Ominous Signs

A community up in protest against another, trains and vehicles burnt, a city cutoff from the rest of the nation, a village under siege by armed men in a backlash from the rival community. Does this sound like a conflict in far away Iraq? Unfortunately, Rajasthan witnessed such events in a near caste-war between the Gujjar and Meena communities. And the reason - the Gujjars want a pie of the ST quota which has so far been the preserve of the numerically larger Meena community, who are not wiling to oblige. So, while in the ages gone by people fought to move into the upper echelons of society, today they compete to go the other way down. The reservation system, instead of creating an egalitarian society, is now seeking to invert the social pyramid and repurcussions like these are bound to follow. The system has been subverted so that there is no objective criteria to classify communities into the reservations. Gujjars, Meenas are Kshatriyas and still Gujjars are OBCs while Meenas are STs. Surely, these communities are a lot better off than the Dalits, yet they find a place in the reserved categories. And how the powerrful Jats being OBCs? Sandwiched between the Jats and the Meenas , the Gujjars are losing out in the race for jobs, education and that desperation was in view, though it cannot justify any of the violence. If such divisive policies continue, more sections will be disgruntled. And we don't want to see more of these flare-ups or even larger conflicts.