As the Jat agitation for reservation in Haryana turned violent, it caused irreparable damage to the state's economic and social fabric. After the protests subsided, traders whose establishments had been vandalised, took to the streets waving black flags and shouting slogans against the Manohar Lal Khattar government in the state. They also hurled shoes at former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Rohtak.
Just when the state was gearing up for the Happening Haryana Global Investors Summit on March 7 and 8, followed by an NRI meet on March 9 to garner big-ticket investments, the arson and vandalism brought on by the Jat stir caused a loss of Rs 20,000 crore to Rs 30,000 crore to businesses. There is little hope now that potential investors would feel inclined to put their money in the state.
Jats have been seeking a quota under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category ever since the Mandal Commission report - which had kept them out - was implemented. In 2011, the Congress government in the state led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda set up the Haryana State Backward Classes Commission headed by Justice K C Gupta. On the basis of the recommendations of the commission, the Hooda government issued executive instructions (permissible under the Constitution) in January 2013 to create a new category, the Special Backward Classes that carved out 10 per cent reservation for the Jats as well as the Jat Sikh, Ror, Tyagi and Bishnoi communities. This decision was challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. In July 2015, the Supreme Court scrapped the notification issued by the United Progressive Alliance government in March 2014 that included Jats in the central list of OBCs in nine states. The parameters required to be fulfilled for an objective assessment of the situation were not accepted by the Supreme Court. Haryana had to fall in line.
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Jat sentiment has been simmering for the past few months, with discussions and protests being held in the Jat-dominated districts of Rohtak, Sonepat and Bhiwani along with districts in central and southern Haryana. What flared up the issue was a comment by Bharatiya Janata Party's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini that ostensibly hurt Jat sentiments. Unable to tell Saini to pipe down, the BJP chose to ignore the issue.
The government did not act upon intelligence reports on the growing resentment among Jats. The local administration and police appeared to be doing little. The presence of the Indian Army and the paramilitary forces was merely cosmetic: they were not allowed to curb the violence.
Meanwhile, those living in the suburbs felt the full force of the mayhem. There were reports of women being assaulted or molested. Locals confirmed these reports, but the state police refuted them.
The political stalwarts of Haryana hail from the Jat heartland. There is a feeling that the stir could have been taken to a constructive conclusion by putting forth cogent arguments before the leaders demanding reservation. But political ambitions prevailed over everything else and no leader of the ruling party sought to pacify the protesters.
The state government has now promised to provide a 10 per cent quota to Jats and four other castes in the Assembly session starting in March. The proposal for this has to be sent to the committee formed under the chairmanship of Union Minister for Housing and Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu. Experts on the Constitution predict that it will be a tightrope walk for the government. Any reservation on the basis of caste cannot exceed 50 per cent - a ceiling already in place in Haryana. Jats can be included in the 27 per cent OBC quota, but such a move will likely boomerang on the government, as the castes which are already included in the OBC category would not accept it. Sources in the state government say the Jats were offered reservation under the Economically Backward Section category, but they turned this proposal down. According to a senior bureaucrat, the community can be offered a temporary reprieve only, as no state can go against the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court on
caste-based reservation.
The confrontation of the Jats with other communities in the state in the past few days has given rise to a class tussle that seems set to have a cascading effect on the state's social fabric.
Jats have a fair representation in government jobs and the legislature in Haryana. Their discontent stems from the fragmentation of landholdings and dwindling returns from agriculture. In the last few years, agriculture has become a high-investment proposition, with soil fertility decreasing due to continual ploughing. Rising cost of inputs was the last straw. The youth no longer perceives agriculture as a viable source of livelihood.
But reservation cannot mask rising unemployment or the discontent among the youth preparing to enter the job market in a few years. The government could encourage people to take up agriculture-allied activities such as dairy, poultry, fish and bee farming that have a lot of potential in Haryana, but are practised on a minuscule scale at present. According to a successful private dairy farmer in Haryana, his achievement has been downplayed by officials, as this would show the government machinery in a bad light since he did not take any help from it.
The damage to trade and industry has pushed back the state by at least a decade. Small and medium-scale enterprises in the National Capital Region, who lost fixed assets in the violence, lack the confidence and the investments to resume their ventures. Unskilled migrant labourers have fled.
Instead of knocking on the doors of private investors and doling out tax concessions to woo them to set up factories and generate employment, the state should contemplate upgrading the way agriculture is practised in the state. This would absorb the youth in sustainable ventures.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
