Abject surrender

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
As the smoke from the horrid caste fire clears over Haryana, it is becoming apparent that blackmailers can hold the BJP government to ransom and hope to have their demands met. What the state experienced over the weekend was an abject surrender of all forms of authority, political as well as administrative. The security establishment was not up to even defending itself; all it did was to abandon posts. What finally calmed the raging Jats was the acceptance of their demands in toto at the Delhi Durbar, even if the very feasibility of the OBC reservation is something no one can vouch for. If this is the kind of surrender the government had to accept, why was the state allowed to burn for two days and nights?
No one can help recall the miserable baptism the Khattar government had in the Rampal episode. This time the scale was incomparably larger, and so was the disaster. Signal came from the Centre it had ‘taken control’ of the state. It is anyone’s guess what it meant by ‘control’. The constant monitoring of the affairs of the state — from cow politics to law and order — has sent out the message the Chief Minister is weak. Leave alone the state, he could not control his Kurukshetra MP, who added fuel to the fire. The state cannot continue to suffer this. The top BJP leadership has to take a long look at Mr Khattar, and then either give him full authority, or find a replacement.
The Jat leadership, on its part, has to be squarely blamed for violating every notion of a law-abiding, civilised society. It was naked greed and vengeance, bordering on schizophrenia, on display. The Congress too contributed its bit to the mayhem. It definitely sat back gleefully as the state burnt, when it should have worked day and night to tame the unruly Jats. It has been an astounding betrayal of the people of Haryana by their political leadership. A simple ‘law and order failure’ theory cannot explain the complete political, governance, and social disaster this has been.
 
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