by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Haryana
is unique in many ways. Its newness, being carved out of East Punjab
as late as 1966, is set off by its rapid rise to the frontline of a
bouquet of accomplishments. It is the second wealthy state of India,
after Goa. It is most advanced agriculturally, with the largest
number of rural crorepati.Haryana’s mix of high-end
industry, like automobile and ancillaries, with the post-industrial
chrome-and-glass modernity of Gurgaon, and its IT empires, is
unparalleled by Indian standards.
Unfortunately,
since the rise of BJP to power in Haryana, the state is being pushed
back into a time warp. In the span of just a few months, divisive
politics is dealing a body blow to the state’s much-admired
multicultural identity that had made it so unique in the country, if
not in South Asia. What is even more worrisome is that the global
reputation of India as a rising power—which Prime Minister Narendra
Modi values most—depends greatly on the experience of visiting
foreign experts. A good share of them frequently visit Haryana,
especially Gurgaon. It is obvious that the tales they are carrying
home are dispiriting, to say the least.
State
chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, an RSS insider, set the tone of
his rule by following in the footsteps of Maharashtra by
criminalising consumption of beef, regardless of the cosmopolitan
nature of the state and its IT showpieces. Though it had no
significant backlash, it underlined the apathy of the state
government to grasp the changing attitudes of its citizens. But what
really brought in backlash was BJP’s pre-poll promise that it would
give OBC status (and reservation) to the state’s Jats. The Jat
community comprises 25 per cent of the state’s population, making
it just too large to be accommodated in the reservation basket
without dislodging many other groups. Besides, whatever be the
community’s grouse (like agriculture taking a backseat in the
economy), it is certainly not a smart idea to earmark a state’s
largest population group as “backward”.
Before
election, Jat support shifted from Congress to BJP as the former had
failed to give them reservation in jobs. But BJP too had to back out
of its promise till Jats recoiled with an unprecedented severity. In
February, they took to the streets along the stretch of GT Road from
Gurgaon to Panipat and Sonepat. Vehicles were torched, roads closed,
police stations attacked and dozens of protesters killed in
police firings. But what is more upsetting is the reported gang-rape
of many women at Murthal. The molested women included an NRI from
Australia who was captured by the protesters on her way to IGI
airport. It was days after her ordeal in the dark that she posted her
experience. The gang rape shocked the nation as such a thing was
never heard of even during earlier riots in Delhi, Haryana and
elsewhere.
Throughout
the pandemonium, the Khattar administration did little to control the
situation. It tried to brush aside the gang-rape report but, as
evidence began raining, added it to the original FIR. However, the
government’s worse goof-up was the bill it introduced in the
assembly to placate the Jats. The community being divided among three
religions—Hindu, Muslim and Sikh—the bill assigned reservation
quota to the community by religion. That gives every reason for the
apex court to throw it out of the window, since religion-based
reservation is unconstitutional. The apex court had rejected
reservation of Jats during the UPA regime too.
BJP
is perhaps fully aware of the possibility and is gambling on an
opportunity to pass the buck. But its strategy of winning communities
by promising reservation is a poor imitation of the ‘Mandal-kamandal’
politics of the 1990’s. The only exception being that, unlike in
the past when such movements brought anarchy mainly to northern
India, now it is rocking some of the most successful states, notably
Gujarat. The ‘patidar’ movement in Gujarat, begun last year, has
close similarity to the Jat agitation in the Delhi-Haryana belt. Both
involve invented identities. Patidars (Patel) comprise 15 per cent of
Gujarat’s population. While they have been the backbone of BJP’s
strength, it was inevitable that they’d ask for its price one day.
As with Jats, patidars have demanded reservation in everything,
particularly for admission to medical and engineering colleges. In
Gujarat, a technical degree is seen as a passport to America, where
‘Patels’ are no more associated with ‘motels’ and
professional training is a must for a US visa.
The
BJP government in Gandhinagar dealt with the Patel agitation in a
manner as ham-handed as in Haryana, detaining many agitation leaders,
including Hardik Patel, the chief organiser, on an irrationally
imposed sedition charge. But, far from being scotched, the agitation
is about to re-erupt.
In
2014, Modi rode the crest of a popular expectation of change, but
global economy had long since become sluggish, India being no
exception. The vast multitudes of ordinary people, including Jats and
Patels, who were swept away by the ‘Modi wave’ two years ago, are
now feeling ripped off and seeking refuge in an over-stretched
reservation system. In desperation, the party is latching on to
utterly senseless voyages to mythology, which it loves to project as
history. Gurgaon, despite its ‘Millennium city’ nick-name, has
pathetic infrastructure and poor public health or education system.
The government’s answer to it is comic. It has renamed Gurgaon as
‘Gurugram’ on the belief that it was the home of Dronacharya, the
archery teacher of the Kuru princes in the Mahabharata. The ancient
sage hardly matches up to the taste of a generation of techies
familiar with a more contemporary drone.
