Any democratic society faces the challenge of harmonising two essentially contradictory political concepts: first, equality before the law irrespective of religion, caste, race and gender; and second, social justice at the cost of the same commitment to equality before the law. Over the years, reservations have become the Indian government's standard approach towards groups demanding equality, and this has led to increasing political pressures to extend reservations to communities other than Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
For a week during late May and early June, Rajasthan witnessed an unprecedented level of violence over demands by the state's Gujjar population for inclusion in the ST list. The protesters sought, extraordinarily, to demote their caste category from Other Backwards Classes (OBC), in order to gain further benefits from affirmative-action policies reserved for STs and SCs. Their demand was subsequently violently opposed by Rajasthan's Meena community, which is currently listed as a Scheduled Tribe. Gujjar demonstrators blocked the national highway in Rajasthan, dismantled railway lines, and burned bridges, public buses and railway property. All in all, the protests claimed 26 lives. The agitation spread like wildfire to Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and even Jammu & Kashmir, even while the police, paramilitary forces and army seemed nonplussed.
The roots of the current crisis can be traced to promises made by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vasundhara Raje. During her 2003 campaign in Rajasthan, Raje had pledged to grant ST status to the Gujjar community. Since becoming chief minister in December of that year, however, she has not moved to fulfil that promise. Even as Gujjar anger escalated, things were made more difficult for Raje by warnings from leaders of the state's powerful Meena community, who were worried that Gujjar inclusion on the ST list would affect their own position, for having to divide their benefits.
It was following the official formation of the state of Rajasthan back in 1949 that the Meenas were declared a Scheduled Tribe. The Gujjars were not, even though the two communities are of comparable socio-economic status. It was in 1993 that the Gujjars were granted OBC status, a category devised to cater to deprived communities that did not make it within the ST and SC categories. The community started jostling for ST status when Atal Bihari Vajpayee granted OBC status to the powerful Jat community in Rajasthan in 1999, and Gujjar leaders realised that they were looking at receiving a smaller share of the OBC reservation pie – hence the proposed shift to ST status, which has generated identical fears among the Meenas.