Reservation, it seems, is fast turning out to be the fountainhead of a brewing tribal unrest in Chhattisgarh with the tribal veterans mulling an all-out war against the Congress government. If not contained, the discord may soon have wider political ramification in the state slated for assembly polls next year.
Chhattisgarh Sarva Adivasi Samaj, the apex body representing various tribal groups, has vociferously demanded restoration of 32 per cent reservation which is in proportionate to their population in the state. Former Union minister and tribal veteran Arvind Netam who still wears Congress membership on his sleeves, put it as the tribal’s brush with their destiny, rendered uncertain after successive government’s meddling with their reservation.
“Tribal reservation in the undivided Madhya Pradesh was fixed at 20 per cent as per our population then, but this figure was not altered even after the inception of Chhattisgarh in 2000,” Netam said.
The tribal population of Chhattisgarh stands at 32 per cent today. Raman Singh-led BJP government revised it and hiked the tribal reservation to 32 per cent in proportion to their populace.
The saffron party, however, also raised the SC reservation at 12 per cent and OBC reservation from 6 to 16 per cent in 2012, crossing the Constitutional threshold for reservation. As per a government of India order in 2005, the OBC reservation was capped at 6% but the then government deliberately crossed the upper limit. The decision was challenged in the Bilaspur High Court and the Court struck down the reservation Act on September 19 this year, Netam said.
The current Congress regime, he blames, is repeating the same mistake with its insistence on increasing the OBC reservation from 6 to 26 per cent, thus taking the total reservation to 76 per cent. This is surely going to be a recipe for disaster for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes as they are the net sufferers of a situation where reservation ceases to exist for them.
Sarva Adivasi Samaj is contemplating to tap the swelling discord among the Adivasis across the state. Tribes in Bastar, on the one hand, are fuming with a sense of betrayal and anxiety, tribal people in northern Chhattisgarh have been helplessly watching the deterioration of picturesque jungles which served as their only source of livelihood for several millennia.
Securing around 24,000 votes, the tribal chieftains and community elders successfully tested their strategic depth in recently-held Bhanupratappur by-election, they now desire to expand the purview of their political experiment across the tribal dominated Bastar and Sarguja. In such a case, both the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP may find themselves in a political quagmire with their poll arithmetic upended and preparedness disarrayed.
Asked what his experiment may prove to be a windfall for the BJP while damaging to his own party, the tribal veteran said that the tribal community has now stood up to proclaim its rise and doesn’t bother who will accrue benefit and who will bear loss. “We are fighting for the existence and dignity of tribes and recognition of their rights,” Netam claimed.