http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d87e35bc-105a-11dc-96d3-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=a6dfcf08-9c79-11da-8762-0000779e2340.html
India's castes race to the bottom By Jo Johnson in New Delhi Published: June 1 2007 17:25 | Last updated: June 1 2007 17:25 Paramilitary forces in the Indian state of Rajasthan struggled on Friday to head off violent clashes with and between two large and competing lower caste groups that have left at least 23 dead and cut the state off from the rest of the country. The rioting began on Monday when large numbers of Gujjars, a "backward" caste of cowherders, took to the streets to demand access to quotas reserved for those further down India's elaborate social hierarchy. The Gujjars, who are spread over northern India, are seeking a lower social status in Rajasthan so they can compete for public sector jobs and college places reserved for so-called "scheduled tribes" under an affirmative action programme. With Rajasthan due to hold state assembly elections next year, the pressure is mounting on the ruling local Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party to find a solution that does not further inflame caste rivalries. "Parties make promises, which they can't fulfil and which encourage castes to compete for lower status to gain access to opportunities to which they're not entitled," said Professor D. L. Sheth of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. The Gujjars want the BJP to honour a promise to grant them scheduled tribe status that it made ahead of the 2003 elections. The power for such a review rests solely with the central government, led since May 2004 by the rival Congress party. About 50,000 members of the rival Meena community, who have cornered the lion's share of government jobs reserved for the tribals, massed near the Rajasthan town of Dausa on Friday, threatening caste war if the Gujjars were re-classified. The main highway between Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, has been blocked in places since the middle of the week, while dozens of trains from neighbouring states have been cancelled or delayed. As television footage showed burning buses, cars and trucks, state government ministers met representatives of the Gujjar community to discuss their demand for inclusion in the list of scheduled tribes and compensation for those killed in this week's clashes. The violence has spread beyond Rajasthan. On the edges of New Delhi, a crowd of about 200 Gujjars on Friday blocked the highway linking the capital to the city of Faridabad, setting on fire police jeeps before being dispersed at gunpoint. In Rajasthan, Gujjars constitute between 4 and 7 per cent of the state's 57m population. They are also present in large numbers in several northern states and already enjoy scheduled tribe status in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. India's constitution mandates that 7.5 per cent of public sector jobs and places at government colleges be reserved for scheduled tribes, 15 per cent for dalits, formerly known as untouchables, and 27 per cent for "other backward classes". In Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat, the Gujjars are listed among the "other backward classes" and face stiff competition for jobs and collsege places from well-off castes, such as the Jats, who have muscled in on quotas. The system of reservations, which has been broadened in recent years, has encouraged downward mobility, reversing the traditional tendency for castes – intra-marrying communities often based on occupations – to seek to improve their status in contested hierarchies. It has brought about a profound change in a society in which low-ranked castes traditionally sought upward mobility by emulating the rituals of upper or dominant castes, notably vegetarianism, a process sociologists describe as Sanskritisation. -- Subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a BLANK email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
