Maharani on the edge

Despite an action-replay of promises, Vasundhara Raje betrayed them repeatedly. The Gujjar agitation turned violent for many reasons, not least of which is the pent-up rage of a community that has been wronged against for the last half century

Kavita Srivastava Jaipur

The week-long eruption of public anger by the Gujjar community on the streets of Rajasthan between May 29 and June 4, 2007 has to be seen in terms of a government that uses brute power to silence public protest and uses divisive politics — pitting one community against the other instead of politically dealing with problems of the people. This is not the first time that these methods have been used; in the past most people's movements in the state have faced bullets and aggressive counter protests from another community.

More than 12 police firings since 2004 preceded these killings. They have left more than 27 protesting civilians dead and hundreds injured. Even children protesting against the transfer of their school principal were not spared bullets in October 2004. The farmers of Gharsana of Sri Ganganagar district bore the worst brunt of police firing while demanding sufficient water from the Indira Gandhi Canal to save their crops; they, instead, got bullets, which killed six people between October 27, 2004 to December 2006.

Similarly, five people were killed on June 13, 2005. This was when farmers of Jhirana, Tonk district were sitting on a day-long road-block at Sohela demanding water for their farms from the neighbouring Bisalpur Dam as promised by Vasundhara Raje while campaigning in the 2003 assembly elections. The two firing incidents did result in setting up of judicial commissions to examine the use of police firing on the protestors. But nothing much has moved, as in the case of the brazen killings of the Gujjars during the current agitation.

In the final round of negotiations with Col Kirori Singh Bainsala, leader of the Gujjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, on August 4, 2007, Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria reportedly told the delegation leading the Gujjars that the government would agree for the setting up of a judicial committee to examine whether they deserved ST status, only if they withdrew their demand of a judicial enquiry into the killings. He also added that setting up a commission would go against them as they had video footage of the Gujjar community destroying public property and becoming violent.

The fact-finding report of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Rajasthan, the People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), Delhi, Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR), Punjab, (PUCL-PUDR-AFDR) which investigated each police firing has shown that firing was unwarranted and it was only after the killings that the Gujjars retaliated, attacking the police or destroying public property. The government needs to explain how the police firing on May 29 took place at 7.30 am at Patoli-Peepal Khera on National Highway-11 (NH-11), even though the announced time for the protest was 11am; also, why four of the six bodies of civilians who were fired at were at a distance of 200 to 300 metres from the highway. Out of the six who died, five post mortem reports show the bullet entry wound from the back.

Similarly, in Bundi, the government needs to explain why, on the morning of May 29, more than 150 rounds were used when people were closeted in the Dev Narayan  Temple — they were not outside on NH-12. How were bullets fired at people on the fourth floor of the temple or why people fleeing from the temple towards the hillock have got bullets on their backs.