Gurjjar dilemma again

The Justice Jas Raj Chopra Committee was set up in the wake of an agitation of such violence that the Supreme Court was constrained to term it a “national shame”. The Gurjjars of Rajasthan — classified as an OBC community — took to the streets to demand that they be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes, like the Meenas before them. The entire findings of the Committee are not known yet — but the little that has made it to the public sphere has already led Gurjjar leaders to issue dire threats of a nation-wide agitation next month. Their stance, we would argue, is pre-mature and counter-productive. The complexities thrown up by coming together of identity politics and redistributive economics can never be sorted out by action that threatens and inconveniences, mostly, ordinary citizens.

Two possible approaches, inherent in the Chopra Committee recommendations, suggest themselves. First, the state government should take — and be seen to take — extremely seriously the suggestion that a special and targeted package is made available to those living in the “underdeveloped and inaccessible” areas of the state, which would include a large proportion of Gurjjar families. Credible promise of economic transformation is the best antidote to violent protest. Second, given the widespread demand for Scheduled Tribe status among those who see themselves as tribals — last month’s unrest among Assam’s adivasis is just one instance — and given that the existing criteria for defining such a heterogenous category are inadequate, the Centre needs to consider setting up a committee to examine the issue. The Chopra Committee has observed that the existing criteria have become “obsolete and outdated”.

As early as 1951, the commissioner for SCs/STs had pointed out that no uniform test has been evolved for classifying Scheduled Tribes, with the result that it was extremely difficult to determine “which tribe can rightly be included in or excluded from the Schedule of Tribes”. It is this vacuum that politicians attempt to fill by holding out the promise of tribal status, in their bid to shore up their voter base. But as the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Assam have just discovered, such cynical politicking can return to haunt them — and the country.