NEW DELHI: India’s dominant Hindu community has been vertically divided between the upper and the backward castes on the question of implementing the Man: dal Commission report with almost all northern States in the grip o: the upper castes agitation for about a week.
Life in most cities has been dislocated with upper castes student: leading strikes and’ bandhs, ransacking transport services and petrol stations and causing banks insurance companies offices, and other businesses to stop functioning to protest against Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s reservation policy.
Since the upper castes control most of the public services in government, semi government and business establishments, the work stoppage is quite successful in major cities although the agitation does not have such impact in the southern states as well as in the rural areas and small towns.
The agitation has the support of the B.J.P. and the Congress (I) and their front organisations although the two parties do not openly own the stir.
There are growing signs of the backward and lower castes Organising themselves to oppose the upper castes agitation and to avenge the humiliation of lower castes officers and employees at the hands of the upper castes agitators at many places.
Thus, for instance, Bhai Gurdip Singh Deepa, chief of the Dalit Tigers Force, a newly established militant organisation of Punjab based backward castes, in a statement took exception to the upper castes agitation and said that the Dalits might be compelled to offer armed resistance and to work for an independent country for the Dalits. The statement said that the agitation had been launched by Brahmanism to crush the Dalits.
Political observers feel that the upper castes agitation has broken the Hindu united front cobbled together by Indira Gandhi and later by Rajiv Gandhi against minorities and regional groups. This united front had full flowering. When in the wake of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination in October 1984 thousands of Sikhs were killed in the northern States.
Most so called Sikh leaders are silent. A few leaders of the All India Sikh Students Federation went to the extent of supporting the Brahmanical agitation. The only exception are the Panthic Committee and the AISSF (Buttar group) which unreservedly condemned the upper castes agitation.
Observers believe that the present agitation will have historic significance for the country’s future: and will negatively give a fillip to the Punjab and Kashmir struggles with backward and lower castes lending a helping hand to then no withstanding the shortsighted silence of the Sikh leaders on the inter caste struggles in India’s Hindu society. NEW DELHI: The anti-reservation stir continued in several Indian states as Prime Minister Singh made a fresh appeal to students to give up the agitational approach to the implementation of the Mandal commission report.
Singh, who was addressing people in Ahmedabad, repeated his offer to talk to the students with a view to removing their misgivings on the government’s decision to implement the Mandal report that recommends 27 per cent reservation for backward classes and 22.5 per cent reservation for scheduled castes and tribes.
Meanwhile, several protest rallies and demonstrations have been called by anti-reservationists over the next few days.
The students of the Delhi University are to take out a silent protest march in the Capital Saturday to mourn the death of a student following a police baton charge on demonstrators last week.
The opposition Congress I has decided to launch a 12hour hunger strike on Monday in the capital of Orissa, Bhubaneswar to protest “police oppression on the people, youth and students” during the agitation in the state.
The newly floated lawyers’ anti-reservation front, condemning the government decision to implement the report, called fora protest rally at the Boat Club in New Delhi on September 4.
Meanwhile, two students have filed a case in the court of the chief judicial magistrate against federal ministers Ram Bilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav for their recent speeches, which, they alleged created insecure feelings among some people.
The students of Meerut College, in a petition filed on Friday, alleged that at a rally in New Delhi on August 25, the two ministers had called upon people of a particular caste to come on the streets and give a befitting reply to the persons opposing the reservation.
The Citizens for Democracy and the Indian Radical Humanist Association have said that the demand for wholesale rejection of the Mandal commission report on the grounds of casteism is not justified, but demands for alternations are legitimate.
In a joint statement signed by Justice V M Tarkunde and others, the two human rights organisations said no caste or community “which is economically at a level with the rest of our society should be allowed to claim that it is socially and educationally backward. If any such caste or community is included in the list of other backward classes, a demand for its deletion from the list will be justified.
In Jaipur in Rajasthan a bandh was observed by anti-reservationists on Tuesday observed a strike with the city buses keeping off the roads, interstate bus services suspended and principal markets and shops remaining closed. Government offices and private institutions worked with attendance,
In Jammu anti-reservationists blocked traffic on the 300 Kms Jammu Srinagar national highway near Tawi bridge for more than an hour.
Several Jammu student’s organisations have decided to intensify their agitation under the supervision of a “coordination committee” called fora strike on Wednesday. Supported by youth organisations like Jammu Praja Parishad and Yuva Shiv Sena.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 7, 1990
