Sorry for the long silence, but I was too busy with either travelling or going out with friends in India. Now I am home, I am tired and slightly disorientated. It is an incredible difference that excists between both India and the Netherlands, and only now I realize it. Tomorrow I will go to a Genesis concert, I hope my mind will be ready for that.
From the Hindustan Times:
The Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan, demanding their community's inclusion in the list of scheduled tribes (ST), claimed six more lives on Thursday, taking the total death toll to 22 since the stir began three days ago.
The violence has spread to 21 of the state’s 31 districts. There were signs it could escalate further after the Meena community threatened to counter the agitating Gujjars. They warned Gujjar leaders they would act if the stir was not withdrawn by Friday.
The Meenas, the largest scheduled tribe in the state, fear that if the Gujjar's demand is met, their community's share of the benefits accruing from their ST status, would be reduced. The STs currently have 12 per cent reservations in jobs and educational institutions.
The Gujjars are at present in the OBC category.
Meanwhile, state government representatives and leaders of the Gujjar Sangharsh Samiti (GSS), which is leading the agitation, held a second round of talks in Jaipur on Thursday, which remained inconclusive. A third round of negotiations had also begun late on Thursday.
The first round had been held in Dausa on Wednesday. The GSS leaders were escorted to Jaipur under the army’s protection. Earlier, as protests continued across the state, police opened fire in eight places to check rampaging Gujjar mobs.
Four people, part of a violent crowd, were killed in Boli town of Sawai Madhopur district, 150 km east of Jaipur. Two other deaths were reported from Kotputli and Bayana. About a dozen people were injured.
Additional DGP (Law and Order) Kanhaiya Lal said that the police opened fire in Boli when a mob turned violent and surrounded a police station. “Four persons died in the incident,” he confirmed.
Defending the police action, state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria, said: “We will do everything to maintain law and order. Counting the number of dead will not solve the problem. In the 60-year-old history of Rajasthan, did you ever see courts, government offices, records, police stations and schools burning?”
The army was called out in Kota, Sawai Madhopur, Alwar and Karauli districts to restore law and order. The Jaipur-Delhi highway was also already handed over to the army, following violence near Kotputli on Wednesday night.
Several other districts too witnessed violent clashes between the police and the Gujjars, who tried to shut down markets in reply to a bandh call given by the GSS.
By late Thursday evening, reports said that the Gujjar agitation had spread to Delhi and the National Capital Region, including Gurgaon in Haryana and Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
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Personally I am not noticing any of the voilences. Only on wednesday I heard a mob chanting on the streets, that was about it. My accessways for travelling to the east have been blocked however now. I could go to the south, but in Kota (one of my stations then) there are also some riots. I think I`ll just go to the bus station on monday morning and see what drives and what does not. I`m not really disappointed since I think the Gujjar probably have a valid point in their demonstrations. I`m not really afraid of the mobs, but when I`ll be travelling I`ll be travelling in state buses. And currently the Gujjar hate the state. So the bus will burn and I`ll be in the middle of nowhere. They`ll probably offer me a cup of tea in compensation.
India is a big country with more than 1 billion people, so I guess some voilence in the neighbourhood could be expected. The following article was in the dutch newspapers, and was pretty close to home (Jaipur). I looked up the english one from the bbc website:
PS: Travelling along the Jaipur-Agra road is not in my travelling plan, so don`t worry :)
Riots over Indian tribal quotas
At least seven people have been killed in violent clashes in India's Rajasthan state over the government's affirmative action plans, officials say.
Police fired on protesters from the nomadic Gujjar tribe who had blocked a key national highway near Delhi.
At least one of those killed is believed to be a policeman.
The Gujjars are demanding that they be included in an affirmative action quota which would give them access to government jobs and other benefits.
Police say they opened fire after tens of thousands of Gujjar protesters turned violent. Protesters said police shot at unarmed crowds.
'More killed'
Protesters began their action on Monday night, blocking a key highway which connects the city of Jaipur with the tourist destination of Agra where the Taj Mahal is located.
Police have confirmed only three deaths, including one of a policeman.
But witnesses and local officials in Dausa district where the violence took place say more than double than that number were killed.
A senior police officer told the BBC he suspected that at least half a dozen more people had been killed in the clashes and that protesters were holding six bodies, including those of two policemen.
"The police first tried to negotiate with the protesters," HK Dahmor, chief of administration of Dausa district, told the AFP news agency.
"When the protesters did not budge, the police tried to physically move them from the spot which sparked the clashes."
A Gujjar community leader, Avinash Badana, told India's state-run Doordarshan channel that the police had fired on "unarmed people".
Correspondents say the situation is still very tense and extra police have been rushed to the area.
The state administration is holding an emergency meeting and soldiers are being sent to the area to try to keep the peace.
Influential
The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says the Gujjars are a large and politically-influential nomadic tribe spread across north India.
They are demanding that they be categorised as an official tribe so that they may benefit from affirmative action quotas which will give them access to government jobs as well as places in state-supported schools and colleges, he says.
Our correspondent says the issue of affirmative action is a sensitive one in India with many poor communities arguing that it is the only way millions of under-privileged people can benefit from India's economic boom.
But those opposed to it say it is a cynical move by politicians to gain more votes from politically influential communities who make up a large percentage of the country's population.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/6700321.stm
