Patidar Reservation, or an attempt to divide Gujarati Asmita on caste lines?
After much delay Census Report of 2011 was made public and before we could ponder over the data stating that the Hindu population has for the first time dropped below the psychological barrier of 80 percent, news of Patidar Reservation Agitation gone violent started spreading. Sometimes, history repeats itself in many ironical ways.
Patidar Community in Gujarat is one of the most wealthy and influential, socially upward community. If I can state my personal experience, it is one of the most warm, hard-working and united social group of people, and they are an important part of Gujurati Samaj and of course Gujarati Asmita.
However with them dominating the number of legislators in Gujarat Assembly, apart from representation in municipal bodies, Panchayat, Sahkari Mandli, so on and so forth, Patidar community has a fair share in the corridors of power. The same was true even during Narendra Modi’s Chief Ministership in spite of being portrayed otherwise. Therefore to conclude that the community is marginalized in terms of power share would be incorrect.
Securing representation in government jobs or in educational admission system is no doubt beyond debate, but this is equally true for other upper-castes, and thus the anger of being marginalized can be justified to an extent. But to simply view the Patidar reservation agitation as a community’s fight to enroll itself in the much ‘coveted’ reservation status would be oversimplifying things.
Gujarat, now at least for more than two decades has shown consolidation of en-masse Hindu vote and much credit for the longest Hindu mobilization phase in Gujarat goes to the trio of Keshubhai Patel, Shankarish Vaghela and none other than Narendra Modi. After the fiasco of Khajuriya-Hajuriya and Shankarsinh Vaghela leaving BJP, a phase of many different Chief Ministers and Keshubhai getting dethroned, it was Narendra Modi who had not only captured the confidence of Gujarati people with a successful Gujarat model of governance and Gujarati Asmita, but also won hearts and minds of common public as there is a genuine feeling that development has reached the masses, and there was a sense of relief that Gujarat had put behind days of political uncertainty, rioting, and miss-governance.
During the entire period of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Congress’s attempt of revival of KHAM (Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim) politics with a popular Kshatriya leader Shankarsinh Vaghela at the helm or Keshubhai Patel’s GPP experiment of patel-power lobby has been unsuccessful due to consolidated Hindu voting on vikas and Gujarati Asmita. The same consolidation was witnessed during May 14 when Hindus voting for “Sab ka Sath Sab ka Vikas” made Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India.
This brings us to the crux to the famous Patidar agitation and its leader Hardik Patel. Amid all the grand strategies floating around, apart from being an agitation for reservation, it was a display of numerical strength – a shakti pradarshan, largely to test the waters of post-Modi Gujarat and see whether a new CM from same community can be arm-twisted to suit community interests and divide Hindus along caste lines or on the lines of a mini-mandal agitation hoping to pit upper-castes against OBC/SC-ST for political mileage.
The whole of power rally at Ahmedabad looked as if, while aiming at CM Anandiben Patel and Gujarat Government, it was shooting at Narendra Modi. This can be seen in the way Hardik Patel received accolades from across the non-BJP political class, from Arvind Kejriwal to Nitish Kumar, and the main stream media.
It is illogical to assume that the reservation demands of a community can be equated with the failure of the Gujarat model.
It’s another question how this agitation can dent chances of BJP’s coming to power for fourth consecutive time in 2017. If we analyze beyond the pomp and vigor of power-play, nothing substantive emerges to prove that it will. Patidar community is around 18% of total population and are further divided into Kadva Patel and Leva Patel, hardly cohesive with each other, apart from other subcategories. It will be too much to assume that one rally, where for the first time made Kadva and Leva Patidars shared the same podium, will translate to total electoral annihilation for BJP. Even if there were elections held today in Gujarat and Patidar community voted against BJP, a counter polarization of other upper castes plus OBCs roughly amounting to 50 percent may happen in favor of BJP. Also it is doubtful whether en-bloc Patidar electorate will be in favor of a virtually non-existent Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) of Keshubhai Patel or Congress, and whether the same will be enough to stop BJP from winning again. The mathematics is not as simple as proclaimed by Hardik Patel!
Narendra Modi
Speaking of the new face of Patidar Community, Hardik Patel – a young 22 year old leader with gusto, a nemesis of Narendra Modi in the language of mainstream media – while he continues the reservation battle of Patidar community, his stakes are already tanking in the state after agitation took a violent turn. Gujarat is far away from the typical Marxist tactics of revolution and unlikely to get support from public, be it Patidar or anyone else. While many I have spoken to supported agitation for the sake of community-unity, many also condemned Hardik Patel for his political immaturity when mobs took over the agitation and the livelihood of common people were disrupted, not to forget the severe damage to public property and the unfortunate loss of lives.
This makes us wonder if there is bigger game of hidden agendas going on behind the curtains, involving people who were made redundant by Narendra Modi. After all this is not the first time that Patidar card has been played. During 2012 election it was rumored that GPP came into being with hidden support of marginalized leaders like Sanjay Joshi, Gordhan Zafadia, Vallabh Kathiriya and the old guard in RSS, with tacit support from the Congress, who thought it can cut into BJP seats.
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The general mood of the public may be in favor of abolishing reservations and to make amendment for economically backward classes but hardly anyone believes that the menace it has created can be wished away so easily and than somehow Narendra Modi is responsible for not doing so. Trying to play mischief in the Prime Minster’s own backyard, may eventually backfire for the agitators.
