Jat Reservation Movement

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Jat storm comes closer home

Ref - Times of India, Alok K N Mishra & Somreet Bhattacharya, TNN, Mar 3, 2017

NEW DELHI: The Jat agitation for reserved quotas in government jobs and educational institutions in Haryana reached Delhi on Thursday with thousands of community members from northern states marching to Jantar Mantar to press their demands. While the day passed off peacefully, save for traffic woes, the Jats have threatened to disrupt the entry of essential goods into the capital from March 20, when they plan to block all highways connecting Delhi and neighbouring states if their demands are not met.

The Jats have been fighting for job reservation since 1993, but they have not been able to convince the governments about the legitimacy of their demand, being as they are a dominant social population. In 2014, the centre included the Jats in the Other Backward Classes list, only for the Supreme Court to reverse the decision a year later, and forcing the community to relaunch its protest. "We saw a silver lining when the prime minister met representatives of our community on March 26, 2015 and promised to fulfil our demands," said Yashpal Malik, president, Akhil Bharatiya Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, which is spearheading the movement. "Nothing has moved forward then." In February 2016, the protest in Haryana became violent and left many dead. Mindful of the violence, the Haryana government accepted several demands, but, say Jat leaders, no concrete steps have followed.

"The Haryana government is using its officers to threaten agitators and the government is trying to divide the agitators. If our demands are ignored, we will block all roads to Delhi on March 20," said Malik. This is ominous given that Thursday's protest at Jantar Mantar saw the participation of Jats from Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand. The protesters' march to Parliament House was thwarted by police and around 3,000 were detained at Parliament Street police station. After raising slogans such as "Narendra Modi, Jat Virodhi", the Jat leaders submitted a memorandum to President Pranab Mukherjee and PM Modi.