The agitation in the Indian state of Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, by the numerically strong Patel community demanding OBC (other backward caste) status for job reservations and educational opportunities has a deep ring of irony for Modi. As the biggest vote bank he had mined time and again for his successive victories as chief minister, it is full circle for Gujarat that is now under the scanner for its economic development policies. The agitation has made the much-feted Modi development model seem to grow jelly legs overnight.
The current crisis in Gujarat, in which ten people have died as the authorities mishandle the situation with the protesters, is not really about the economic discrepancies within the vast Patel community, a predicament not exclusive to it. The current crisis is more a reflection of Modi’s right-wing policies that favoured skewed growth at the expense of equal opportunities and grass-roots development.
This agitation is also a larger reflection of how India, even after six decades of independence, has not been able to emerge from the morass of its caste-based vote bank political formula, a formula it wilfully holds on to despite overwhelming evidence of disastrous consequences for its development.
The Gujarat crisis may or may not succeed in getting the Patel community a special status, but it reiterates the core problem India has not been able to solve so far — its addiction to legislating itself into perpetuating a caste-based, not merit-based, growth model.
