Politics of opportunism

Political parties in India should lay-off from sectarian promises that they cannot deliver. There are limits to the politics of reservation which has reached a plateau

Ashok K Pankaj  Delhi

The weeklong violent agitation by the Gujjars of Rajasthan, comrades in arms with the Gujjars of UP, Delhi, Haryana, and J&K, ransacked at will the highways, public transport systems including the railways, and recklessly burnt private and government vehicles, mostly in Rajasthan but also in Delhi and UP. The flare-up was finally doused by an assurance from Vashundhara Raje, the chief minister of Rajasthan, after a series of failed attempts at dialogue. The ferocity of the agitation left a number of casualties, mostly civilians and a few police personnel, great disruption to road and rail traffic, hardship faced by passengers and tourists and loss of about Rs 10,000 crore to business, trade and property.

Nevertheless, the agitation is only in suspension, as the three-member commission announced by the government will examine the demands of the Gujjars for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category. The message from the Gujjar leaders is clear: more violence is in store unless their demand for social and economic upliftment, ironically, through a downward movement to the ST category, is met to the satisfaction of the community. The issue became more complex with the counter agitation launched by the Meenas, also listed in the ST category, who resisted broadening of the ST list by the inclusion of Gujjars. This reminded of the Mandal agitation — OBCs asserting for reservation and the upper castes protesting against it, both of them using violent agitations.

There are many questions that have arisen from this agitation. Some of them have been around for sometime. First of all, are political and electoral promises meant to be fulfilled or are they simply to woo the voters? In fact, the ruling parties have been treating electoral and political promises with great disdain, as voters are not wont to assessing the role of the governments on their promises, policies and performance. Caste and community based mobilisation allowed this leverage.

First, with the deepening of democracy and greater realisation about the value of votes by the Indian masses, it would not be easy for the political classes to escape their political and electoral promises. For some time, they would be able to do so, at least with the secular goals promised at the level of individuals. But it would be difficult and with heavy political cost to make big promises to certain castes and communities and forget about it after acquiring power. The mobilisation for secular goals would still be restricted by caste and ethnic cleavages. This is because castes and communities in India can be easily mobilised for sectarian goals, as sectarian consciousness has increased in the post-Mandal phase.

Second, why is it that in most cases governments remain unmoved by the demands of sections of society unless and until it takes turbulent and violent agitational forms? The agitation by the Gujjars is not incidental. Rather, it was in the making for the last six months as leaders of the community were trying to convince the Vasundhara Raje government about the legitimacy of their demands and reminding her about the electoral promise the BJP had made to the Gujjars during the 2003 assembly elections.