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From obscurity to limelight via quota agitation

Last Updated 30 April 2016, 18:48 IST

On the lines of writer George R R Martin’s famous quote, “Oft-times a very small man can cast a very large shadow...,” a hitherto unknown 22-year-old son of a farmer sprang from nowhere to take reins of the leadership of a pro-quota movement for a dominant community in Gujarat.

Hardik Patel, a commerce graduate from an Ahmedabad college, is just an average youth with no intellectual pretensions. Fond of cricket, he like most of his ilk, was happy in his small town pursuits when the frustrations of the jobless youth and the plummeting economics of their agrarian elders infected him.

As their numbers swelled, the restlessness of the young welded with the plight of the old who had paid through their nose for the education of their wards only to find them whiling away their time aimlessly or struggle in low-paid jobs. For well over a decade, the then Narendra Modi government in Gujarat had reeled out huge figures of employment through year-round extravaganzas with exotic names that unfolded a vision of brocaded development and plentiful employment.

The 2011 Gujarat Global Investor Summit saw Rs 21 lakh crore worth of MoUs, but a state government study showed only 1% actualisation years later. Such grandstanding may have got Modi the prime ministership of the country, but it has fuelled frustration and turmoil back home. No sooner did Modi move to greener pastures, the glitter of the “Gujarat model” began to wear off, the restlessness rose in equal proportion until it exploded into a rising crescendo of protests in the middle of 2015.

It is often said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. It is common knowledge in Gujarat that it was the internal politics of the BJP that led to the Patels stir for reservation in education and jobs at par with the Other Backward Class (OBC).

Equally well known is the rivalry between two of Modi’s closest aides, BJP president Amit Shah and Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel. Sources close to Anandiben do not hesitate to point in his direction for the dirt being hurled at her. The fact that Anandiben was forced to say that she would not be t he chief ministerial aspirant in future is being attributed to a part of this tirade. Shah knows that he is the fall guy if things go badly for the BJP in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls, and don’t be surprised if he lands up in Gujarat, subject to such showings.

Even the choice of the new DGP P P Pandey is attributed to New Delhi and rightly so. Anandiben would have wanted Geetha Johri but could not have her way. The directions flowed from New Delhi to K Kailashnathan who was additional chief secretary under the Modi regime and was re-employed after his retirement. He continued in the post even after Anandiben took over and is seen as Modi’s man in Gujarat.

As today at the Centre, so then in Gujarat, Modi was the party and the government. After he left, Anandiben took over. Impatient leaders within sought to destabilise her but knew that unless there was a strong enough issue, this would not be easy. The Patel protest came in handy but those who wanted a `controlled explosion’ were soon thrown off as the stir caught the imagination of the youth and the community, and propelled by police excesses, it developed a momentum of its own.

200 days in jail

Hardik, its leader, completed 200 days in jail under charges of sedition this week. The crowning irony is that the might of an administration headed by a Patel, a party headed by a Patel (since changed), with 7 of the 24 ministers and 42 of the total 182 MLAs from the community, was so fearful of the power of a 22-year-old novice that he had to be kept behind bars by hook or by crook.

The result is that Hardik, like JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar–for altogether different reason–is an emerging leader in Gujarat who is now a household name in the country. But then, Hardik is not the only one subjected to such ignominy. The 2008 Modi regime in Gujarat had booked Ahmedabad VHP leader Ashwin Patel on charges of sedition for sending defamatory text messages against him. Ashwin was denied bail and kept in jail for an extended period before the Sangh Parivar top brass intervened for his release.

Obsessed with breaking down the Patel stir, the ruling BJP has only two options, the carrot and the stick, and it is employing both. A crackdown on the youth with sedition charge and an assortment of criminal charges applied on a whole lot of them constitutes one end of the spectrum with their religious, cultural and philanthropic institution leaders being both cajoled and coerced to intervene.

At the other end is the move to make available 10% reservation in the Economically Backward Class category. An ordinance may well be on the way that would most effectively sow confusion in the ranks of the beneficiary and throw the ball in judicial terrain. Whatever may be the fate of the protest, the use of sedition charge to subdue the less than dozen Patel community youth has turned them into a symbol of protest.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Ahmedabad)

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(Published 30 April 2016, 18:48 IST)

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