Scorched Pasture

n uneasy silence hangs over the stretch of NH-11 that snakes through Dausa district: it is the morning after the Gujjars ended their agitation, following the Rajasthan government's promise to examine their demand for Scheduled Tribe status within three months. At Peepalkheda, Ground Zero of the agitation, sombre villagers have gathered to mourn the death of Ram Niwas, a Gujjar, who was shot dead by the police while making his way to the nearby Hanuman temple.

The Gujjars look beaten: they have little faith in the government, they say theMeenas -- who had not just opposed their demands but had choked off supplies of food and water to Gujjar villages during the agitation (instigated, they allege, by a BJPminister) -- could attack them again. In villages like Bhandarej, Gujjars describe the settlement as a "political stunt", a "sellout". The government, they claim, favours the Meenas who, thanks to their ST status, control itall-- police stations, schools, hospitals, the administration.

Indeed, that very morning, Bharwan Patel and Samay Singh, two old Gujjar men returning to their village from Peepalkheda, were set upon by more than a dozen motorcycle-borne young Meena men with sticks and scythes. They say their last recollection of the traumatic event as they fell unconscious was of triumphant cries of: "Arrakashan le lo, baba!" They lay there till fellow Gujjars from Amarpur found them, organised medical treatment, and then carried them to their village of Bhopargaon.

The agitation, ironically enough, has left the Gujjars, a semi-pastoral community, more vulnerable than before. Most of the dead and injured areGujjars -- victims of police firing and, later, Meena violence. Col Kirori Ram Bhainsla, the Gujjar Sangharsh Samiti chief, has been charged with murder, while several hundred Gujjars have been arrested on charges of arson, destruction of public property and attacking policemen. This follows the Supreme Court terming it a "national shame" and directing Rajasthan, Haryana, UP and Delhi to submit reports within 10 days, listing action taken or planned against those who had damaged public and private property.

It's also clear the Vasundhararaje government is not serious about examining the Gujjar demand for ST status. Food and civil supplies minister Kidodi Lal Meena, who has become something of a hero in his community after he urged them to "break" the Gujjar agitation, tells Outlook, unabashedly, "On October 2, 2006, I assured a tribal rally in Jaipur that under no condition would the Gujjars be given ST status. Gujjar leaders wanted the CM to visit thearea-- she refused. They wanted her to forward their demand to Delhi-- she turned that down."

So why has the government set up the committee? Shrugs Meena: "Maybe just to shut them up." In 1981, he says, a Congress government had turned down a similar demand. And in these three years since the BJP came to power, 23 of the state's 32 district magistrates sent in reports saying Gujjars don't qualify as STs.

In Meena-dominated areastoo -- whether Dhaulakuankhaura, Kidodi Lal's village, or Nagarawas in Lalsot --the mood is one of triumph mixed with contempt for the Gujjars. "Yeh aar paar ki ladai hain. If the government ever sends a letter of recommendation to the Centre, we'll pull out the train tracks all the way from here to Delhi. There will be amahabharat -- there will be no one left even to perform their last rites," says villager Dharam Singh Meena. Adds Kailash Chand, "What do the Gujjars want? ST status? They'll take another 20 years to reach our intellectual level."

All this is very galling for panchayati raj minister Kallu Ram Gurjar. Asked to respond to his fellow minister, he says, "I can't say anything...but why prejudge a commitment made by the government?" But KalluRam-- the Gujjar Mahasabha's acting president-- also distances himself from Col Bhainsla: "He didn't consult me, I have nothing to say about him. The government didn't include me in the talks that led to the settlement." For the present, Kallu Ram, reduced to the margins, is visiting Gujjar victims in Dausa, Bundi and Karauli, in solidarity.

But what is this battle for STstatus-- and the resistance to it -- really about? Is it only about access to education and jobs? Or is it about political power? Indeed, it all began whenJats -- politically Rajasthan's most powerful community-- asked to be categorised as OBCs in the 1990s after OBC quotas were introduced in the panchayats. TheJats-- a little over 10 per cent of the population-- suddenly found they were losing control of the panchayats to OBCs such as the Gujjars. But their campaign was a success; they regained control of the panchayats.

For the Gujjars, this was a blow. They had not just lost their political edge but, they had to confront the fact that the Meenas, with whom they live in close proximity in eastern Rajasthan, had forged ahead of them, thanks to the ST status they'd had since 1954. Till then, the social and economic status of the two communities had been roughly similar. But today, the Meenas are not just well-represented in the civil services but reserved seats have helped them in politics too. The current assembly has eight Gujjar MLAs (six BJP) and 31 Meena MLAs (22 BJP). Meenas, interestingly, win from both reserved and general seats.

Local police sources provided another insight into the agitation, deriving from the number of Gujjars in the army: the fact that the Mahuwa MLA (in Dausa district) is a retired subedar had awakened the ambitions of Col Bhainsla and other retired Gujjar officers and jawans, and it is they who helmed this agitation. The motive: as things stand now, many seats in this Gujjar-dominated area are reserved, which puts them right out of the contest.

IfGujjars -- just 4.5 per cent of Rajasthan's population -- see ST status as the ticket to political empowerment, Meena ambition too has grown. For years, they have seen the Jats dominate state politics: now Meena sources say that, since they outnumber the Jats, theycould -- in conjunction with the SCs, the largest bloc -- call the shots. The Meenas claim they are 12.6 per cent of the population: that isn't entirely true, the 2001 census figures show this is the entire ST population. The Meenas are 53.5 per cent of that, in eastern Rajasthan, the Bhils another 39.5 per cent, in the south. The Meenas say this is an artificial division: if 'tribals' unite behind any party, they could influence at least 59 assemblyseats -- count the SCs in, and they would be unbeatable. They add that the STs and SCs could look to theBSP, for instance.

The biggest worry for now is the deep hostilities that scar this landscape. Even before Dausa exploded, say Gujjars, the Meenas would often file cases against them under theSC/ST Atrocities Act. A non-Rajasthani IPS officer confirmed this: "We have to register all cases, but 70 per cent are false." Says a Gujjar farmer from Bhilwara, "In terms of land, the Meenas may not be much better off but in terms of resources, they have it all. Hamare pass to sirf lath hain."