Gujarat Elections: As Political Parties Focus on Patidars, Dalits, OBCs, Ignored Tribals are Yet to Get Dues

With the emergence three young leaders (Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakore and Jignesh Mevani), three socio-economic communities in Gujarat – Patidars, OBCs and Dalits – have taken a centre stage in the upcoming assembly elections in the state. But a marginalised community (Adivasis or tribals), which accounts for around 15% of the state’s total electorates, still has no representation and is faceless.

As a result, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress have been vehemently trying to woo voters of all these three communities but this section of the society appears to be ignored. The approximate vote percentage in Gujarat for Patidars is 12.5 %, OBCs is 40%, Thakores 20%, Dalits 7%, Schedule Tribes 15% and others, including Muslims, comprise about 7%.

After the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel launched an agitation for reservation, he emerged as a strong young Patidar leader. A large number of Patidars from across the state had gathered to support Hardik and he instantly he rose to prominance.

During the Patidar agitation, another leader stole the limelight for raising his voice against the Patidars’ demand for reservation. He is Alpesh Thakore, who is also the chief of Gujarat Kshatriya-Thakore Sena (GKTS). The 40-year old became the OBC Ekta Manch leader and has been working towards the upliftment of the OBC community.

He formally joined the Congress recently after the grand-old party agreed to meet the demands of the community. It is being speculated that Alpesh might be given a few seats by the Congress to contest in the election.

The western state witnessed huge protest in 2016, when Dalit men were attacked by a group of cow vigilantes at Una village in Saurashtra. Jignesh Mevani held a protest march by the name Dalit Asmita Yatra from Una to Ahmedabad which culminated on August 15, 2016 and was attended by some 20,000 Dalits, including Dalit women, who took a pledge to give up their traditional jobs of removing cow carcasses.

Jignesh emerged as a promising Dalit leader who demanded land for the Dalits. He became the Convener of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch and has assured to support the Congress party in the upcoming assembly polls. The Congress too has been supportive.

Jignesh has denied joining the Congress; however, after Congress agreed to his demands for the Dalit community, he agreed to support the party.

So, the tribals now also feel that they too need a strong leader who could represent them like Hardik, Alpesh and Jignesh. There are so many deep-rooted issues that the community faces, but they do not have anyone to look up to who could help them in raising their concerns at the state level.

The tribals, as per the last election analysis and population census, have a sway on as many as 27 seats out of the total of 182 seats in Gujarat Assembly. The 2012 election results gave 16 seats out of the 27 tribal dominated seats to Congress, which is about 60% success rate for the Congress for these specific seats. But despite being a good vote bank, the tribals feel that they have not been given their rightful dues.

The tribes have not been granted land, which has forced them to farm on forestland. This has led to forestland being encroached upon by many in absence of legal paperwork. They are not equipped to carry on paperwork due to poor literacy levels.

Most of the tribals do not even have a Scheduled Tribes Certificate making it all the more difficult for them to fetch jobs or apply for jobs under the Scheduled Tribes quota. There are 29 notified Scheduled Tribes in the state.

It would be interesting to see what role will the tribal community play in the upcoming elections, which will be held in two phases on December 9 and 14. At present, there is a lot of unrest among the Adivasis as the benefits of their reservation is allegedly being misused by the non-Adivasi communities.

But they certainly can make or mar the chances of candidate at least in 27 constituencies if they vote en masse.

The Kathodi, Kotwalia, Padhars, Siddis and Kolghas tribes of Gujarat have been recognized as primitive tribes. The population of primitive groups is spreaded over 12 districts, viz. Surat, Valsad, Dangs, Bharuch, Sabarkantha, Ahmedabad, Surendranagar, Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Amreli and Jamnagar.

Among the schedule tribes of Gujarat state, the ‘Kotwalia’ tribe is known as ‘Vitolia’ or ‘Vansfodia’ (Vans-Bamboo, fodia those who break the bamboos), which means the tribal, who break the bamboos. Traditionally, they have been occupationally engaged in making big baskets, containers, etc. from bamboo. Kotwalia tribes are solely dependent on the bamboo industry. They have been engaged in making several items such as baskets, bags, containers, brooms, supadas and other useful items of household use.

“Educationally, the Kotwalias are very backward. They do not have their own language or dialects; but follow the language or dialects of the people residing around them. Kotwalia tribes are illiterate. Their literary rate is about 26%. Almost all of them are landless since ages,” says Arunbhai B Patel of Tribal Research and Training Institute, Gujarat Vidyapith, says in one of his research papers that was published in a journal (Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge) in April 2005.

Recent findings of three different studies on the status of “malnutrition in Gujarat” show that malnutrition among children of the state – especially those living in the tribal belt – is as high as 94 percent.

“A sample survey involving 849 children in 20 villages of Dediapada taluka of Narmada district, where 96 percent of the population is tribal, shows that the malnutrition levels are as high as 94 percent in children in age group of 5-15 years,” said Gagan Bihari Sahu, associate professor at the Centre for Social Studies (CSS) – a Surat-based autonomous social science research institute supported Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) as well as Government of Gujarat, that undertook the survey in these villages.

However, Sahu cautioned against assuming the same findings from Dediapada, where the average malnutrition levels for children (of all age groups) stood at 59 percent.

According to Sahu, children in this region were not using the “mid-day meal programme” and that the poor quality of aanganwadis and lack of education were factors contributing to the poor malnutrition levels.

“Loss of traditional food resources by way of ecological change or environmental degradation have considerable influence on the dietary pattern and have also contributed to the falling levels of nutrition,” he added.