Supreme Court order on quota: Bharat Bandh affects life in Bihar, Jharkhand, tribal belts

New Delhi/Patna, August 21

The daylong nationwide strike called by some Dalit and Adivasi groups against the Supreme Court’s verdict on the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes affected normal life in Bihar and Jharkhand as well as tribal areas of various states.

Police baton-charged and used water cannons on protesters in several districts of Bihar, including Patna, Dharbhanga and Begusarai, to remove rail and road blockades, while in Jharkhand and Odisha public transport services were partially affected.

The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.

The Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress said the government should consider the “legitimate demands” of the protesters sympathetically. However, BJP’s prominent tribal leader Faggan Singh Kulaste accused the opposition of politicising the Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue.

Twenty-one organisations across the country had called for the Bharat Bandh against the apex court’s order, which they said would harm the basic principles of reservation.

Public buses stayed off roads and schools remained closed in Jharkhand where the call for the bandh was backed by the state’s ruling JMM-Congress alliance. The Left parties too extended their support to the strike.

Protesters burnt tyres and put up blockades at various places in Ranchi. Rail and road communications were partially affected in Odisha.

The call for the strike evoked a mixed response in Chhattisgarh, barring its tribal-dominated areas. The strike had some impact in Gujarat’s tribal belts as well.

It had little impact on normal life in Uttar Pradesh as shops were open and it was business as usual in large parts of the state amid tight security arrangements.

The opposition BSP and SP extended their support to the bandh. BSP workers held a demonstration near Hazratganj, briefly affecting the traffic flow. The Bhim Army held protests in pockets of western Uttar Pradesh where it has a sizeable presence.

Other northern states, including Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, remained largely unaffected, barring a few places where markets remained closed and public transport services were partially affected.

Shops and other commercial establishments functioned normally in Punjab and Haryana as the police in both states made elaborate security arrangements to maintain law and order. The bandh had no impact in Assam.

The August 1 Supreme Court order held that states are constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within SCs, which form a socially heterogeneous class, for granting reservation for the uplift of castes that are socially and educationally more backward among them.