At the very basic level this agitation is an outcome of the fact that distribution of state benefits is based, not on any justifiable criteria, but on the raw assertion of community power. The entire edifice of reservations in Rajasthan has been based on this premise. The inclusion of the Jats — a community powerful along many axes — in the OBC category is an example. This inclusion has led to an escalation in caste politics. It increased the stakes for the Gurjjars who have, in terms of representation, been marginalised in many different ways. On the one hand, Jats now dominate the OBC quota; on the other, Meenas, who dominate Rajasthan’s police and civil services, zealously guard the portals of the ST category.

But the stakes have increased for the Gurjjars recently for three reasons. Gurjjars, historically, have had comparatively little political clout in Rajasthan. There is the imminent danger that the only constituency where Gurjjars claimed to have some nominal representation, Dausa, is likely to be declared a reserved seat, depriving Gurjjars of what shards of political representation they have. To his credit, Sachin Pilot does not himself appear to have fanned these fires, but the shadow of complete political marginalisation hovers over the community. The agitation has taken a violent form precisely because the Gurjjars cannot rely on normal political clout the way Jats and Meenas do. Moreover, as political scientist Leela Ram Gurjjar has pointed out, two traditional Gurjjar sources of livelihood, husbandry and agriculture, are both increasingly precarious because of various forms of land alienation under way. But their educational backwardness makes the Gurjjars less equipped to take advantage of other livelihood opportunities. They have almost no representation in the higher police force and civil services. Third, the few educated Gurjjars, particularly those returning from the army (who were important in this agitation), have a heightened sense of alienation precisely because they more viscerally sense their claims will not be heard without an assertion of power.

In short, the agitation is a product of multiple absurdities by the state. It exposes the degree to which reservation has no connection with fairness, has created new forms of domination in the social justice garb, and that sends the message to every community: you better mobilise on community identity if you want to be heard. It is not a coincidence that just days before this agitation, there was a call for Rajputs in Rajasthan to mobilise as a single community to demand benefits from the state. This pattern is, in various forms, going to be repeated in many states: communities clamouring to be included in one category or the other, or for further sub-classification.

Our classifications have become absurd from the point of view of social justice. It is fatuous to think that there are some ‘objective’ facts of the matter that can determine why Meenas should be ST, but Gurjjars not. In fact the whole historical process by which communities like Meenas went from high caste, to “criminal tribe” in the British sense, to ST, is an object lesson in how the state has used identities for its own purposes. The only antidote is a politics of justice centred on a radically new paradigm of how we understand deprivation.

This agitation also exposes the fragility of the state in Rajasthan underneath its glossy veneer. In a prescient article in 1990, Iqbal Narain and P.C. Mathur noted: “The day when the placidity and civility of Rajasthan politics will be rocked by the power drive of the agricultural castes, while bound to happen, is difficult to predict.” That placidity and civility has long been eroding, though not simply by the power drive of agricultural castes. That civility was assaulted by the Hindutva brigade that has openly legitimised raw assertion in Rajasthan politics. Caste has always been salient in Rajasthan but there was often at least a semblance of civility and reciprocity. There used to be a joke about Bhairon Singh Shekhawat when he was chief minister: “If you wanted anything done you simply went to the leader of the opposition. The CM would not say no to him.” Whether true or not, this story was an acknowledgment that a cross-cutting dialogue was still possible. One of the precipitating factors in the recent crisis was that government did not consult relevant leaders who could have directed the agitation in a peaceful direction. And the BJP was presumptuous about its capacity to defuse it unilaterally.

Finally, no other state in the world has as much experience handling protests running into the thousands as the Indian state. Yet no other state refuses to learn from its experience. The two important lessons are: if you let resentments simmer, they will come home to roost. There is a kind of political laziness where we refuse to defuse agitations when it is still possible to do so. It is foolish to expect that the deployment of police power is a substitute for political dexterity. The second is that the organisation of our law and order machinery is still such that its deployment inevitably leads to deaths, whether in Nandigram or Dausa. Such incidents always cast doubt on the state’s capacity to handle large-scale social protest.

Unfortunately there is no sign that any political party will opt for a new paradigm of social justice. Both the Congress and the BJP in Rajasthan have played the same game. But conflicts of this kind — like that between MBCs and OBCs, or Malas and Maddigas in Andhra — have the potential to escalate all over the country. ‘Shining India’ needs a politics of inclusion. Unfortunately what passes as the politics of inclusion is a series of involuted collective narcissisms that has lost touch with a concept of shared citizenship.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi