Dear Reader
I re-emphasize what I stated in one of my earlier editorials, that in September 2014, it took the Supreme Court of India to get the government to provide a 3% reserved quota in state and central government jobs for the 40 million strong differently abled community of Indian citizens. But, this did not happen on its own, as it should have. The government resisted this and the judge had to actually tell the Additional Solicitor General that these people were more deserving for government jobs than any others!
This kind of reservation I understand, but what I don’t comprehend is the recent protests by the reasonably well-off community of the Jats in Haryana and before that, by the Patidar Patels in Gujarat last year.
What’s going on? Why are some communities trying to muscle their way in and at the same time testing the tolerance of other communities! It seems that quotas have become an end in themselves. The effects of earlier reservations have not been studied in any great detail. To me, it appears that the lives of the downtrodden backward classes have not improved in any significant way, if we were to measure the accrued benefits against the associated costs. We also need to examine if reservations created a new segment of upper class SC/ST and OBC groups who are now insensible to the interests of their less fortunate caste members.
Even in the present case, Mr. Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the former Chief Minister of Haryana, who himself is a Jat, rode to power in 2004 on the poll promise of ‘Reservation to Jats’. But, in spite of his attempts to fulfil this promise, it didn’t happen during his tenure as CM. After an agitation in April 2011, the government set up the KC Gupta Commission to re-examine this matter. In 2012, the Commission recommended the inclusion of Jats and four other castes, viz: Jat Sikhs, Ror, Tyagi and Bhishnoi, in the category of Special Backward Classes (SBC). The Hooda government accepted the report and 10% quota was granted, but this was later set aside by the Supreme Court.
On 17 March 2015, the Supreme Court quashed the UPA Government’s decision to include Jats in the OBC category, and said caste can’t be the sole ground for reservation, and that the Centre had given a go by to the statutory scheme in according reservation benefits to a “politically organised” community!
As a fall out of this judgment, the Haryana and 8 other states’ proclamations of reservation for Jats were annulled by the Supreme Court. In April 2015, the NDA government filed a review petition in the Supreme Court, but a verdict on this complicated case is still pending.
However, what impacted the common man was the criminal outcome of the recent protest that was seen in the form of violence, burning of vehicles, looting of shops, damaging property and transportation systems and the alleged rape of women. The result was that almost the entire North India was crippled. Delhi and Gurgaon had no water for a few days, when agitators damaged the water canals!
Many believe that the Government should have dealt with the issue with an iron hand and not allowed things to get out of control. The fact, that the Army was called out but not allowed a free hand to bring things under control, sent out a very frightening message to the masses who till now believed that during riots and other large scale criminal public disorder, whenever the Army has been called in, violence has been curbed and order restored. But this did not happen in Haryana, where the Army was made to stand by and watch! This dangerously eroded the confidence of the public in our armed forces and also demoralised the troops as they were made to stand by and watch innocents being killed and looted!
These ‘Goonda’ type arm twisting tactics of the Jats have boomeranged on the honour of the community which is known for its contribution in farming and fighting for the country. Other communities too will be tempted to toe this line of action if the Government now gives in to the demands of the Jats! It is indeed a very dangerous situation and can have a wide ranging impact on the unity and integrity of India!
Till we meet next month, cheers and happy reading.
G B Singh
Email: editor@securitytoday.in
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