Gujjars agitating for Tribal status, Rajasthan's 5.5 Million Gujjars want a downgrade Options

[VAMAN]

Indian Shepherds Stoop to Conquer Caste System
By AMELIA GENTLEMAN
Published: June 3, 2007

NEW DELHI, June 2 — A fight for the right to be downwardly mobile exploded this week in north India, as a powerful community of Indian shepherds asserted that the best way to rise up in modern society was to take a step down in the regimented class hierarchy here.

Tension over the still-rigid caste classifications, which underpin the Indian social system, spilled over into riots across Rajasthan State, with at least 23 people killed.

By Friday evening, protests had spread to the outskirts of the capital, New Delhi. On Saturday, amid continuing clashes, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for an end to the violence.This was not the usual show of anger at the ever-prevalent discrimination faced by members of lower-caste groups. Instead, it stemmed from controversy over a demand from the Gujjar community, traditionally farmers and shepherds, to have its caste status officially downgraded, relegating it to the bottom of the caste ladder.

Doing so would allow Gujjars to qualify for greater benefits under India’s affirmative action program, along with Dalits (also known as untouchables) and tribal communities, in what is known as the scheduled caste and tribe category.

Quotas of university places and lucrative government positions are reserved for members of the scheduled castes under the system that was created when India became independent 60 years ago. It was intended to lift those groups that for centuries were viewed as “pollutants,” ostracized by society and prevented from accumulating wealth.

The Gujjar caste is now positioned second from the bottom, a grouping known in the bureaucratic lexicon as “other backward classes.” Gujjars enjoy some preferential treatment, but not as much as they would if demoted to the lowest rung.

Sachin Pilot, the Congress Party member of Parliament for the region where six people were killed Tuesday by police gunfire and a member of the Gujjar caste, said as many as 70,000 protesters were still blocking the road out of Jaipur.

“Most people don’t realize that India’s new economic prosperity is not shared by the vast majority,” he said in a telephone interview. “The Gujjars feel they have been very deprived. Access to quotas would give the community a sense of hope.”

Frustrated at the state government’s refusal to meet their demand, thousands of Gujjars blockaded the national highways around Jaipur, the state capital, on Tuesday. The protests brought Rajasthan State, much loved by tourists, to a virtual standstill all week. Vehicles were prevented from traveling to Agra and the Taj Mahal.

On Friday, government buildings were attacked in one Rajasthan town, prompting the authorities to issue a shoot-on-sight order.

“Let a hundred people die,” Col. Kirori Singh Baisala of the Indian Army and one of the Gujjar leaders, told The Times of India on Thursday. “But we are clear in our objectives. We have suffered enough and would not go back until we get the scheduled caste status.”

Kalu Lal Gurjar, a member of the caste and a minister in the Rajasthan government who is backing the protesters, said the Indian government promised in 1964 to reclassify the group as a scheduled caste.

“At that time, there was opposition from within the Gujjar community itself, because they thought that it would be demeaning to be associated with the scheduled castes,” he said. Later, when the material benefits of being consigned to the bottom of the ladder became more obvious, the mood changed. “The community has been agitating since the 1980s for inclusion,” he said.

The debate over India’s affirmative action policy hovers constantly at the top of the political agenda. The Hindu designation untouchable was abolished in 1950, but the centuries-old caste system and the deep prejudices that go with it remain.

In rural India, Dalits are often prevented from sharing the same water pump as the rest of the village. Even in middle-class urban India, where the divisions are less obvious, people will often inquire indirectly for clues of caste on first meeting, putting together details of surname, origin and father’s profession.

For some, the oppression is so intolerable that they abandon the religion altogether, converting to Buddhism or Christianity.

Mr. Singh recently compared India’s caste system to South Africa under apartheid. “Untouchability is not just social discrimination,” he said. “It is a blot on humanity.” But his government’s programs for eliminating it have proved as controversial and unsuccessful as those of his predecessors.

India has more than 6,000 castes and subcastes, 3,743 of which are designated “backward” on the grounds of social and educational deprivation. Scheduled castes represent around 25 percent of the total population of more than a billion people.

Intended to abolish caste divisions by helping the Dalits and tribal communities escape destitution, the quota system was expanded in the early 1990s to assist the “other backward classes,” or those who were less well placed in the ancient hierarchy.

Opponents of the expanded quota system argue that instead of eliminating caste consciousness, it has further entrenched it, making society more aware of divisions and more resentful of rival castes.

Fierce competition for government quota jobs has fueled the inter-caste tension this week. The Meenas, another Rajasthan community in the scheduled caste bracket, protested the Gujjars’ demands, concerned that their share of the pie would be diminished if the Gujjars were reclassified.

Four people were killed Friday in clashes between them, officials said.

The demands of the Gujjars have been condemned by some as cynical.

“It’s about milking the system,” said Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist and expert on caste, adding that Gujjars had never been “brutalized or pushed down” as Dalits had.

Such a “political maneuver” was an inevitable result of the affirmative action policy, he said. “If you play the caste game, you will end up with caste war. Because of the government intervention, these identities have become heightened.”

SOURCE - http://www.nytimes.com

This post has been edited by VAMAN: Jun 9 2008, 04:35 AM