas. By skirting the main demand of S.T. status for Gujjars, the government also managed to allay the fears of the Meena community.

In a sense, Gujjars were back to square one. For the BJP government, it was a smart electoral move. The quantum of reservation in the State is 49 per cent. With the creation of the new categories, it has now risen to 68 per cent (1 per cent lower than the quota prescribed in Tamil Nadu, which is the highest in the country). It was not surprising that on June 19, the Akhil Bharatiya Gujjar Mahasabha rejected the agreement signed the previous day on the grounds that not only was the new reservation open to judicial scrutiny but the government had not even touched the subject of reservation for Gujjars under the S.T. category. Two members of the Gujjar delegation, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, the Nationalist Congress Party legislator from Delhi, and Masood Chaudhary, a retired officer of the Indian Police Service from Jammu and Kashmir, did not put their signatures on the agreement.

Interestingly, the Gujjar delegation itself got whittled down on the eve of the agreement. On June 13, there were 35 representatives; by June 17, there were only 12, including two persons sent from the BJP headquarters. Most of the delegates were not directly involved in the agitation.

Bidhuri told Frontline that it was a five-member Gujjar delegation that negotiated with the government representatives on June 18. I wanted that the draft should include a commitment from the government that it would send a letter recommending S.T. status for us and also that they would withdraw all the cases against those languishing in jails, he said.

At 49 per cent, we had 1 per cent left of the total quantum of reservation in the State. All that the government had to do was to give an additional 4 per cent to Gujjars under the Backward Classes category as a special category instead of creating a special category outside the 50 per cent limit. This decision is open to judicial scrutiny and most likely it is not going to be implemented, he said.

Bidhuri and Sukhbir Jaunpuria, an independent legislator from Sohna in Haryana, were among the prominent leaders who organised the Gujjar protests in Delhi and Haryana under the aegis of the Akhil Bharatiya Gujjar Sangharsh Samiti.

Bidhuri felt betrayed. He said the delegation had made it clear that any reservation should be within the 50 per cent cap set by the Supreme Court, in view of its judgment in the Indra Sawhney case. It was also pointed out that under Article 16 (equality of opportunities in matters of public employment) of the Constitution, quota could not be given under economic criteria, and that the nine-member Constitution Bench headed by former Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal ruled last year that any law incorporated in the Ninth Schedule after 1973 could come up for judicial review.

Jagdeep Chhokar, retired professor of the Indian Institute of Management and a Gujjar himself, told Frontline that in July 2007, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the Orissa government that had enhanced the quota limit to 65.75 per cent.

As per the June 18 agreement, the government has resolved to respond to the letters received from the Union government on December 3, 1999, and January 1, 2008, enquiring whether Gujjars were eligible for S.T. status or not. How is this relevant, especially when the government has not categorically said that it would recommend S.T. status for our community? We have rejected the agreement totally, Ram Sharan Bhati, executive president of the Gujjar Mahasabha, told Frontline. He said there was a growing anti-reservation feeling in the country and it was quite possible that someone would challenge the State governments decision to have 68 per cent reservation.

It is strange. We demand a letter of recommendation from the government and what they do is something that is going to be judicially challenged. One doesnt have to be a legal expert to know that this policy of reservation is going to be challenged, he said. There was no scope for a political solution now. Moreover, the government has not said that it will withdraw the cases against Gujjars who are in jail. It has left it to the courts, he said.

Significantly, the watered-down agreement includes a curious undertaking from the community that it will not raise any demand other than what has been agreed upon and that if any other group does so, the Rajasthan Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti will oppose it. Gujjar leaders expressed surprise that Bainsla agreed to this conditionality, which has, in effect, created divisions in the community.

Amra Ram from Dhod in Sikar district, the lone Communist Party of India (Marxist) legislator in Rajasthan, pointed out that the Gujjar agitation was a result of the Raje governments failure to keep the promise made in the run-up to the Assembly elections. The reality is that the real Scheduled Tribes are in a very bad shape and no one is thinking about them, he said, adding that the Raje government was playing a dangerous game of vote-bank politics that had the potential of creating more ferment. The BJP government, he said, promised to give one lakh jobs every year but had done little about it. The state of secondary and senior secondary education was pathetic with teaching posts lying vacant in most of the villages, he pointed out.

The Gujjar agitation began in May 2007. It took a violent turn after close to two dozen Gujjars were killed in police firing. The manner in which the agitation took shape after that has raised suspicions about a covert understanding between the Gujjar leadership and the State government. There is no doubt that Bainsla was sidelined after the police firing and the reins of the agitation were taken over by two dissident BJP legislators, Prahlad Gunjal and Attar Singh Bhadana, both of whom were arrested as part of pre-emptive action before the rail-blockade was announced in May this year. Several Gujjars were arrested six months ago, and on the day the rail-roko was planned in Bayana there were not many people to join it.

This year, the agitation, which began with a call for a meeting to mourn those killed last year, turned violent yet again as the trigger-happy police opened fire on protesting Gujjars. By May-end, close to 50 people were dead. The summer of discontent will perhaps continue as a sense of betrayal has already begun to seep through the community. Representatives of some forward castes have already expressed their surprise over the move and have, predictably, argued for a reservation-less society.

For the time being, Vasundhara Raje has not only managed to save her seat despite pressure to remove her, but have apparently scored a political point in terms of loyalty of caste groups. Meenas are happy as Gujjars are not in the S.T. list to share their privileges, Jats are happy as Gujjars are out of the OBC list. Forward castes have been appeased as their concerns have been addressed in the 14 per cent quota. A section of Gujjars think they have got what they wanted.