Hardik’s indefinite fast demanding reservation and farm loan waiver continues under strict policing in Gujarat... Read More

(This story originally appeared in on Aug 27, 2018)



(This story was originally published in The Economic Times on 28/08/2018)

The boy who had sat on a sudden fast three years back at GMDC Ground in Ahmedabad sending the law and order of the city into a tailspin and the one who holds the indefinite fast today are two different persons.

For the former, the then Chief Minister of the state had sent police to arrest him and for the latter, the Chief Minister of another state sent a rakhi through a senior member of her party and several other political parties extend support.

If the former was a youth, who had emerged as the face of Patidar angst and at best could be described as being rough on the edges, the latter is a deeply political being almost astute for his twenty-five years.

It therefore comes as no surprise that apart from Congress, other political parties from all across the opposition spectrum are now extending olive branches to Hardik Patel . The fasting Patel however has evoked only a cautious response from his community this time around.

The apparent contradiction gets starker on the face of the trajectory of Hardik Patel, whose open dalliance with Congress ahead of Assembly election in Gujarat and Congress’s reciprocal induction of many of his colleagues had yielded rich dividends for the party starved of a good electoral show in Gujarat.

“The movements throw up leaders and this is no exception,” said Purvin Patel, a member of the Sardar Patel Group (SPG) the parent body that gave rise to Hardik’s Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS). “Hardik has thus emerged as a political product of the movement,” he added.

But for his years, Hardik’s rise has been meteoric and rather spectacular. While he was mobilising people across the state before August 2015, the mega show of Patel power in Ahmedabad had seen him being less than steady a boy in leading the agitation beginning from public altercations with SPG leader Lalji Patel to sudden decision of fasting and insisting on an audience with the then Chief Minister at the GMDC ground itself.

But things changed soon after his arrest in October that year. At the community level, while Hardik fast became the face of Patidar ire, the boy himself was transformed into a surprisingly smart man by the time he came out in July 2016 only to be banished from the state for six months.

HIs forced absence from the field did erode his grip over PAAS in some way with the once unified body steadily withering into fratricidal factionalism with some of his more visible members even striking deals with BJP, but upon return, Hardik hardened his anti-government stand and reached out to the community in a big way at the grassroots level once again and the passion he whipped up saw Congress inducting some of his colleagues in the party and fielding them in Assembly election last year. Being under age, Hardik however had to make do with the attention showered on him.

Not merely restricting his politics to reservation alone, Hardik reached out to the farmers and youth and his extensive outreach across villages in Saurashtra gave him adequate platform to become a rallying point for the people disenchanted with the government.

Unsurprisingly therefore Hardik’s indefinite fast demanding reservation and farm loan waiver continues under strict policing in Gujarat while its shadow extends much beyond the state, even upto West Bengal, the other end of the country.

