Claiming reservation as a ruling class privilege - the Patidar angst

With even SC/ST reservation having morphed into an exclusive preserve of a thin upper crust, it has increasingly been viewed as a privilege of those belonging to the ruling class. It is a confirmatory test that you matter politically.

The current Patidar-community-driven movement in Gujarat demanding reservation for the Patels has to be viewed in this context. No use telling them that they dominate politics, economy and social institutions. Without reservation, they fail the confirmatory test of being the new Indian elite.

The entire OBC bloc holds a decisive sway in Indian politics and has reservation. The SC/ST bloc too is a key element benefitting from reservation. But the Patidars in Gujarat and the Jats in North India fall under the general category in spite of having a dominant influence over the political system. The fight is all about this missing feather in the crown. Patidars mirror the Jat situation in the North.

They are paying the price of being the earliest risers among the upwardly mobile castes, who tended to upgrade themselves in the Varna system as would-be Rajputs or would-be Banias. To demand reservation was to reverse the upgradation. By the time it occurred to them that reservation had become a jagir, they had acquired all the trappings of a forward caste. They will fail all backward class parametres.

But they eminently qualify as jagirdars if reservation is seen as a jagir of the ruling class. Most of their social equals are among the OBCs based on their status in 1931, on the basis of which Jats and Patidars too can make the cut. Assess the current status of the OBC castes and most of them will be out of the category. Gurjars are hell bent on securing a tribal quota because the Meenas, who were their social equals, got themselves miscategorised as tribals. They would like to be miscategorised, or get Meenas removed from the tribal quota. Reservation is viewed as an unfair privilege by the leftouts.

The fact that SC/ST reservation too is monopolised by descendants of first generation beneficiaries, now middleclass/upper middleclass, as family jagirs has knocked the moral justification out of the system and reduced it to legally sanctified political spoils.

These developments have made the Patidar agitation a no holds barred movement - get into the reserved category and wreck it from inside or get it abolished outright if kept excluded from it.

Though Patidars identify themselves with Sardar Patel, Sardar Patel was not one of them. Even the appellation Patidar is a borrowed one while in social upgradation mode. The original Patidars are Patels of Charotar region( Anand, Kheda and Nadiad districts). They are of Jat descent while bulk of Gujarat Patidars were originally knowns as Leva and Kadava kunbis descended from Kurmis, who belong to OBC category in UP, MP Bihar and Maharashtra.

At the time of independence, these Kunbis worked as sharecroppers of upperclass landlords leading a hand to mouth existence. Land reforms under Tenancy Act made them owners of the land they tilled. They never looked back since then. Numerical strength (20 per cent plus) gave them political clout. Prosperity brought education and diversion to trade and industry. They gave up the lowly Kunbi label and called themselves Patels/Patidars claiming equality with Patels of Charotar and getting connected to Sardar Patel.

They have come up through sheer merit and dominate the trade industry today. In fact, their success throws an interesting question - had they been given reservation instead of tenancy reforms, would the community have come this far? Had the SC/STs been given upgradation in their traditional skills instead of reservation would they have come up like the Patels?

The merit-obsessed Patels outraged against reservation and led a mass agitation against it in 1981 and 1985. So why the somersault now? A relook at the issue will reveal that this dubious tool for empowerment has become a jagir for those not in need of it.

Instead of a dispassionate analysis of the issue, the social justice driven media-academia has diverted itself into discussion on how it affects the BJP, Modi and Gujarat CM Anandiben Patel.

The Patels have an unprecedented clout over the current BJP government, which has addressed all core concerns of the community. No government can do more. Even when Narendra Modi was the CM, it was a Patel-driven government. Even when over-leveraged in the government, the Patels, perhaps, are tempted to leverage more.

But will they dump the party they practically own for failing to give them what they do not need? They dominated the Congress party until the late 70s. At that time they were an agrarian community. They deserted the Congress for the BJP when they found that OBCs, Muslims and tribals carried more clout than them.

Now their Bania-like transformation has given them stakes in all sectors of the economy and a state government which is very responsive to these concerns. It is essential for them that the BJP continues to be in power.

Ahead of the state Assembly elections, the Leva Patidars had launched a mass agitation in the name of Khodal Dham Parivar, simultaneously with the launch of Keshubhai Patel’s Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP). Media hype was that Keshubhai - a Leva Patidar - will get 20 plus seats for his party and act as an effective spoiler in the 50 other seats. Modi would lose power as the Congress would be the single largest party.

Leva Patels did not take the risk as they had too many stakes in the BJP. They had voted for Modi. GPP won two seats. Congress' dog days continued endlessly. But what did the Leva Patels gain from the agitation? More Leva patels got Assembly tickets from an overcautious Modi.

The current Patidar agitation too is headed towards such an eventuality. Reservation will never be given to them, nor can it be abolished. But they can be given more tickets in Panchayat and local government elections. The state government can come out with more industry-friendly policies. And the central government can ask the Income-Tax department to go easy with the Patel-dominated cash-transaction-driven diamond industry.