Never in modern India has caste been such a conundrum. If Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati’s varna amity forged a truly elephantine electoral constituency, the narrow jati-vad displayed at Dausa represents a grim challenge to social stability and political-constitutional order. Traditionally, jati has been mobile, mutable, yet resilient; simultaneously the brick and mortar of the versatile architecture of native Indian society.
Reservations in the colonial and post-colonial era, however, have slowly transformed caste from social capital to politico-economic equity. The danger that reservations could reduce jatis to splintered socio-cultural entities was averted in the nascent republic as groups consensually regarded as ‘depressed’ or ‘tribal’ were placed in broad categories called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Even the perpetuation of the special ten year reservation given to them did not prove disruptive so long as the quantum remained below 25 percent (it was 22.5%), a figure civilizationally acceptable to the Hindu majority as the State’s maximum share of revenue/produce (or jobs/seats). The ideal State share is one-sixth.
Caste acquired the volatility of a Molotov cocktail when Mr. V.P. Singh imposed the Mandal Commission proposal of 27 percent reservations in government jobs upon an unsuspecting nation, forcing political parties to fall in line or face electoral oblivion. But even the 50 percent ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court could not mitigate society’s profound unease as politically and economically assertive castes rushed to corner government employment in the name of social and educational backwardness.
Mr. Arjun Singh’s attempt to extend OBC reservations to elite educational courses without the fig-leaf of a commission report has temporarily come a cropper. But other UPA initiatives – to give converts access to SC/ST quotas; to give Muslims job quotas and special access to financial resources – have aggravated disquiet over repeated political attempts to split society down to its tiniest constituent units, so that its unity is fractured and its diversity twisted to hostility.
This is the savage harvest we reaped at Dausa. I am unable to delink the sudden but highly organized explosion of Gurjjar wrath from the political fortunes of sitting MP Sachin Pilot, who may suffer if Dausa becomes a reserved ST constituency while his Gurjjar community is listed as OBC. When the mobs had the upper hand, Mr. Pilot glibly demanded the resignation of chief minister Vijayaraje Scindia; it was only the unplanned spread of violence to Congress-ruled Haryana and Delhi and BSP-ruled Uttar Pradesh that forced the Centre to signal an end to the mayhem. The young MP beat a tactical retreat by visiting BJP president Rajnath Singh in the shadow of his canny mother, Mrs. Rama Pilot.
Some salient features of the Dausa stir deserve mention. It was organized by educated, employed, financially sound, and politically savvy Gurjjars: retired army officers, lawyers, doctors, landowners. Their sense of deprivation was proportionate to the success of another community (Meena) and not an objective reality (such as below poverty line status). This political sectarianism led to the creation of a Samyukta Arakshan Morcha by Congress MLA Govindsingh Gurjjar after Lt. Col. K.S. Bainsla withdrew the agitation by the Gurjjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti. The Congress’ attitude towards the new front is unclear; its meeting was attended by MLA Ramchandra Saradhana though Mr. Sachin Pilot kept publicly distant.
After the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the mayhem that left 26, including two policemen, dead, and crores worth of public property damaged, police cases were filed against high-profile movement leaders. The Samyukta Arakshan Morcha is now demanding withdrawal of criminal cases against the protestors and jobs for the relatives of Gurjjars who died in their own inferno. The Morcha is seeking hefty compensation for the dead, at par with police victims. Above all, citing caste-based vindictiveness, it is demanding the transfer of all Meena officers in Gurjjar-dominated pockets.
This is not on. No administration can run on such narrow casteist principles; Gurjjar leaders and their Congress backers bear full responsibility for turning the peaceful Meena community against them. Rather than aggravate this artificial divide, they should let tempers cool and try to restore the old amity of centuries. They would do well to ponder Ms. Raje’s call for a change of mindset on reservations in view of the economy’s growing privatization.
The Supreme Court can lead the way as politicians are unlikely to find the courage to say or do what is necessary to undo the scourge of reservations, which compels more and more people to fight for a share of an increasingly smaller pie. This is akin to the inmates of Nazi gas chambers fighting each other for a breath of oxygen, when the very air they were breathing was poisonous: the consequences were equally lethal for all.
The Supreme Court can resolutely move in to declare reservations unconstitutional and fling them out of the window in toto. If, as the apex court has previously maintained, the Preamble is a legitimate part of the Constitution, and its statement of intent, then all citizens are equally, simultaneously, and unconditionally entitled to “Justice, social, economic and political,” as well as “Equality of status and of opportunity.”
Yet equality of status is contradicted by the constitution categorizing groups as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, even if the latter grouping is now being coveted by others for economic or political reasons. Similarly, political, economic or educational reservations deny equality of opportunity to all, and meritorious youth across the country are demanding genuine equality in increasingly louder voices. Political indifference to their aspirations is a denial of the dignity of the individual and a denial of ‘Justice, social, economic and political.’ Gurjjar-type conflicts for perceived advantages from the system are an open assault upon the unity and integrity of the nation. In other words, some key Articles of the Indian Constitution violate the letter and spirit of the Preamble. A constitutional review is the order of the day.
Finally, citizens must note that Gurjjar violence targetted the police, a nation-wide tendency since the Punjab Police defeated the Khalistan insurgency. The brutality with which Dungar Singh Shekhawat of the Rajasthan Armed Constabulary and Babu Lal of Barmer District Police were lynched by instigated mobs is shameful; Western-funded human rights activists can pretend not to notice; we cannot afford this luxury.
The Pioneer, 12 June 2007