Respected Mr. Hardik Patel,
I, Dip Joshi, am a common citizen of Gujarat... I would like to make it clear right at the beginning that reservations are something I don't support... I think that caste based reservation increase caste difference rather than remove them as was the original intention... I have been a firm believer that reservation should only be given to people with economically weak background... However over the last 60 years it was used as a political tool...
Now coming back to the original topic... I did not know who you were until a few days ago... And I have a feeling I will be seeing a lot more of you now... I have read that your organisation, Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), came into existence less than a month ago... I believe you think that the Patidar community is losing out in the development race because of reservation quota...
I completely agree with you.... Reservations are the problem... One thing I don't understand is, if you think reservations are a problem, why are you asking for it...???
In a television interview, you said that the Government should either give reservation to the patidars or remove reservation all together...
On one hand you are saying that reservation causes problems and on the other hand you are demanding it too... If the Patidar community gets reservations, it will still be a problem for the rest of the citizens.. And the Patidar community will go from being against the problem to being a part of it... As someone who is a strong supporter of the Patidar community, why are you letting this happen to the reputation of the community...???
You claim to be fighting for Youth.. but how, by demanding reservation..???
What a joke..!!!
You should help Patel Youth in finding more opportunities instead of spreading such a disease further in the society...
I was also curious about a few thing that I saw during your rally... In a state where majority of your audience speaks in Gujarati, your speech was completely in Hindi... Who was your real audience..???
Your speech had reference about naxalism, terrorism, farmer suicide, development etc... What all this topic have to do with the development of your community...???
Your yesterday’s speech where you were showing disrespect to Gujarat CM Anandiben and our PM Narendra Modi but showing immense support for Arvind Kejriwal & Nitish Kumar is enough reason for me to stay away from any such movement... Because its not a movement, but a political propaganda for self promotion... Tell me, how is Nitish Kumar related to Patel community reservation demand..??
By the way Nitish Kumar has declared you “Leader of youth”... Congratulations on that... But i firmly believe in Chanakya's quote : “Supporter of opportunist leaders can never be trusted”....
We have seen how, in the past, Kejriwal used youth of entire nation and fooled them... How he killed a sacred anti-corruption movement for his political gains... Media is interested in this story because they like such type of negativity and it helps in gaining TRP...
Anyways, coming back to what happened yesterday... You wanted to hold a rally to demand reservations for Patidar... It is your right to demand anything you want to from the Government as long as it is peaceful... Government told you that they would give you official permission to use the GMDC ground to hold your meeting and even permitted that you walk all the way to the government office from that place... The road blocks by your supporters caused a lot of inconvenience to a lot of people but the government still let you do it...
Now You got the ground... You got the permission for a rally right through the heart of the city... You even got thousands of police personnel to ensure that no one disrupted your rally and everything was peaceful....
But you were given permission to use the GMDC ground till 8 pm... No one questioned or stopped you from using it till that time... At 8pm, when the police asked you to vacate government property, why did you not agree..???
Why are there photos and videos of your fellow patidars shouting slogans and destroying public property..???
Doesn't the government have the right to ask you to move out after the permission expires..??
You refused to vacate and so the police arrested you and took you to the police station which had jurisdiction... You were let go after sometime... But while you were in the police station, your supporters burned a lot of private vehicles and buses which belong to the city transport department. They even destroyed a few shops...
I don't see how your supporters think any of these things will help their case... If they were angry at you being arrested, there are legal ways to go about it... If they were angry that they are not in the reserved category then also there is a pre-defined procedure to ask for it.... Government authorities decide if your community is eligible for reservation... There are set guidelines/checklists to do this....
Freedom of expression is a great thing to use but Government has the right to stop it when it clearly violates other citizen's freedom to live peacefully and feel safe....
It was also great to see people come in really expensive cars to rallies and then claim to be 'under priviledged'... As a lot of people have noted, a 'show of strength' to prove that you are one of the 'weaker castes' is ridiculously ironic... If the money spent in organizing this rally was used to help the poor families of your community, no one in the community would even need reservation....
And you claim to choose this path following the footsteps of Sardar Patel, Let me take a moment to remind what Sardar Patel had said addressing students at Gujarat Vidhyapeeth on 19th Feb 1939...
"One can take the path of revolution but revolution should not give a shock to the society...
There is no place of violation in revolution..."
I hope I have made my point... I have a feeling I will see you more often atleast till the 2017 elections in Gujarat... I hope you use your power to bring positive change in the country... Youth in India rarely get this chance, don't spoil it for the rest of us... Don't malign the reputation of your community/city/state....
If you ever take start a peaceful campaign to remove reservations, I will stand by you... For now, lets stop this and bring back normalcy to our city and state...
Here's to hoping for a more peaceful tomorrow...
Thank you..
- A Common Gujarati Citizen...
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