R.K.MISRA - Painful Patel Punch: A National Social Re-engineering Experiment!
Society is like a
stew. If you don’t stir it scum floats to the top. But those who do so must
bear the burden of the stink.
Both stirred and
shaken, Gujarat is going through turmoil-filled days as it’s affluent and numerically strong patidar (patel) community mounts a fierce assault for
OBC reservation that is straining the fabric of inter-community harmony to it’s
tensile limits.
Fearful of a Patidar led-Anandiben Patel- government caving
in to their demands, a counter-movement against it is building up as well.Two
days ahead of the Patel’s biggest ever show of community strength on
August 25, the Other Backward Classes(OBC) mobilized members from the 146
communities in it’s fold for a dharna near the Sabarmati ashram in Ahmedabad on August 23.The SCs and STs symbolically joined it
and the tone and tenor were distinctly repudiatory of the
Patels.”Any move by the government or any community to snatch our rights
will first ensure this government’s pack up and thereafter force
us, the laboring class to take to a naxalism style stir". warned their
leaders. Within hours the first indicators of the caste tensions building
up came to the fore when Patels and Thakores(an OBC caste) clashed
with lethal weapons in Ranosan village of Mehsana district in North Gujarat
leaving 12 of them injured. This is the very village from where the Patidar
agitation started over 45 days ago.
As Patel leaders demonstrating superb managerial prowess
and financial resource management are making known their resolve to
carry the agitation beyond the boundaries of the state, the
contours of a larger design are slowly beginning to emerge. With the state
government now veeering round to state that it is neither feasible
nor possible to accede to their demand, the new slogan emerging is
‘either us reservation or no reservation’. This in effect means that
either the Patels should be given reservation in the OBC category or there
should be no reservation for anybody.
As a further indication of their resolve to escalate the
stir the patidar leadership has also reached out to retired Col. Kirori Singh
Baisla who successfully led the Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan even blockading
traffic passing through their state to the country’s capital for a
day.
Gujarat has been the crucible for important political
experiments since long. It was the Dandi march initiated from Sabarmati ashram
in Ahmedabad on March 12,1930 by Mahatma Gandhi leading to the salt
satyagraha, and civil disobedience movement which triggered off massive
public indignation taking India to freedom 17 years later. Again it was the
student led Navnirman agitation from Ahmedabad in 1975 which led to the
fall of the first Chimanbhai Patel headed Congress government. This purely
student led stir triggered a chain of events that ultimately led to
the rise of Jayprakash Narayan, followed by clamping of Emergency and
ultimately the installation of the Morarji Desai headed, first non-Congress
government at the centre in 1977.
Ironically it was Chimanbhai Patel who had subsequently quit
the Congress and lent covert support to a Patidar led anti-reservation
stir that ensured the fall of yet another Congress government in Gujarat
,this time headed by Madhavsinh Solanki. The government fell within four
months of being elected in 1985 with a majority of 149 seats in a House of 182
seats , a record that remains unbeaten to this day, not even by Narendra
Modi.
Another major political experiment was the one
spearheaded by the Hindu Dharma Jagran Manch (HJM) an affiliate of the VHP and
the Bajrang Dal carried out in December 1998 in the solely tribal Dangs
district in South Gujarat bordering Maharashtra.This was after Swami
Aseemanand- who subsequently figured in cases of hindu terror and spent
extended time behind bars-was posted in Dangs in 1995 by the RSS to set
up an ashram and undertake ‘tribal welfare’activities. It was thereafter that a
‘shabari mahakumbh’was held here in 2006.
Raising the bogey of threats to the
‘hindu tribal majority’ a string of Christian places of worship were
attacked beginning Christmas in 1998. The violence targeting
Christian tribals and missionaries spread to other areas of South
Gujarat. Such was the national and international outcry over the incidents that
took place during BJP chief minister Keshubhai Patel’s rule that Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi had to visit Dangs. The
violence against the minority Christian community had a twofold objective.
Firstly to prevent tribal conversions to Christianity through
creation of a fear psychosis and secondly to divide the tribals
who formed the core of the Congress vote-bank.
There are reasons to believe that Gujarat is once again the
subject of a pilot project on social engineering. There is not an iota of doubt
that a spirited and energetic youth leadership is spear heading the
agitation with dedication and drive. But it is also clear
from the speed and skill, finesse and financial acumen with which
it is spreading like wildfire that there are sharper watchful
eyes, who, while allowing it to progress are monitoring it all the way.
Political analysts see in it a larger game-plan.
Both the RSS and the present Prime Minister are known to be
votaries of a single point reservation-only for the economically backward
class. Thus, if Modi and the RSS could have their way they would want to do
away with caste-based reservation. Not even easier said, much less easier
done.
As has been the case on numerous other occasions, no better
place to carry out an experiment under controlled conditions than
Gujarat. For one, the Sangh Parivar and the various RSS organs have been
able to strike deep roots over the almost 20 year old BJP rule post-1995. A
case in point is the spread of the innocuous ‘pag pada sangh’, which is
VHP shaded, and has struck deep roots right into homes. It is now almost a
ritual that on sacred occasions people-men, women even children-walk to key
places of worship, some as distant as 350 kms away with public spirited people
and organizations making arrangements for their rest, recuperation and
food enroute. Many such organizations exist in a variety of spheres
ensuring penetration and pursuance powers for the Parivar organs in the
social fabric of the state.
In the case of the Patidar stir, intelligence agencies have
already supplied to authorities the names of BJP and other sister set up
leaders involved in behind-the scene-organisational affairs. The chief
minister, Anandiben Patel and other senior leaders also had a closed door
meeting with RSS leaders at Modi’s old ‘Sanskardham’ office on the
outskirts of Ahmedabad on August 23. At the end of it a statement for public
consumption said that social harmony in the state should not be disturbed and
we are discussing what role we can play in easing tensions.
It is common knowledge that Patels constitute one of the
largest block of BJP supporters. They moved away from the Congress in the
aftermath of 1985. This tilt followed the attempt to marginalize
them through the KHAM (Kshatriya, harijan, adivasi, muslim) configuration, successfully implemented by former chief minister
Madhavsinh Solanki. Modi also tightened his grip over Gujarat in the almost 13
years that he held sway in the state.
Thus Gujarat is the ideal place for a
controlled experiment of this nature which involves building public opinion for
such a major but extremely sensitive political experiment. Why
otherwise would the BJP Patel MLA whose office was vandalized by the
agitators refuse to file a police complaint? Why have 37 Patel legislators and
seven ministers been virtually silent spectators? Why has the government been
taking a soft as satin approach to the agitation? It is only now when voices
are being raised by the OBCs and the SCs and STs that it has begun to make some
bold paper announcements.The instructions to the cops, however is to exercise
great caution.
If the RSS has an
agenda, Narendra Modi has an unorthodox delivery mechanism stretching beyond
the strangulating confines of the government .This enables forward
movement as well as withdrawal without being seen to be doing either. Have we
not noticed it in the sudden rash of high profile ‘ghar wapasi’ events
that started hogging media space after a series of rash public utterances
by BJP-Sangh constituent leaders? It was deliberate and planned, mainly to
bring the issue into sharp focus for purposes of a national debate on an
anti-conversion law, variants of which have already been implemented in
Gujarat. The purpose served, a quiet withdrawal and it died down soon
after.
For those who know the inner mechanics,’ ghar wapasi’ is a year round
continuing programme of the parivar being pursued quietly. As is said,
the greatest and most powerful revolutions often start very quietly hidden in
the shadows. So do disasters.
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