Should Gujarat's Hardik Patel be supported by all those who are against caste based reservations?

by Guest Wed Aug 26, 2015 7:01 pm

It’s interesting to really listen to what Hardik Patel, the twenty-two year-old who seems to be spearheading the agitation has to say.
“Either the government grants us reservation or discontinues the entire concept of reservation. These is no other option.”
Our focus has been largely on the first half of his statement trying to fathom why such a well-to-do community should be demanding reservation. But it is really the second half of his “either-or” statement that is likely to catch fire.
In the name of demanding reservations is Hardik Patel really spearheading an anti-reservation movement?

What he has said is that he’s OK with reservations as long as they are linked to economic status not caste. This is an idea that finds great resonance in modern India where many feel the job pie has not grown the way the reservation pool has.
That sentiment comes through clearly from Haribhai Patel who came to the Mahakranti rally. He tells the Indian Express:
“My son did diploma in engineering, but couldn’t get a good job. He now runs his own shop but the earning is not good enough. Had I belonged to OBC category, things would have been different.”

And then the clincher.
“I believe that the time has come to give reservation on the basis of economic condition rather than caste.”
It’s not a new idea or a new grouse. The BJP too had put "aarthik aadhar par" reservations in its manifesto way back in 1996. The United States has also struggled with the notion of economic affirmative action that would benefit poor whites as opposed to race-based quotas which have been challenged in court.
Focusing on the Patels’ affluence, their diamond and textile businesses and farmlands, misreads the reality of that resentment which is not related to what they have but what they feel their children are shut out from.
Hardik Patel in his address to the rally says that Nitish Kumar in Bihar is “one of us” as is Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh. He is appealing to a larger brotherhood of Patidars which he claims is really 27 crore.

But the logic of a society based on pure merit actually has takers far beyond the Patels, 27 crore or not. Christophe Jaffrelot writes in the Indian Express that the RSS has described caste-based reservations as divisive and unfair to the meritorious and upper caste poor. When V P Singh tried to implement the Mandal report in 1989-90, The Organizer wrote “The havoc the politics of reservation is playing with the social fabric is unimaginable. It provides a premium for mediocrity, encourages brain-drain and sharpens caste-divide.” The self-immolation protests that shook the country in those days show that that resentment never simmers too far below the surface. Those movements agitated against the reservation tent to try and dismantle it. Hardik Patel is agitating to become part of the tent knowing that if everyone gets reservation, it will collapse under its own weight.

http://www.firstpost.com/india/patidars-for-obc-is-hardik-patel-actually-spearheading-an-anti-reservation-movement-2408578.html