Mere pass gaadi hai, bangla hai... Tumhare paas kya hai?.. mere paas "reservation" hai
That's the fighting most Indians from various communities are engaged with the system. The memories of Hardik Patel’s Patidar agitation in August 2015 are still fresh in our minds. He had held the state government to ransom by demanding that Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel personally come to the stage at GMDC ground in Ahmedabad to receive the memorandum of Patel reservation.
Now the same story is being repeated in Haryana and the whole life had come to standstill. The Jat stir has shaken up India Inc with the Maruti having to stop production and Delhi's water supply being hit.
Most parts of Delhi is still reeling under severe water crisis which is expected to be resolved in another two weeks. The agitation in Haryana has already cost Rs 18,000-Rs 20,000 crore to public and private property by halting trade, industry, small business and transport, says an ASSOCHAM report and more than 16 people have lost their life.
Haryana's non-Jat Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was heckled in Rohtak. As Haryana shares its borders with Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and a number of national highways and trunk railway lines pass through it, the real loss could be much more.
There are a few who say demand for quota by the Jats is fine, but violent protest by them is wrong. Others claim that violence is the only way to get your voice heard. Otherwise nobody hears you out.
The Jats in Haryana comprise of 25% of the state's population and dominate one-third of the state's 90 assembly constituencies. Jats were not included in the OBC lists (both in states and Centre) when reservations were given to socially and educationally backward communities after the 1993 Indira Sahwney case.
During the NDA-1 rule Rajasthan was the first state to give reservations to Jats in state services (Jats of all districts except Dhaulpur and Bharatpur). Over the years quota demand amongst Jats in other states gained momentum.
The Jats of other states including UP, Haryana and Delhi were also granted quota by the state governments of the respective states. The Haryana quota was challenged in the High Court where it remains pending.
In the meantime the UPA-2 towards the fag end of its tenure approved reservations to Jats in central services. The order of the central government was struck down by the Supreme Court.
Thus Jats in Haryana have not benefitted from reservations in both state and central government jobs. This explains the tension which has been festering for a while now. The Jat agitation is a part of nationwide pattern, where dominant upper castes are increasingly demanding lower caste status and reservation benefits.
Patels in Gujarat, Kapus in Andhra Pradesh and Marathas in Maharashtra, all have similar demands. Even Ahoms in Assam want ST status. These movements reflect two underlying trends.
The first reservation to go was the central one, when the SC struck it down in March 2015 saying Jats did not appear to be in need of the benefits. It also referred to the advice of the National Commission for Backward Classes that recommended the demand for quotas be rejected.
Later in July 2015, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the state quota as well. Haryana’s 2013 decision to give benefits to Jats took the total percentage of reservation to 57% -- flouting a 1992 SC order that said that the quota benefits should not be more than 50% of available jobs and college seats.
The big question is how a caste which was not considered backward in 1992 by the Mandal commission can now be considered backward. The time has come to review, modify, lift or implement reservation in a way where the most needed will get the benefit of it and no one should be at the receiving end due to wrong implementation of it.
At a time when rating agencies like Moody giving thumps up to Inida its time to go forward, but it’s really unfortunate that in s instead of going forward, we want to go backward and the political parties lust for power is responsible for this.
Let the reservation be a necessity, not a luxury. One should go ahead in the life and achieve on the basis of his or her talent and ability, not using the reservation.
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