The other factor: Meenas

After last year’s bitter experience when the Meenas—a community that enjoys ST status but does not want Gurjjars to get it—clashed with the Gurjjars, Bainsala and his men seem to be treading cautiously. While Sikandara and Bayana reel under heavy protests that spread to other parts of the state by Tuesday, the protests began, in a strange coincidence, in places where there aren’t too many Meena-dominated villages. Across Bayana, where thousands of Gurjjars continue to block trains, Meena villages are few and far between. Sikandara, where the police firing claimed more than a dozen lives and where Gurjjars are still sitting on the national highway with six corpses, is at least 35 kilometres away from the Meena-dominated belt of Mahwa.

Interestingly, Badabujurg village, on the Khedla road in Mahwa, is home to BJP leader K.L. Meena. Here, the Meena community is fuming. “If you think Meenas will stand and watch Gurjjars being given sops by the government, you are mistaken. There is no denying the fact that once they try encroaching our ST category space, we’ll open a war,” said Prabal Meena, a Badabujurg resident.

The community doesn’t mind Vasundhara Raje’s recommendation of 4-6 per cent quota for Gurjjars. “We are not opposed to Gurjjars getting reservation benefits. But we won’t tolerate their inclusion in the ST category. As long as the state government is doing our job, we will watch. The day it stops, we’ll start,” Kamal Prasad Meena, another Badabujurg resident states with a grin.

It all began in 1999 when then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced OBC status for Jats. The Jats are now backing the Gurjjars’ demand for ST status, which leaders from both the Congress and the BJP say is not a good sign. “Once one community’s demand is met, other communities will stand up and start agitating. It’s like opening a Pandora’s box,” says a state BJP leader. The fears are not unfounded. After the Gurjjar agitation last year, Chief Minister Raje’s office was flooded with demands for reservations from communities like Nayaks, Nais, Malis, Raibaris and Rawats—several of whom share OBC status with the Gurjjars.

Moreover, Gurjjar youths openly talk about how the Meenas have reaped the benefits of ST status over the years while they have stayed backward. “Meenas have IAS and IPS officers. Many doctors in state PHCs are Meenas. But look at us. We don’t even have enough to eat,” says 17-year-old Yogendra Singh Gurjjar, who has bunked school in neighbouring Boondi to take part in the Gurjjar agitation.