Srinagar: Several groups of the Gujjar and Bakerwal communities formed a joint action committee (JAC) on Friday against the “dilution” and inclusion of Pahari community in the Schedule Tribe (ST) status, stating that they will march from North Kashmir’s Baramulla to Jammu’s Kathua district on November 4 in order to create awareness among their people across J&K.
The JAC rejected the report of the J&K Commission on socially and educationally Backward Classes, headed by retired Justice GD Sharma, which has recommended reservation for the Pahari-speaking people of the Union Territory (UT) and demanded the reconstitution of the Commission claiming that it lacks members from ST, Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Classes and argued that “upper-caste Muslims and Hindus cannot do justice with marginalised sections of society”.
“The recent report of Justice GD Sharma Commission made a mockery of the social justice by including those groups and communities in the proposed Schedule Tribe list who have been rulers in past and are economically as well as socially better off,” Talib Hussain, a tribal activist and youth president of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) tribal wing said during a presser in Srinagar.
The JAC also sought proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006. JAC spokesperson Talib Hussain, a tribal activist and youth president of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) tribal wing, said that the march is expected to raise awareness among tribal communities in far-flung areas against the “dilution” of ST status.
The nomadic communities of Gujjar Bakerwals were notified as ST in the erstwhile state of J&K in 1991 after decades of struggle who are protesting since Union home minister Amit Shah announced reservation for Paharis at a public rally in Rajouri, Baramulla earlier this month.
The Gujjars and Bakerwals believe that the Paharis have higher social status and also control the economic activities in the region. Moreover, the Delimitation exercise reserved nine assembly seats for the ST population for the first time. Apart from all three assembly seats of Poonch, two out of five in Rajouri, one each in Reasi, Anantnag, Ganderbal and Bandipore districts were reserved for STs.
“They are neither backward nor poor and have no trait to be notified as a tribe. A group of religions with a complex caste structure cannot be designated as a tribe,” the JAC said in a statement.
Hussain also questioned the government’s “intentions” to call a heterogeneous group of communities an ethnic group, especially the Paharis, who, the tribal activist said, are culturally, religiously and linguistically a “diverse group”.
“How can a Syed be ethnically the same as a Brahmin? Syeds claim that they came here from Saudi Arabia. Therefore, they cannot be the same as tribals, who live in Pir Panjal and Baramulla or Kupwara,” Hussain added.
The committee also alleged that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government is “politicising the issue of reservation for the sake of votes”.
Gujjars are an old tribe and nomadic in nature. In Jammu and Kashmir, Gujjars exist almost everywhere and they are mostly into animal husbandry. They are the main milk producers and have not changed much over the centuries. They are entirely Muslim. Whereas Paharis are mostly concentrated in Rajouri, Poonch, Baramulla and Kupwara, they have mixed faiths and, unlike Gujjars, they have their own social stratification with a well-defined caste system within them. They are Syed’, Mahajans’, Rajputs’ and are into agriculture and other activities as is the norm in the plains of Jammu and Kashmir
Pertinently, the J&K administration recently added 15 new categories to the list of social castes.
The JAC joint action committee included members of several groups, including Gujjar-Bakerwal Conference Jammu Kashmir, Gujjar-Bakerwal Youth Welfare Conference, All Tribal Coordination Committee, International Gujjar Mahasabha and Gujjar-Bakerwal Student Union and elected representatives and activists.