No room for reticence

It was the Congress government led by Shiv Charan Mathur that categorically rejected the Gurjjars’ demand for reservations under ST category about two decades back. The present crisis has its genesis in that decision.

As per official records, on September 29 1981, the then Chief Minister Shiv Charan Mathur got a file from the then social welfare minister asserting that the Gurjjars were basically milk-sellers and kept cattle. “They are financially well-off and suffer from no shyness of contact with people of other castes. They also do not have any primitive traits so that they could be considered for inclusion in ST list.” Mathur appended a note to the file saying: “I agree.”

Eighteen years later, on December 3 1999, the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment wrote a letter to the Rajasthan social welfare department. It pertained to a letter sent by the Rajasthan government recommending the inclusion of certain castes in the SC and ST category. The list included the recommendation to include Gurjjars in the ST category. The then NDA regime at the Centre requested the state government to furnish population figures and ethnographic material to the Centre.

Inexplicably, the Congress regime sat on the Centre’s letter for around three years. In November 2002, a lower divisional clerk of the Rajasthan government reached Shastri Bhawan in New Delhi looking for the state government’s list that was referred by the above-said GOI letter. In a note sent to the CM’s office in July 2003, the state social welfare ministry claimed that the state government had not made any recommendation about including Gujjars in the ST list — that was around four years after the Centre had sought supplementary information in this regard. The file was then buried by the Congress regime.

In the national interest, the UPA government should at least examine the Chopra committee report. It has unequivocally held that ‘judging eligibility of a group for tribal status, using the (existing) five criteria is, thus, almost an impossibility ‘. This observation of the Chopra Committee is a reiteration of what is spelt out in the Government of India Tribal Policy Document of July 2006 where it was given out that ‘the criteria laid down by the Lokur Committee are hardly relevant today ‘ and ‘more accurate criteria need to be fixed’.

The Chopra Committee has suggested that the Central government initiate a national debate and called on it ‘to abrogate the criteria used so far to include any class of people in the fold of Scheduled Tribe, as these have become obsolete and outdated’. It has recommended that ‘these should be replaced by quantifiable criteria that are relevant in the present context’. According to the Committee, ‘the criteria should be such that they could stand judicial scrutiny ‘ and render examination of ‘the issue with exactitude and reliability’.

The issue of reservations is delicate and sensitive and it must be addressed through a consensus. Political parties need to display statesmanship rather than pursuing momentary political gains. Caste leaders at this critical juncture need to display a sagacious approach.

The Central government must heed the reflections and recommendations of the Raje Government and the Chopra Committee and discharge its constitutional obligations rather than looking for soft options or engaging in momentary political calculations.

The writer, a senior advocate in the Supreme Court and a former Union minister, is a member of the BJP