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Protest for More University Seats Leaves 41 Dead
in India
By
Shailaja Neelakantan
Issue
cover-dated May 31, 2008
New Delhi — A violent protest by an
Indian caste group called the Gujjars, demanding a change of
constitutional status that would give it access to more university
seats and jobs, claimed two more victims in the northwestern
Indian state of Rajasthan on Friday, bringing the total death
toll during the eight-day-old protest to 41, The Times of India
reported.
The incident — which is expected to
lead to an even stronger agitation and more violence — occurred
just as the Gujjars and the government had agreed on talks to
resolve the issue.
Officials say the two agitators were
killed on Friday when police officers fired on a mob of 7,000
people attacking them from the top of a hill. Members of the
caste group, however, say the firing was unprovoked. This round
of protests is the second in less than a year.
The Gujjars are a semi-nomadic ethnic
group of cattle herders and farmers from Rajasthan and other
northern Indian states. They are demanding that their status
be changed from “other backward classes” to “scheduled tribes,”
the most economically and educationally disadvantaged of India’s
ethnic groups. The Gujjars, who compose 8 percent of Rajasthan’s
population, say they cannot compete with other groups classified
as “backward classes” from Rajasthan who have become more prosperous
thanks to land reforms.
The Indian government reserves 27 percent
of seats in all public higher-education institutions for “other
backward classes” and 22.5 percent of university seats for “scheduled
castes and tribes,” Indians once known as “Untouchables” who
have suffered the most under the caste system.
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