India deployed thousands of troops in a northern state on Sunday to quell angry protests that have severely hit Delhi water supplies, forced factories to close and killed 10 people.
Rioting and looting in Haryana by the Jats, a rural caste, is symptomatic of increasingly fierce competition for government jobs and educational openings in India, whose growing population is set to overtake China’s within a decade.
The latest unrest threatens to undermine Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s promise of better days to come for Indians who elected him in 2014 with the largest majority in three decades.
The federal government deployed 4,000 troops and 5,000 paramilitaries in a massive show of force, and ordered an end to the protests by Sunday night. Home minister Rajnath Singh met Jat leaders and offered to meet their demands.
In Bahadurgarh, on the road west from Delhi, a city with more than 20 million inhabitants, around 2,000 protesters occupied a highway intersection and stopped trucks. Shops in the town were closed.
"We are here to die," said Rajendra Ahlavat (59), a farmer and protest leader. "We will keep going until the government bows to our pressure. There is no way we will take back our demands."
– (Reuters)