 "Seven things to know about Gujarat's Patidar community")
Since July, youths from Gujarat’s economically and politically influential Patidar (Patel) community have been agitating for other-backward-castes (OBC) status, which will give them reservation in college admissions and government jobs.
After covering a dozen major centres, the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) on August 3 brought out a huge rally in Gandhinagar. Their leader, a 22-year-old Mehsana businessman, Hardik Patel, threatened to escalate the agitation to the levels of the Gujjar protests in Rajasthan. The government sat up after a rally in Mehsana’s Visnagar turned violent and journalists were attacked.
1. Reason for the protest
Why do the Patels of Gujarat want to be called OBCs? In an article for NDTV, Ahmedabad-based social scientist Achyut Yagnik says the reason is that they want to get their children into medical and engineering colleges or institutions providing technical education; that will make it easier for them to migrate abroad, and also find jobs locally. The fact that they are poorly represented in these sectors is because the Patels have traditionally chosen to go into business at a young age, instead of pursuing higher studies. “Now, they are looking for a change, because somewhere the Vibrant Gujarat story has disappointed even the most ardent Bharatiya Janata Party fans in the community, particularly the youth.”
2. Dominance of the Patidar community
Politically, the dominance of the Patedar community over Gujarat has been near complete .Until the late 1970s, they were Congress supporters. But when the growing ambitions of the backward castes could no longer be ignored, the Congress turned to the Patels and forged an alliance with Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims, popularly known as KHAM, which ruled the state through the 1980s.
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This was a period of great social unrest in Gujarat. Deprived of power, the Patels hit back by launching the violent anti-reservation movements of 1981 and 1985 that targeted both Dalits and OBCs. Forsaken by the Congress, they switched sides to BJP and emerged the party’s most trusted vote bank by the 1990s. In exchange, the community continues to be handsomely rewarded. At present, 40 of the 120 BJP lawmakers in the state, including Chief Minister Anandiben and seven of her senior Cabinet colleagues, are Patels.
3. History of the OBC quota
The idea of quotas was mooted 13 years after formation of the state, in 1973, by then chief minister Madhavsinh Solanki of the Congress, himself an OBC. Solanki appointed a three-member commission — led by Justice (retd) Anantprasad R Bakshi and comprising Taraben Patel, a professor of sociology at Gujarat University, and C N Vakil, a professor of economics at M S University — to recommend communities for Gujarat’s OBC list. The commission gave its report in 1976, after which 82 communities were recognised as OBCs. In 1981, the state announced a 10 per cent quota for OBCs, and subsequently appointed the Gopal Krishna and Rane commissions that added communities to the Bakshi Commission’s list. Gujarat now has a permanent OBC Commission, headed by former Gujarat High Court judge Sugnya Bhatt, in Gandhinagar.
4. Communities currently on Gujarat’s OBC list
According to an article in The Indian Express, sociologist Gaurang Jani says Gujarat now has 146 notified OBCs. The last community to be added to the list was of ‘darjis’ (tailors). The Modh Ghanchi community, from which Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes, is also on the list. Seventeen of these 146 communities are from Muslim faith — Sipai, Pinjara, Muslim Ghanchi, etc.
5. How a community gets an OBC status
A community or its members can approach the OBC commission with an application, supported by material to back their claim. This material could be old documents, even legends. The commission orders a census of the community to check the numbers, and social and educational status. Literacy levels, especially among women, are a key indicator. If the commission is convinced of the claim, it might recommend OBC status for the community, and the government then issues a notification.
6. Judiciary’s stand on reservations
The Supreme Court has ruled that reservations in any state cannot exceed the 50 per cent mark. And Gujarat has already reached this cap. So, the demand by the Patels for a piece of the 27 per cent OBC reservation pie (part of the overall 50 per cent quota) has pitted them against the 146 groups already on the backward list. The less prosperous and more aggressive Rabari, Bharwad, Koli and Thakore communities, among others, have threatened to oppose any further division of their quota.
7. The status quo
Caste tensions in the state are already rising. During a recent cycle rally taken out by the Patels in Bapunagar, an industrial suburb of Ahmedabad, with a large Scheduled Caste population, anti-Dalit slogans were repeatedly raised. Though Scheduled Castes are non-players in the ongoing reservation demand, they are among its most visible beneficiaries in urban areas. And, in a society that is deeply caste-ridden, and communally divided, despite its economic growth, this surely cannot be good news.