Bharat Bandh: Effects seen in areas dominated by tribal, Dalit communities in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: Protesters blocked a goods train and roads as the daylong ‘Bharat Bandh’ on Wednesday, called by certain Dalit and Adivasi groups against the Supreme Court’s verdict on sub-classification of Scheduled Castes (SCs), evoked mixed reactions across Gujarat.

The effects of the bandh were clearly seen in regions dominated by tribal and Dalit communities in districts like Chhota Udepur, Narmada, Surendranagra, Sabarkantha, and Aravalli where markets in cities and semi-urban areas remained closed.

Protesters blocked a goods train in Wadhwan taluka of Surendranagar district and shouted slogans, with the police reaching the site to disperse the crowd.

Police managed to persuade the protesters to allow the train to ply. The train moved after a forced halt of around an hour and a half and went towards Bhavnagar, officials said.

Protesters at Bhiloda and Shamlaji in Aravalli district blocked roads. Several of them were detained in Patan and Aravali districts while trying to enforce the bandh, officials said.

Shops downed shutters in the main markets in Bhiloda and Shamlaji, with groups taking to the streets to hold demonstrations amid tight police presence.

Similarly, the impact of the bandh call was seen in the towns of Idar and Vijaynagar in the Sabarkantha district where markets, schools and colleges remained closed, with the authorities ordering heavy police deployment to maintain law and order.

Protesters from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities also held rallies.

Umarpada town in the Surat district wore a deserted look in the early afternoon as shops remained closed. In places like Kosamba in the district, representatives of the organisations that gave the bandh call approached shops and urged them to down shutters.

Shouting slogans, SC/ST organisations took out protest rallies in Vadodara.

In the Amraiwadi locality of Ahmedabad city, members of the Dalit community observed a sit-in and blocked a road.

Twenty-one organisations across the country have called for a Bharat Bandh on Wednesday against the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on quota. The organisations have said that it will harm the basic principles of reservation.

The top court on August 1 held that states are constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within the SCs (Scheduled Castes), which it said form a socially heterogeneous class, for granting reservation for the uplift of castes that are socially and educationally more backward among them.

The apex court, however, made it clear that states have to make the sub-classification based on “quantifiable and demonstrable data” of backwardness and representation in government jobs and not on “whims” and as a matter of “political expediency”.