Dated: 13th June, 2008
Respected Sir,
Of late, the developments that have taken place in Rajasthan are of a very serious and grim nature. It gives me excessive pain to see that the Gujjar community has resorted to such large scale violence in the entire north India, in general, and the state of Rajasthan, in particular.
Railway and state government property has been terribly ransacked, and to use the term, sabotaged. It has created a terrible law and order problem in the otherwise peaceful state of Rajasthan. It is incredible to believe that the Gujjars have made such an adamant demand to the state government.
Let us sit down and see why I do not agree with your demand that the Gujjars should be accorded the status of the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and treated at par with the other powerful community, the Meenas.
If we turn the pages of history and look backwards, we can trace the origin of the Gujjars and see how they came to India.
Origin:
The Gurjaras are believed to have appeared in northern India about the time of the Huna invasion. It is believed that when they came to India, their original name “Gujar” got sanskritized to “Gurjara”. It is a well-established fact that the Gujjars originated from Gurjistan, which today, is known as Georgia (Mark the similarity in their pronunciation). Certain works by a few historians also suggest that the Germans are also, typically Gujjars.
The Gujjars were a very prosperous community in India. Prosperous to the extent, that they were the rulers in almost the entire of western and northern parts of present day India. For some, their kingdoms even extended to Pakistan and some parts of Afghanistan.
The Gurjara-Pratihara kingdom is a classic example to attest this point. It is well established that at the time of King Harshvardhana, when the Chinese traveler Huien Tsang visited India, he did also visit some of the Gurjara Kingdoms. These are well documented in his memoirs of India. Here he describes about the kingdom of Su-la-cha (modern day Saurashtra). It may interest you to know that even the modern day state of Gujarat is named after the Gurjaras. Several of the Rajputs trace their origin to the Gujjar community. Agnikula Rajputs are a case in point. Along with them, the Paramars and Solankis have also been established to have been Gujjars.
Thus, it is well documented that the Gujjars essentially were of the Kshatriya clan, for they identified themselves as the Rajputanas. Besides them, some Gujjars have even been identifies as Brahmins. For example, the Gaurs and Gaekwads of central India. Yes, it is also true that many Gujjars had to embrace Islam unwillingly during the Muslim conquest of India, when the barbaric Muslims converted them to Islam at the blade of the sword.
During the freedom struggle of India from the clutches of the British, the Gujjars made handsome contributions. There were several Gujjars who laid down their lives for the freedom of our beloved motherland, Bharat Mata. As a result, the British, wrongfully though, classified the Gujjars as a criminal tribe and meted out strict punishment to them.
Present day crisis:
The recent violence that has been witnessed in Rajasthan and other adjoining areas has arisen due to the fact that the BJP, at the time of elections in 2003, had promised to accord the OBC status to the Jats, who, very rightly, are a very powerful community. Financially speaking, today, a large chunk of Jats are much better off than the so called “forward-castes”. Hence, providing them any kind of reservation is totally unjustified. The BJP should be rightly criticized for playing such political gimmicks. However, at the same time, Col. Bainsla, the demands made by the Gujjar community is also unjustified. The Gujjars are also a very influential community. The entire dairy sector, so to say, in northern India is under the control of the Gujjars. Hence, your violence is also largely unjustified and deserves strictest condemnation. Protest is always legitimate, but violence and destruction of the public property cannot be justified by any means. It may disappoint you, but the public has, by and large, lost faith and sympathy that it had developed during your “struggle”. How do you justify the road and rail blockades? How do you justify the stopping of medically ill people from visiting doctors? How do you say that blocking and “surrounding” Delhi is a legitimate step in the right direction? What have you gained by resorting to such a “tamasha”? More than 60 of the poor Gujjars have been killed in the police firing. Several policemen have also lost their lives. Please do not classify the dead as our and their men.
Again, do you think that by getting the reservations, the Gujjar community would advance? Almost sixty years of the Indian independence, the SCs and STs still struggle to make two ends meet.
The honourable Supreme Court had made a very remarkable observation: Nowhere except in India, do people try to get the status of being more and more backward. Tell me, for how long is it going to continue? Where would this dangerous fire of reservation stop? The politicians of this country, irrespective of which colour they adorn are all selfish people. Please do not fall into the trap of these “netas”. They look only for their interest, nobody else’s.
It is our duty to make India a superpower. Reservation is not an answer to solve the country’s problem. It only creates a short cut path to those who do not wish to work hard, yet wish to get the benefits of each and every thing. Tell me, do you think that a doctor from an SC or an ST quota would be of the same merit as a person who is from the general category? Politically, you would say yes, but even you are aware that what I say is right.
Think about it, Col. Bainsla, and let the right side of your conscience rule your mind. Please note, for how long and for how many would this political weapon of reservation continue? Make the Gujjar community strong in the true sense that this situation of demanding reservation doesn’t arise.
Yours truly,
Anurag Gupta.
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