The Siege Of Sikandra

The mind of the Rajasthani Gujjar is the most misunderstood phenomenon

MANVENDRA SINGH BJP
Member of Parliament, Barmer

THIS TIME LAST year, it was Patoli village from where socioseismic waves shook Rajasthan like it hadn’t been in all its years as a state. And this year it is Sikandra, a little further to the east, but producing tremors of similar intensity and ripples of irreparable social damage. As with last year, this time around too there are bodies of agitators on display for all to see, and sear. As with last year, the Gujjar is completely unmindful of the heat and dust that rises with the sun every day. And what that does to the bodies of the dead. Simply because the dead are now symbols of what has to be reached, in order to fulfil the logic of this journey of redemption from rejection. The bodies are the trophies, and sustained rejection is the prime motivation for reaching where the dead have, decayed or otherwise. The sweet smell of paradise beckons, as it did for the score plus last year. More than three-dozen can smell it this year, so thinks the Gujjar.

In terms of the annual agitations this is, however, where the similarity ends. The leadership of the agitators has clearly learnt lessons from last year, and has changed its tactics even as it seems to reflect and repeat the same angst. The inertia of the State, however, gives the impression that all the lessons it learnt were those taught in colonial police field manuals in the early part of the 20th century. That is also not the case this year, for there is a new weapon being deployed, a new thought. It is another thing altogether that this new weapon can only operate in the way it is told by civil authorities trained in colonial tactics.

This year, for starters, the terrain chosen by the agitators is very different to that of the last disturbance. More on that later. Unlike the occupation of national highways last year, the focus of the Gujjar this time around has been railway lines. Highways have been disrupted this time too, but the focus of operations have been the crucial rail lines that link Delhi to major centres in Rajasthan and beyond, even to Mumbai. This spreads the message over a wider area, and disrupts more lives. Which is after all the prime objective of all agitations, so as to gain attention. But this time the attention has come in the form of the new weapon of the State, the Army.

Army mobilisation has been far swifter this year than the last time. In good Home Ministry terminology, many ‘columns’ have moved. Psychologically, the Army is the last resort of the State, the President’s own. So obviously when the Army is moved, so should the thought behind employing them. This is where the intellect of the civil authorities comes in, and, hence, the recourse to the classic siege tactic. The fear of the Army is being used to squeeze the strength out of the agitators. And that strength is dependent on that most basic combination of all — food and water. The deployment is such that it aims to choke the supplies from the centre of gravity of the agitation, Sikandra. The siege of Sikandra seeks to push the Gujjar into giving up through thirst and starvation. That this medieval tactic is being used in the 21st cent is an apt reflection of the inertia inbuilt in the DNA of the State. History and memory are clearly not strong points of the State.

In Rajasthani history, the most celebrated siege is that of the great Ranthambhor fort when Allaudin Khilji sought to subdue Hamir Chauhan, whose heroics won him the soubriquet Hamir Hatta, the stubborn. Soon after marriage, all Rajasthani couples are reminded about visiting Ranthambhor to offer prayers in the Ganesh temple at the opposite end to the entry into the fort. This is practiced today, into the 21st century. Ranthambhor is not very far from Sikandra, and Hamir’s epithet is not very different from the state of mind of the Gujjar agitator.

The mind of the Rajasthani Gujjar is what has remained the most misunderstood phenomenon. And unless that failing is rectified little progress can be made. The worship of Devnarayanji and recitation of some very moving Veer-Ras is the biggest difference between the Gujjar and those of other states. The tale of Devnarayanji’s romance, bravery and miracles lie at the core of Gujjar identity in Rajasthan. And then each Gujjar village will have its own collection of valour stored in the redolence of its Veer-Ras. Goose pimples are a certainty when the Veer-Ras is recited in traditional Rajasthani. Or when the pad of Devnarayanji is read with the scroll unfurled. Very moving tales that truly capture the spiritual and the martial aspects of the Gujjar psychology, and mindset.

In the agitating parts of Rajasthan, the Gujjar has tended to gravitate toward military service, failing which then the various police organisations. The absence of major land holding made life difficult for many mouths, and with grazing lands increasingly encroached upon by the State and its favoured types, cattle rearing too became an uneconomic activity. Memory, thus, drove many into the Army. So much so that one of three Victoria Cross winners from Rajasthan was a Gujjar. And that heritage comes in confrontation with an Army siege of Sikandra in 2008 AD! There couldn’t possibly be a greater irony than this. And it is for this reason that the siege cannot succeed.

All forces of the State tend to occupy lines of communication that they can control with ease. This is the basic tactic employed, by militaries as well as other organs of the State. They cannot leave the major arteries for the psychology of authority does not allow them to operate in areas of vulnerability. So what they take to be key roads and lanes will be controlled, or as the Home Ministry likes to declare, sealed. But little does the State realise that human settlements have a tendency to make their own lines of communication through centuries of grazing and foraging. Hooves and feet falling on sand have made an elaborate linkage of tracks that connect hamlets and villages in a manner the State cannot fathom. So while the Army may dominate the major roads and hope to squeeze and starve the Gujjar, he has his own lanes and paths to fall back on. And by trying to interdict these lanes the State would be stretching its manpower, and its own logistics. An impossible task, and now they can’t even rely on the dirty tactics of last year to achieve the interdiction.

So we now go back to the peculiarity of the terrain preferred for this year’s agitation vis-à-vis that of last year. The epicentre of last year’s agitation was in the areas where the Gujjar and Meena are neighbours. There was enough motivation since it is the Meena that the Gujjar seeks to emulate. So when the State could not interdict supplies to the agitators last year it turned to the neighbour, and had the Meena do the job. The Meena would, naturally, not want another entrant into the ranks of the reserved, and that motive was twisted to create a quasi-civil war. With male members out agitating, Gujjar families became vulnerable to the fury of the neighbour. Completely medieval but a tactic employed in 2007 AD! This time around the Gujjar does not face that same vulnerability for the Sikandra area doesn’t have a critical mass of neighbours motivated into disrupting supplies. The Gujjar ranks have enough soldiers in them to have done a reasonably efficient reconnaissance of the area so even with mobile networks jammed the terrain has been secured to keep supplies going. This has obviously been planned well in advance, with even a roster of villages that take turns to provide food and water!

Sociologists have a clever explanation in describing the condition of a community through ‘ritual hierarchy’. Over centuries the Gujjar has found no difference between him and the Meena neighbour in a ritual or hierarchical sense. But the Meena’s entry into the Scheduled Tribe category has resulted in a significant economic and political difference appearing between the two. Neighbour’s envy caused the agitation to begin from areas where the two live side-by-side but has now come to engulf wider areas. Ultimately what began as a political exercise can only be solved politically, for the State cannot be stretched beyond where it is already operating. •