Narendra Modi's home ground is on fire as the Patel campaign spirals out of control and his political foes sense a vulnerability
Narendra Modi's home ground is on fire as the Patel campaign spirals out of control and his political foes sense a vulnerability
Army columns patrolled the streets of Ahmedabad while IAF C-17 strategic airlifters rushed in paramilitary riot control forces from Delhi. The swift response to the statewide outbreak of violence on August 25 over the demand for reservation by the economically strong Patels underlined how seriously the Narendra Modi government viewed the escalating crisis in Gujarat. It was a direct attack on the development-oriented, inclusive Gujarat model of governance Modi had helped shape as the chief minister for 12 years. The first flare-up in the state since the 2002 communal riots led to a direct appeal for peace, in Gujarati, from Modi.
History was, in a sense, repeating itself after three decades. The only difference is that in 1985 the Patels were opposing reservation and this time they were demanding it. In 1985, the Patel community-led anti-reservation protests had turned into a communal conflagration. It began after the state government raised reservation quotas for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in educational institutions, triggering outrage among the economically dominant Patels.
The August 25 violence followed a rally in Ahmedabad where a record 800,000 Patels converged under the leadership of 22-year-old Hardik Patel, the son of a small-time businessmen from Viramgam and convenor of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS). A former Aam Aadmi Party member, Hardik vociferously demanded reservations for the Patel community, which makes up 12 per cent of Gujarat's 62 million population. In an impassioned speech, he warned that the BJP would be voted out in Gujarat in the 2017 assembly elections. "We (Patels) brought the BJP to power, we can uproot it too," he thundered.
Patel's use of Hindi during the hour-long speech suggested his message was also directed at Delhi.
The Ahmedabad police walked into the venue of his meeting at 8 p.m. in the evening as he sat on a hunger strike: most Patels had streamed out of the GMDC ground. The police whisked Hardik away and mercilessly beat up a few volunteers and journalists at the venue.
As news of police violence spread, Patel community members, returning to villages and towns from the rally, set on fire government property. In a few hours violence had engulfed even small tehsil towns with sizeable Patel population. Buses were burnt and government establishments uprooted even as rioters targeted police chowkies and houses of ministers belonging to the Patel community. This included Home Minister Rajni Patel's ancestral house in Modhera which was set on fire by an angry mob. Hardik Patel's release just two hours later and desperate appeals from Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had little effect. On the morning of August 26, the Railways was forced to cancel trains as violence swept across the state. The state government got telecom operators to suspend the internet to stop the spread of rumours.
"The ire of the Patels over police action is only part of the story," says retired IPS officer R.K. Ohri. "Forces out to destabilise Modi are behind the Gujarat episode too. They unsettled him in Delhi through Kejriwal and now they are doing it on his home turf."
Modi's political adversaries have been quick to seize on the BJP's discomfiture in Gujarat. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, fighting a tough battle in the state's upcoming elections, has also announced his support for the Patel reservation stir. In an election rally in Bihar on August 23, he took a dig at Modi: "People should take care of reservation problems in their homes."
Patel versus Patel
A close look at Hardik's tweets during the 2014 Lok Sabha poll campaign makes his pro-AAP and anti-Modi leanings very clear. This is understandable given the Patel leader was then a fervent AAP volunteer. He calls his present campaign apolitical although state BJP leaders feel he may still have the tacit blessings of AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Hardik's campaign has received the wholehearted support of several influential people within the Patel community. Industrialists such as Karsanbhai Patel of the Nirma Group and newspaper baron Parthiv Patel openly support reservations for the community. Hardik is also believed to have the quiet backing of several disgruntled BJP leaders in the state. There is a group of dissident leaders who have been ignored by the Modi-Anandiben Patel duo. This includes former MP A.K. Patel, former ministers Arvind Patel and Anil Patel and national BJP Vice President Parshottam Rupala. There is no evidence that any of them have supported Hardik, even though A.K. Patel's son Harshad attended one of his meetings in July, while buses from Ganpat University, whose board of governors includes Anil Patel, ferried activists to the August 25 rally in Ahmedabad.
