“Recently, In America, Narendra Modi said that he wanted to
decrease size of Government. But, what he and his party BJP are doing in
Gujarat is quite opposite. The Education budget of Gujarat government for the
year 2014-15 has provided 38.76 billion as assistance to non-government,
private secondary schools and only 1.89 billion has been given to government secondary
schools. Every year billion of rupees are showered to private players in
education field. This is not just privatization. It is worst than privatization.
Even in America, you won’t see this kind of loot of public exchequer,” I told Arundhati
Mundlay, political advisor in American consulate General, Mumbai who along with
an American diplomat Rishi Kappor came to meet me on 8 October, 2015. They were
eager to know about political scenario of Gujarat in the backdrop of Patidar reservation
agitation.
I categorically told Americans that present patidar agitation
is product of wrong policies of Mr. Narendra Modi and credit must be given to
his ‘development model’ of Gujarat. During last two decades both Narendra Modi
and Anandi Patel have jointly ruined economy of Gujarat in general and education
in particular. The youth is frustrated. They are not getting jobs and their
anger is systematically being diverted against ‘reservation.’
Expressing my views on patidar agitation I told them that though
this agitation is meaningless, absurd and violent, its aims and objectives are
plausible. A community which has given chief minister, half of the ministers of
state cabinet, more than hundred billionaires, more than ten thousand
millionaires, and an army of NRIs, industrialists, merchants and traders want reservation
in government jobs. It may look ridiculous if we ignore second part of their slogan.
First, they say, give us reservation and then they say, if we are not given, abolish
reservation.
In fact, Americans are not concerned about reasonability of
patidar agitation. They are concerned about investment climate in Gujarat and
possible fall out of the agitation. They want to know how fragile the peace
process is and how effective the Government intervention can be. They are also
curious about retaliation of OBC, SC and ST. They met many people including
congress and BJP leaders. Narendra Modi must be worried. His rhetoric in
America might have produced something different he may not like to imagine.
