Gujarat's upper-caste Patels want lower-caste benefits

At stake in the unconventional class struggle is access to millions of government jobs and free college places allocated to lower castes under an affirmative action system. Photo / Greg Bowker

In the reverse of the usual desire for upward mobility, young people from an Indian caste long regarded as privileged have been staging violent protests as they clamour for a downgrade to "backward" status.

The agitation by the Patels has so shaken the authorities in Gujarat - the home state that they share with Prime Minister Narendra Modi - that they have been rounding up key organisers.

Among those detained and charged was Varun Patel, a protest leader. The movement's firebrand champion Hardik Patel, a 22-year-old farmer's son already in jail, lost a new court challenge to squash charges that he was plotting to overthrow the state.

At stake in the unconventional class struggle is access to millions of government jobs and free college places allocated to lower castes under an affirmative action system.

Up to 50 per cent of such positions are ring-fenced for Dalits (previously known as the "untouchables"), tribal peoples and social groupings designated together as "other backward classes" (OBCs), whose ranks include Modi, a tea-seller's son.

By contrast, the Patels - the family name of the Patider caste - are traditional landowners who over the years gained important roles in politics and commerce in Gujarat.

But as the cost of education soars and land-holdings have been divided into smaller parcels, a new generation of Patels claim that they are suffering discrimination by their exclusion from jobs and college places. Their demands of the Government are two-pronged: either end the reservation system - a move that would be electoral suicide - or reclassify them as OBCs. "If you do not give us our right, we will snatch it," Hardik Patel declared at one rally.

In recent days, the police have rounded up leaders of protests that previously brought the commercial capital of Ahmedabad to a standstill and have ended in at least 10 deaths.

As tensions deepened last week, five men were arrested with a can of petrol after threatening self-immolation if Hardik Patel was not released, while other Patels even threatened to convert religion to change their caste.

Following the recent raids, Harikesh Patel, 24, a businessman's son, said the struggle would continue. "The Patels may once have been rich, but many are becoming poor," he said. "We need our share of the reservation quotas."

Gujarat's OBCs give short shrift to such claims. "We will not let the Patel agitation succeed in snatching away the quotas which are meant for us," said Alpesh Thakor, 25, who has organised counter-protests by communities that receive benefits.

He contended that the real motivation for the Patels was a desire to maintain their grip on privilege.

The showdown reflects the ingrained influence of India's caste system. But it is also intimately tied up the no-holds-barred cut and thrust of 21st century politics in the world's largest democracy as politicians consolidate their support among so-called "vote banks".

Aides from Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have been busy working behind the scenes with Britain's Patel community to avoid any embarrassing protests when he They denounced police brutality but "overwhelmingly" decided to accord Modi a "grand welcome" when he arrives in London, said Priti Patel, who has played a key role in organising the trip.