BJP alienates support base & 10 hindus killed by Police:-
BJP’s initial handling of OROP and reservation-demand is quite poor and arrogant. This allowed AAP’s Major Singh & Hardik Patel to take-over respective movement. Now with AAP in-charge, This problems will be extremely difficult to resolve. Even if resolved the good-will of support base (Soldiers & Patels) is lost. 10 Hindus,& BJP supporters, are killed in police firing but there is Zero outrage. Just imagine 10 Christians,or Muslims, killed by police firing in reservation agitation. There will be global outrage. Gujarat police is dominated by Upper-Caste Darbars(traditionally anti-patel)&OBC, So BJP should have expected police brutality and taken preventive measure.
Caste Background:-
Patidar is a relatively new caste label The actual caste is Kunbi (originally land tilling farmers & majority of them are still engaged in farming). They are closely related to Kunbi/Patils of neighboring Madhya Pradesh & Mahatrashtra and Kurmi’s of Bihar & Northern India. Kunbi/Kurmi is considered a backward caste in most other states of India except gujarat.
Supporter asking more then generic development:-
Traditionally, Nehruvian Socialist,& left, has rolled-out many gravy-trains for it’s support base. In contrast, BJP does not provide any gravy to it’s support base. BJP’s emphasis is road, electricity,water & jobs with
occasional tokens like Yoga Day; More-over, BJP continues with nehruvian gravy-train. Now the support base is saying ‘Either let us in the gravy-train or get rid of it’.The obvious long term solution is Thatcherism, dramatic rollback of government’s footprint (note: small govt means small corruption), & allow private sector to expand. In the short run, Govt. will need to cut caste barrier and provide gravy to economically disadvantaged section of it’s support base.
Political Impact:-
Kunbi’s are just 14% of gujarat population but they are not evenly spread out.In some constituency they are 25% to 35%(BJP wins this seats) and in other they are near 0% to 5%(Congress wins this seats). This makes this votes very hard to replace. Kunbi’s also play significant role in providing campaign finance and campaign volunteers to BJP.
I do not know why Congress is always doing DIVIDE Politics. Linguistic divide, regional divide, religious divide, caste divide…..Still Congress has not learnt. Educated & respected leader like Nitish fell prey to petty politics and exposed themselves to Indians, their true face and second fiddle to Congress Dividing Politics.
What do you expect? Congress has been and always will be an enemy of India and its people. They are doing what enemies do.
Their complete disappearance is necessary for our future.
You are right.
Of more than 40 crores BC/OBC people, only less than one per cent try or even qualify for reservation, the rest are too unqualified to be even considered for reservation, yet this BC/OBC constitutes a major voting block. If the reservation enjoyed by less than one per cent is removed, entire block will vote as one against the party which removed this reservation. That is why no political party has any incentive to do anything about the up-lift-ment of the 99 per cent of this group. Unless this 99 per cent awakens and hold government accountable for their up-lift-ment, no political party is going to do anything about caste based reservation.
Such things will keep on happening. More and more people demanding reserved status and all. Its and endless process. The only solution is to end caste based reservation once and for all. Its not like there isn’t a single poor Brahmin in India. !! The reservations should be based on the financial condition of each person. Only then will it be just !!
Majority Brahmins were poor before the British Colonialism changed them into clerks and more lucrative jobholders in admin because they took Macaulay’s advice literally and became educated loyal slaves. That is what they had done during the Mughal rule. Many converted to get powerful posts. Manu PRESCRIBES aparigrah and poverty to Brahmins.THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO STOCK GRAINS THAT WILL LAST FOR MORE THAN 3 DAYS.
Traditionally brahmin is supposed to live on charity and pray for the common welfare of the society. ‘Sanchayam’ (which literally translates to ‘accumulation’) was forbidden for the brahmin. Sometime, during the medieval age, roughly overlapping the Muslim rule, some brahmins, especially those with court/government patronage started accumulating. Historically, brahmins lived poor. The desperation to join the British was an opportunistic epoch in time – when brahmins felt continually suppressed during 5 centuries of Muslim rule and mostly brahmins had the intellectual, literary and clerical skills needed to serve the British Raj. While the more wealthy and more orthodox brahmins kept themselves at a distance from the new McCaulite cultural stream, the poor and desperate ones embraced it with elation and joined the clerical ranks. Some earliest Christian converts and Bible translators were also brahmins, presumably ones who saw serving the missionaries and colonial masters as way out of poverty.
The modern outrage about brahmins denying education to other castes is a case of history being rewritten to suit modern times and interests. Even as late as early 20th century, brahmins’ penchant for learning, intellect and scholarship was viewed by the laity as a worthless pursuit unfit for any secular employment & hence material gains. Ever since Macaulay started building administrative infrastructure with educated Indians, the fortunes of educated Indians, who happened to be mostly brahmins at the point, changed. This superior access to employment in the corridors of power continued to grow among brahmins up until the time of Indira Gandhi. Other upper castes started valuing education since mid 20th century and progressively added to the employed elite.
I agree with what you have said as I have tried to say the same thing very briefly.It was Phule who was trying to assert the significance of education. And there were early Brahmin leaders who were trying to do the same for everybody. Lokmanya Tilak had earned a reputation of being the leader of Telis(current OBCs and Tambolis.