Jaipur: On June 16, the Delhi-Mumbai railway tracks in Rajasthan’s Sawai Madhopur district became an unlikely protest site. A large number of men and women from the Meena community, dressed in colourful traditional attire, stood over the railway tracks and danced to the tune of folk songs being played out from DJs.

As train services remained disrupted due to the protest, police personnel from the local Wazirpur police station tried to engage with the crowds, who came from the Mahswa village in neighbouring Karauli district.

Finally, after an hour, they managed to clear the railway tracks, and an FIR was registered for the disruption. After being dispersed by the police, the protesters continued on their way to the nearby Khandip village in Sawai Madhopur, where a massive dharna by the Meena community has been going on since June 5.

The dharna at Khandip by the Meena community, and a counter-movement at the Panchana dam in Karauli district by the Gurjar community have turned into an impasse with far-reaching political and social implications in eastern Rajasthan. In 2007-08, the belt had seen violent clashes between the two communities in the wake of the Gurjar agitation for reservation.

Back then, the Meena community, which has been accorded Scheduled Tribe status in Rajasthan and the Gurjar community, which was demanding the same status, had come to loggerheads, leading to loss of several lives.

A tug of war over irrigation water from the Panchana dam

At the centre of the present dispute is the claim – arising from both the Meena and Gurjar communities – over the waters of the Panchana dam, built across the basin of the river Gambhir in Karauli district.

Under the Panchana Dam Irrigation Project, water is available to be released to canals under the command area (water-using region) in the Karauli and Sawai Madhopur districts. This would provide water to 35 villages – predominantly populated by the Meena community – and irrigate 9,985 hectares of lands twice a year.

But despite a Rajasthan high court direction, the state government has not been able to release water from the dam to the command area due to opposition from the Gurjar community.

While the Meena community is camping in Khandip, demanding that water from Panchana dam be immediately released, the Gurjar community has made the dam itself the site to record its dissent, by not allowing the water to be released.

A meeting of the Gurjar community in Devlen Mod, Karauli district. Photo by arrangement

The main demand of the Gurjar community is that the 39 predominantly Gurjar villages situated in the catchment area (rainwater collection area), that don’t fall under its command area, must have the first right over irrigation water from it. This demand, the community says, arises because the Panchana dam was built on land acquired from the residents of these 35 villages.

“While the need for water is omnipresent, the people whose lands have gone need to be given water on priority along with 360 villages living on a stark, dry riverbed that also need water. Thereafter, we have no other objections. The peaceful lockdown of water from the Panchana dam will go on until villages in the catchment area of the dam don’t get the water,” Gurjar leader Vijay Bainsla told The Wire.

On June 18, Bainsla, son of the late Colonel Kirori Singh Bainsla who spearheaded the Gurjar reservation movement in Rajasthan, was part of a massive meeting of the Gurjar community in Karauli’s Devlen Mod. The gathering extended solidarity to villages in the catchment area that have stopped the water from being released to the command area.

Bainsla, who is also........

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