The campaign has brought to the fore fissures within the BJP's Patel members. The community enjoyed uninterrupted power since 1990 when Chimanbhai Patel became the CM. It continued when Keshubhai Patel became the CM first in 1995 and then in 1998. It was during his tenure when the community exercised a say in key government and police postings. But when Modi came to power in 2002, he preferred 'development-oriented Patels' over the 'caste-oriented'.
The Patels chafed at the loss of their power but Modi, with his strong pro-Hindutva and pro-development line, managed to keep the lid on their resentment. His departure for Delhi in 2014 unravelled the deceptive calm-all eight Patel ministers in the 24-member state cabinet had their homes attacked by stone-pelting mobs in Ahmedabad on August 25.
Reservation pains
The Patels' quest for backward caste status seems strange but in keeping with a nationwide trend of forward castes demanding reservation on the grounds of being economically backward. The Patels are Gujarat's most dominant community. Despite being only 12 per cent of the population, they make up 30 per cent of government teachers, engineers and employees in the health and revenue departments and the state secretariat. As much as 60 per cent of the total land given to social and educational institutions by the government is with Patel institutions. More than half the schools that get government grants are controlled by the Patels. It is only in the police force that their numbers are low-just 7 per cent. But this is possibly because few opt for the profession.
Why, then, does the community seek reservation? The main reason: admissions in medical and engineering colleges for the non-reserved categories have now shrunk to almost 30 per cent of the total seats. It is the same with government jobs. An increase in education levels means that reserved category candidates are also getting admission or jobs on merit. This is even as the below-average ones among them continue to draw the benefit of admissions and jobs in the reserved category. So, the reserved category castes are eating into the share of the non-reserved categories on the basis of merit.
Ketan Shukla, a leading urologist in Ahmedabad, says his daughter is struggling to get admission into a medical college despite scoring 93.5 per cent in Class XII. "Students in the 48 per cent reserved category are entering the 52 per cent non-reserved category. Reserved category students should be adjusted in the 48 per cent only," he argues.
The Patels see this as a double whammy and this is a reason why their campaign has the silent support of even other upper castes such as Brahmins and Banias. "That all Patels are rich is a misnomer," says Brajesh Patel, a jobless IT engineer who came to attend the Ahmedabad rally. "The number of educated and jobless Patels is very high due to the menace of reservation. It is killing merit and stopping India from becoming a superpower."
Anandiben's blunders
The handling of the Patel protests and its violent aftermath have been a blot on Anandiben Patel's otherwise impressive 15-month stint as chief minister of Gujarat.
When the Patel campaign gathered steam in July, she left it to be handled by a committee of ministers. Her first statements on the issue came only just days before the August 25 rally-she said the state government had no role to play in the reservation issue after the Supreme Court struck down reservation quotas. Police high-handedness on the evening of August 25 gave a violent turn to a meeting that had ended peacefully. The incident displayed a lack of understanding of the police set-up by the Chief Minister and her Home Minister Rajni Patel. The home department is one area in which Anandiben, despite her administrative competence, has been the weak link.
The Chief Minister's lack of grip over the police is rooted in the return of what is being alleged in Gandhinagar as "patronage-led postings" in the police department and sidelining of many competent and clean officers to the benefit of the corrupt and inefficient officials.
There are allegations of senior police officers being involved in settling land-related disputes, a practice Narendra Modi tried to root out when chief minister: his home ministry had issued a circular restricting the involvement of police in land deals. The circular helped sharply bring down the number of cases where policemen were involved in mediation and settlement of land issues-from 34 in one year down from 17,000 two years earlier.
The only silver lining to this recent crisis over reservation was her successful handling of talks with other OBC groups such as the Thakores who make up 27 per cent of the state's population. Except for a few stray incidents, there was no caste violence. Gujarat has been spared the prospect of a fearsome caste war, at least for now.
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