Click to play videoJaipur: The six-day long Gurjar agitation for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status cost lives, property and brought Rajasthan to a stop. But if you thought the issue is over, think again.
The Rajashtan government’s agreement with Gurjars was about buying time and stopping the violence, which the Supreme Court has called a national shame
As a judicial committee examines whether Gurjars should be given ST status, it may be too late. Rajashtan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, by not cracking down on the violence, has in fact sown the seeds of a caste war.
The Gurjars began their agitation on May 29 at Peepal Khera village by demanding Raje to fulfill her election promise and declare them a Scheduled Tribe.
Fourteen people, including a policeman, were killed on the first morning of the agitation in police firing. The enraged community refused to cremate their dead and the agitation spread.
Seventeen-year-old Anita’s husband Ram Veer Gurjar, 19, died in the firing. The shock has made Anita look aged but she is proud that her husband died for the “cause”.
“I am unhappy that he died, but it is all right for the cause of reservations. It doesn’t matter if we do not get reservations, others of our community will,” Anita says at her home in Peepal Khera village.
Ram Veer owned a small piece of land in a drought-prone and impoverished village. Few parents can afford to send their children to school here and the only government jobs some Gurjars manage to get is with the armed forces. Reservation, particularly ST status, is therefore seen as a way out of poverty.
The Gurjars felt the government had cheated them, and deaths in police firing made matters worse. "I always keep the bullet which hit me in my pocket. I don’t want to forget what the government did to me that day. The police beat me up though I pleaded with them to spare me," says farmer Roop Singh of Peepal Khera.
Five Gurjars who died in the police firing were not cremated for five days as a mark of defiance. Their bodies were kept in Peepal Khera, which became a martyrs memorial and rallying point for Gurjars.
“What they with done is repetition of General Dyer’s cruelty. This is Jalianwala Bagh,” says Col K S Bainsla, convener of the Gurjar Sangharsh Samiti, who lead the community in its talks with the government.
Gurjar vs Meena
The Gurjars are in the Other Backward Castes list but opportunities in this overcrowded category are limited. On the other hand, the Meenas have progressed because 50 years of Scheduled Tribe reservations.
“Don't the Meenas know how to share? Can't the government give us anything at all?” asks a Gurjar woman in Peepal Khera.
In this charged atmosphere, rumours and misinformation made the Gurjars angry and suspicious. Many Gurjars believe policemen involved in the firing were all Meenas, the government is allied with the Meenas and stopped food trucks for Gurjars and transported Meenas to their meetings.
As the Gurjar agitation became more vocal, Meenas took to the streets to oppose it. The two communities clashed in many places and the police stood and watched.
Brokering peace
After six days of agitation, Gurjar leader Col (retired) K S Bainsla on June 4 announced he was declaring peace. “Our agitation over the last six days for ST status has ended today. We have got what we wanted. I apologise for the problems because of our agitation,” said Bainsla after talks with the Rajashtan government.
Chief Minister Raje promised that her government would do justice to the Gurjars.
But it was a peace that made no promises and many Gurjars felt betrayed. The Rajasthan government booked thousands of Gurjars for violence and destruction of property. Bainsla was booked for the death of the policeman in Peepal Khera.
The Gurjar Mahapanchayat, which met after the agitation ended, declared that terms of Bainsla’s agreement with the government were not clear but it would keep peace, for now.
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