http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070014659
Reservation divides Rajasthan communities Radhika Bordia Wednesday, June 6, 2007 (Pipilkda) For the past one week driving on one of India's busiest highways - the Jaipur to Agra route had become a surreal experience. It was to be the last day of the agitation in Pipilkda village. While peace was being brokered in Jaipur between Gujjar leaders and the government - on the ground no one knew what the outcome would be. The morning began with the all too familiar militant voices. ''If the Gujjars don't get reservation, there will be trouble,'' said a protestor. ''We will die but we will win,'' he added. There was a tiny Gujjar blockade. At first glance, an unruly mob with little organisation. But that's just the surface and soon the Gujjar community across eight districts of Rajasthan was mobilising itself. At the blockade DS Chowhdury was issuing commands directly in touch with Colonel Bainsla, the powerful Gujjar leader in Jaipur. Chowdhury would relay the information he was getting on the peace talks in Jaipur back to his community there. ''Listen to our demands. We are farmers. Who will fight for our rights?'', the protestors sang. Roughly 30 lakh Gujjars live in villages all along the Eastern belt of the state. ''Today all Gujjar brothers have gathered here. Many don't know what reservations mean. But what is important is that we support the Colonel. We will continue to do with whatever food is left and continue to struggle,'' said an annoucement. Hundreds of such Caste Panchayats were meeting every day to keep the momentum of the agitation going both in Meena and Gujjar villages and the Panchayats writ is absolutely unquestionable and totally binding. So binding that for more than seven days thousands of Gujjar men left their villages and gathered at what they call the Dharna Sthal. The village where the initial violence first errupted seven people died including policemen and the controversial firing by the police sharpened the conflict. The anger against the police was so acute that the army had to be called. Gujjars from neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been bringin in some rations to sustain the movement. ''We are also demanding reservation. We are ready to die for this struggle alongside our men,'' said the women of the Gujjar community. The agitation meant that hundreds of villages in the area had no supplies but in the voices of the women the same bravado and a keenness to show how they had been participating in what they saw was their most important struggle. ''We have got no food supplies for eight days, but we will continue to agitate,'' said a protestor. In village after village women were making googri, a mixture of jaggery and boiled wheat to send to their men on the road. ''Our children will get jobs. We will also get water and power. We don't have servants,'' said a woman about their demand for reservation. ''Meena families have 20-30 IAS officers, and many people working for them''. For the women, reservations has become linked to the solution of every problem they struggle with in rural India. The voices of the Gujjar women not surprisngly echoed by the Meena women - the twin communities who now seem irrevocably divided. ''If the Gujjars get ST status, they won't let the Meenas survive,'' said a member of the Meena community. In the Meena village news came of the settlement and people began to gather at the village center. ''If after three months, this issue comes up and the Gujjars get ST status, we will not tolerate. We will also resort to violence,'' warned a Meena protestor.
