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End to Tribalism

End to Tribalism

Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 20, 2007

All Gujjars can't get ST status

Despite the rhetorical cries of "betrayal" by the leaders of the Gujjar protesters in Rajasthan, it is difficult to disagree with the logic of the Justice Jasraj Chopra Committee, which has just submitted its report on the community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status. The Chopra panel has contended that, given current socio-economic realities, the very notion of according Gujjars ST status is open to question. Certainly, the "obsolete and outdated" criteria used so far need to be revisited. While tacitly accepting the report and forwarding it to the Centre, the Government of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has acquiesced in to another suggestion by Justice Chopra and his colleagues -- that special, ad hoc measures be taken to help those communities (or sections of communities) living in deprivation, whether in remote areas or forests or the like. Those Gujjars who meet these parameters -- as indeed members of other caste or community groups -- could be beneficiaries. What this amounts to is a fine-tuning of the Mandal-style formula that, using a one-size-fits-all approach, declares whole communities 'backward' across an entire State. In the end this only becomes an incremental advantage for the well-off in the individual community, the creamy layer as it were. This has led to a mania of sorts among communities and groups to gain entry into the quota ambit. Some years ago, the Jats of Rajasthan agitated for OBC status and today somebody like Mr Natwar Singh, a former diplomat and Union Minister, scion of the royal family of Bharatpur and descendant of the redoubtable Raja Surajmal, is officially recognised as "Socially and Economically Backward". This absurdity has been carried forward by the vanguard of the Gujjar agitation. By no stretch of imagination can Gujjars be considered an aboriginal tribe.

A targeted, narrow-focus strategy of socio-economic uplift that does not use caste as a base unit but looks at the disaggregated demography within is not unprecedented. In Karnataka, for instance, various castes/communities are decreed 'backward' and worthy of positive discrimination on a district by district basis. If 'Banias' can be designated as OBC in Bihar but not in Uttar Pradesh, it is possible that Vokkaligas in one corner of Karnataka are in need of Government-backed reservation and those in another corner are not. This could well be the experience of Gujjars in Rajasthan as, in fact, the Justice Chopra report has made out. In bowing to this argument, rather than resorting to panic or populism and contesting it, the Vasundhara Raje Government has acted with maturity. It has potentially set a very important precedent that could arrest the quota craze and the astounding and completely bogus race to the bottom of the caste hierarchy. If Gujjars are tribals, Rajputs can next claim to be OBCs. This is not social justice, it is Mandalisation gone mad. It is hoped that the Centre will respond to the Chopra report with the same sagacity and finesse that the State Government has displayed. Election in Rajasthan is only a year away and it may be tempting for the Congress to play the Gujjar card and embarrass the BJP Government. This would be self-defeating because it would leave any future Government in Jaipur with a combustible political legacy.


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