Hardik Patel is an immature and ill-informed person and has absolutely no idea as to why there is unemployment among patels in general and Gujarati in particular. He has garnered support of his community purely on emotive issue rather than looking at the root cause of unemployment among his community or for that matter among Gujarati youth in particular. Even if patels are accorded OBC status it is not going to help solve the problem of unemployment because there are only handful of govt jobs in Gujarat. As regards admission to educational institutions still large number of seats go unfilled.
There are basically four main reasons why unemployment rate is high among Gujarati youth.
- Inability of Gujarati youth to crack competitive exams
- Lack of proficiency in English
- Lack of soft skills especially communications skills and
- Lack of mobility
Time has now come to have a relook at the reservation policy so as to include economic criteria i.e. to give reservation for economically poor candidates from communities which are not already in reservation list be it from any religion or caste subject of course to the overall reservation limit of 50% set by the Supreme Court of India. If it exceeds 50% without doubt it will be struck down by Supreme Court.
As regards Patels specifically, I do not think majority of Patels want themselves to be called as backward class.
Patels are very well to do and dominant community in Gujarat. The reasons are:
Patels are largest agril land owners in Gujarat
Maximum doctors in Gujarat are Patels
Maximum engineers in Gujarat are Patels
Maximum number of industrialists/small businesses belong to Patels
Maximum of diamond merchants in Surat are Patels
Maximum politicians belong to Patel community
Maximum Gujarat chief ministers and other ministers have been Patels
Heads of statutory and public bodies posts in Gujarat have been/are being held by Patels
Maximum state govt employees/officers are Patels
So on what kind of social equity justice basis that Hardik is seeking reservation for patidars in Gujarat? No wonder political parties are taking him for a ride and in turn he is hoodwinking his community. If patidars are promised reservations quota within the ceiling of 50% which means halving of OBCs list which the OBCs are not going take lying down. If that were to happen one can expect the kind of anti-reservation stir violence reminiscent of mid 1980s. I do not think Gujarat wants that peace to be disturbed however check it out for yourself on 18 December.
BIO-data of Hasmukh Vasava
Hasmukh Vasava (58) a former senior banker and presently a member of senior management team of Multinational Corporation at London, is political analyst and freelancer. He regularly writes in social media expressing his views on variety of topics. He hails from a tribal community in Gujarat and is considered an authority on reservations matters having dealt with the subject extensively during his tenure with the premier public sector bank in India.
