Caste based reservations at independence were an attempt to address and eliminate horrific discrimination suffered by dalits. But what was expected to be an exceptional and interim measure for social justice has since muted into a strategy for capturing political power among other community. V P Singh unwisely extended reservations to OBCs followed by Arjun Singh’s opportunistic extension of the OBC quote to IITs, IIMs and central universities. The situation has been declining since then and the reservation has become a tool in the hands of politicians to garner votes.

When the idea of reservation was mooted its aim was to put backward castes, step by step, on par with developed community and then gradually peter out. But the vote bank politics and attempt of political parties to win over backward class votes has brought the country to this pass; Gujarat is the latest example. Every political party fears that opposing reservation will be a disaster for it, even though the demand for reservation may be patently ridiculous as in case of Gujarat.

True, Patels are domineering force in Gujarat. One-third of the BJP’s 121 MLAs in Gujarat are Patels and there are many Patels also in the opposition. The Majority of ministers in the Gujarat cabinet, the head of the BJP unit in the state and the chief minister herself are Patels. To complicate matters, Patels seem to have split down the middle so that the government will find itself having to deal with two factions eventually. The BJP has always considered that it has a solid grip on the community but that is being put to test now. However, it is difficult to justify reservations for Patels. The Patidar or Patel does not have the disempowered status of the communities in the Mandal Commission list.

It has to be kept in mind that any decision to extend reservation benefit to new claimants might not pass judicial scrutiny. Recently, the decision to include Jats in the OBC list was overturned by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the perception of a self-proclaimed socially backward class of citizens cannot be constitutionally permissible yardstick for determination of backwardness. Indeed, the court specifically warned against a caste-centric definition of backwardness, and called for new practices, methods and yardsticks to be evolved to identify disadvantaged groups for extending benefit of reservation. Like Jats, the Patels will not find easy to meet the specified criteria for social and educational backwardness.

Look how lead players have switched sides; if in the early ‘80s and then again in the middle of that decade, it was the Patels who led fierce uprising against reservations for Dalits and OBCs, now Patels are leading a campaign whose demand is reservation for themselves in government jobs and colleges. The seeming incongruity of one of Gujarat’s most affluent and politically influential communities insisting that it be treated as a backward group, is indeed arresting, but the government has no time to waste.

The fact that Patels had earlier opposed reservations as aggressively as they are now demanding them, and that they are far from a dis -privileged as a community, are not the only paradoxes in the unfolding situation in Gujarat. It is also that this case group has been regarded as a fixed BJP vote bank, constituting major chunk of its majority support in the state since the 1990s.

In 1981, it was the Patels of Khadia in downtown Ahmedabad who raised a violent voice against new reservation regime. The agitation was directed at the newly elected congress government headed by Madhavsinh Solanki. The Congress had stormed back to power riding on the KHAM strategy. The KHAM (Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims) inclusive promise had yielded electoral dividends; and, Gujarat’s political landscape was drastically re-arranged. The Patels were ejected from the commanding heights of Gujarat politics which they had occupied for many decades.

In 1985 Assembly elections, the Congress repeated its performance, consolidating its political dominance. The Patels again soon found an excuse to their voice against reservation. This resentment among the upper castes, especially the Patidars, was easily shoehorned into a new Hindutva project. Over the years, the Hindutva forces patted themselves on the back as to know they were able to invoke the religious idiom to get the better of the caste-centric KHAM and its inclusive politics of social aggregation of the disadvantaged. Now, the same Patels are demanding reservation. Gujarat is back to 1981 days. (IPA Service)