Revision as of 17:11, 22 February 2016

The Jat vote

MUCH ADO ABOUT JAT VOTE?

Community Must Prove It Is Critical To Parties Who Invested In Them

Subodh Ghildiyal | TNN

The Times of India

2008: Mahendra Singh Tikait vs. Mayawati

New Delhi: Date: April 1-2. Year 2008: That was when a battle of wits that pitted Jat stalwart Mahendra Singh Tikait against dalit icon Mayawati broke out.

Tikait had hurled a caste slur against the then CM and found policemen snapping at his heels. He smirked and dug himself in at Muzaffarnagar’s Sisauli village with clansmen and loyalists, brazenly challenging the state. An unrelenting Mayawati dispatched a 6,000-strong force to lay siege to the village. For two days UP worried bullets would rain and blood would flow.

The confrontation ended in a whimper. A chastened Tikait apologized and made up with Mayawati calling her his daughter, “beti”. That surrender shrank the Tikait’s stature. In social discourse, a dalit – weakest placed in feudal West UP – had called the bluff of the dominant Jats. This was a watershed moment. Observers called it “righting of the demographics” – 3.6% of UP’s population that had appeared so disproportionately large because of its social clout, had been found out.

2009: vs. Ashok Gehlot’s Cogress government in Rajasthan

Not that the community was any less helpless in Rajasthan and Haryana where it has more impressive numbers. In 2009, Jats declared war on Ashok Gehlot’s Cogress government in Rajasthan. Yet Cogress won the state and parliamentary polls without much sweat. So did Cogress in successive Haryana polls against Jat leader of standing OP Chautala heading INLD.

For a good decade, Jats raised the pitch to regain relevance in their strongholds but were shown up, their political chip in a tailspin.

2013 and after

Come 2014 and the wheels seem to be turning again. Once again, there’s a Jat buzz – they’re dominating headlines, political parties are lining up to placate them like UPA granting them national OBC status. They’re being talked about as a swing bloc that can shape fortunes in Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana and West UP.

Between their marginalization and return to centre stage lies, as ironic as it is tragic, the Muzaffarnagar riots [of 2013]. “The riots caught the imagination of the political class (BJP, RLD and Cogress),” Jawaharlal Nehru University sociologist Vivek Kumar explains. He seems to be alluding to the reason that made Jats enjoy outsized importance postindependence – the ability to “influence” voting of communities lower in the social or economic order.

The riots showed Jats turning against the historical religious mix of west UP villages. If Jats and Muslims are antagonistic, the “secular” RLD that polls both blocs together crumbles. It provides an opening to BJP that thrives on religious consolidation.

No wonder, BJP toasted its leaders accused of engineering the clashes. The “secular” RLD sought an antidote in “job quotas” to quell Jat anger. The rush for Jat attention brought the community back from oblivion and the community is relishing this newfound salience. It cleverly coupled its grievances against the Centre to the riot debate and RLD chief Ajit Singh pushed “quota” as the corrective. “It’s the ‘riots cause’ and the ‘reservation effect’,” a leader explained.

Even as the community savours the importance, one cannot help the doubts about their “swing” factor. Experts argue BSP has reworked West UP caste equations irreversibly. Marrying of dalit votes with Muslims, backward groups like Gujjars and the ‘most backwards’ weaning them away from the traditional Jat grouping has dented the latter’s clout.

Social engineering and the Jats’ ability to win elections

Sample this: In 2007, 16 Jats were elected to UP assembly. Five years later, after Mayawati worked on social engineering minus Jats, community MLAs were down to 4.

With the Muzaffarnagar riots increasingly seen as limited to Jats, many feel they may not bring the wider Hindu consolidation BJP is banking on. Just as few think the OBC status would soften the community’s anti-Cogress mood in Delhi and Rajasthan or stop Haryana Jats from rooting for Chautala or BJP.

Therein is the test of Jats this election – of proving their criticality to each group that has invested in them. They know another failure to prove political heft at the hustings may push them down the slope of irrelevance.

2016

The Times of India, Feb 21 2016

Subodh Ghildiyal

Waning political clout driving affluent Jats' quota stir

The incendiary Jat protest in Haryana for OBC quota has put into sharp relief what a perception of loss of political power coupled with perceived or legitimate grievances can spark off in contemporary identity politics. The push from the powerful and resourceful community has brought BJP's Khattar government to its knees. It is significant that the epicentre of protests is Rohtak, not just because it is the hub of Jat power but also home to former CM Bhupinder Hooda, Congress' Jat hegemon who was replaced by a Punjabi Khattar.

Hooda's decision, after appealing for peace, to go on fast also indicates that Congress might see an opening to regain relevance with the Jat agitation severely disrupting normal life in Haryana.

The demand for OBC quotas is old hat, given willingly in the state by an obliging Ho oda regime before being stalled by the high court. The judicial veto exacerbated the sense of hurt because by then the Supreme Court had also nixed the inclusion of the community in the central list of OBCs. It all seems to have made for a deadly mix when coupled with the feeling that they have lost political power in the state after 2014.

Jats are the landed ruling class of Haryana, with an enormous hold over finances and resources, and are advanced educationally and professionally . They also ha ve a high share of the state population, thereby ensuring their stamp is unmissable. They are well represented in government jobs.

But by the community's logic, they are an agrarian group on a par with Yadavs and Gujjars and cannot be treated differently. Also, they are classified as OBCs in neighbouring Delhi, Rajasthan as well as UP. This argument, however, ignores the lesser sta tus enjoyed by Jats in UP and Rajasthan as compared to their dominance in Haryana.

It is a measure of the community's coercive power that the Khattar government has announced it would call a special assembly session to legislate in favour of their demand.The method of dispensing quota could be creation of a new group of “special OBCs“ or including them in the OBC list.

But both the quota routes are loaded with uncertainty , since adding a new group may exceed the 50% reservation ceiling and invite judicial injunction, while putting Jats in the OBC list would anger existing backwards who would view it as an encroachment.

To observers, the upping of the ante by Jats is not an isolated case but part of a nationwide pattern whereby do minant upper castes are demanding classification as OBCs. If it is the Patidars, byname for business and enterprise, in Gujarat, it is the resourceful Kapus in Andhra Pradesh, the royal Marathas in Maharashtra; even Ahoms in Assam are seeking ST status.

Sociologists say job quota apart, the larger gameplan of these castes is to capture political power which they have lost over the years as forward castes.

For some time now, the panchayats and local bodies in states have had OBC quotas. Also, while the assembly and Parliament don't have OBC quotas, these communities as part of the Mandal bloc and with established financial and social clout, would be stronger claimants for tickets than other OBCs.

Prominent Jat politicians

THE TOP GUNS

Charan Singh

A towering leader who rose to become PM, credited with forging backward class unity that found an echo across states

Mahendra Singh Tikait

Powerful farmer leader of west UP. Massive Delhi Boat Club stir in Oct 1988 took him to national stage

Devi Lal

Tau to masses, he held Janata Dal together while making VP Singh PM in 1989. Known for his earthiness, he became Dy PM

Kumbha Ram

Went on to become a top Cogress leader from Rajasthan

Nathu Ram Mirdha

Influential among his people, he went on to become a top Rajasthan Cogress leader