Agitations and counter-agitations among the Scheduled Tribes (STs) over exclusion and inclusion of some of them in the reservation quota in northern Telangana turned violent and claimed two lives this weekend. Section 144 of CrPC was imposed in the entire agency area of Adilabad tribal belt on Saturday.
A rally held by Gonds, a dominant local tribespeople in the agency divisions of Adilabad, Asifabad and Utnoor, at Husnapur village, on Friday night triggered armed clashes and several vehicles were set on fire. Hundreds of houses and shops were ransacked and property was damaged. Two tribals were killed when a vehicle they were travelling hit a roadblock.
Additional police forces and paramilitary were sent to the area and stone pelting mobs were quelled with teargas shelling. Rival tribe activists had damaged the statues of their leaders by putting on them shoe garlands. The Gonds resorted to arson and destruction first and targeted the Lambada leaders and their properties. Later there was heavy retaliation from the other side.
Gonds are led by Sone Rao, grandson of legendary tribal leader Komram Bheem, who revolted against the then Seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan in late 1930s on payment of land revenue in agency areas. Bheem was killed by the Nizam’s police in 1940, but he was revered as a demi-god by the locals over the decades. Now, Sone Rao is leading the Gonds against Lambadas on the reservation issue.
The clashes between native adivasis and migrant Banjaras, also called Lambadas, have escalated into sporadic violence in dozens of villages on Telangana’s borders. The police are alarmed over the possible intervention by Maoists who are now dormant in these areas.
Currently, there is 6% reservation for STs in educational institutions and public employment in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. But, the benefits of reservations are grabbed by the dominant migrant tribe, Lambadas (they are Banjaras in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh). This has been questioned by local tribals: Gonds, Kolami and Koyas in northern Telangana.
There has been latent tension between the Lambadas and the non-Lambadas over the unfair distribution of the ST quota. All these years, the non-Lambadas have been demanding that the STs should be categorised into sub-groups, like A, B, C and D and that the Lambadas should be kept in the last sub-group.
The tension escalated after the TRS government in Telangana decided to increase the ST quota from 6% to 10% in view of their increased population share. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has moved a resolution to this effect along with a 12% quota to Muslims in the Assembly and sent it for the clearance of the Centre three months ago.
Currently, there is 6% reservation for STs in educational institutions and public employment in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
In the first week of November, non-Lambada tribes, including Gonds, Koyas and Chenchus (who are dominant in southern Telangana) held a rally in Hyderabad seeking exclusion of Lambadas from the list of STs. Then a fortnight later, All India Banjara Sangh led another massive rally in the city warning against any attempts to delete them from the ST list.
Numerically, Lambadas constitute 60% of the total STs in Telangana, around 44 lakh, while all other remaining native tribals account for the rest.
“We don’t want Lambadas in the ST list as they are dominant and powerful compared to most of non-Lambadas. Unless they are removed from the list, we cannot get justice in reservations. If removing is not possible immediately, please divide STs into four categories to protect us,” G. Nagesh, a Gond leader from Indravelli, told this newspaper over phone.
However, former Union minister Balram Naik, who organised the recent Lambada rally in Hyderabad, rejected the demand and said that any move to exclude Lambadas from ST list would be resisted. “We are not robbing any other tribes of their jobs or educational seats. Lambadas are STs in 12 states in India and we are the real STs,” he told this newspaper.
The state government is in a fix on the issue as any move on the categorisation of SCs and STs will require Constitutional sanction from Parliament.