Leaders of the Jat community reached a deal late with the government on Monday to end protests that paralysed Haryana state and cut water supplies to Delhi’s 20 million residents, after winning a pledge of more government jobs.
A Jat leader said protesters had reached a deal with state and federal leaders to end their mobilisation, in which 16 people have been killed and more than 150 injured.
“The government has promised to meet our demands and we have promised our full cooperation,” Ramesh Dalal, convener of the Jat Arakshan Andolan (Jat Reservation Movement), said.
Thousands of troops were deployed to quell the protests, which had flared again on Monday near Sonipat when a freight train was torched. In neighbouring Rajasthan, Jats attacked and burned buses.
Disruption has been huge, with 850 trains cancelled, 500 factories closed and business losses estimated at as much as $5bn by one regional lobby group.
Dalal said he had appealed to the entire Jat community, which makes up a quarter of the population of Haryana, to return home. A senior officer said state police still faced a challenge to maintain law and order.
The army earlier on Monday retook control of a canal that supplies three-fifths of the capital’s water. Water was expected to reach the metropolis by early Tuesday.
Order slowly returns
The Haryana government put the death toll at 16 while police said earlier that there were tensions in some towns as Jats tried to prevent other communities from reopening their shops.
Many Jats, who number more than 80m across north India, are farmers whose livelihoods have suffered as families divide farms among their children. Two years of drought have harmed crops, and they are also missing out on urban jobs.
Their demands for government jobs and student places are based on affirmative action policies that are typically reserved for deprived groups.
The Supreme Court has previously struck down an attempt to classify the Jats as an Other Backward Caste, or OBC, which would formally entitle them to a quota of jobs and student places.
Although many of the state’s chief ministers have been Jats, the current minister is not. Commentators have faulted him and other BJP leaders for failing to read the social mood and devoting too much attention to issues like cow protection that are a core part of the party’s pro-Hindu agenda.