Ahead of India election, tension brews in Kashmir over tribal caste quotas

A new law granting tribal status to Paharis has angered the Gujjars and Bakarwals who fear losing constitutional rights — opening up caste divisions in an already tense region.

Tral, Indian-administered Kashmir – Like many people from his nomadic tribal community, Bashir Ahmed Gujjar, a 70-year-old shepherd, never went to school.

Poor and often on the move, formal education was not an option.

Things changed for the Gujjars, his community, after the government introduced quotas for what are known in India as Scheduled Tribes (STs), in state-run educational institutions and government jobs in 1991 as part of an affirmative action programme for historically marginalised groups. Gujjars were included in the beneficiaries.

Families decided to send their children to school and college. “My children, my nieces and nephews have all been fortunate enough to have received education because of the ST status bestowed on us by the government,” Bashir told Al Jazeera at his home in the region’s Pulwama district. He said his niece now works as a teacher in a government school in Tral because of the job quotas that Gujjars can avail.

Now, he fears the next generation of his community could lose out on those gains of the past three decades.

Earlier this month on February 6, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government passed a legal amendment to include another community, the Paharis, within the list of STs. At the time, federal Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said the law would not erode the education and job quotas currently available for existing tribes — but would add additional quotas for new communities.

But the government is yet to explain how it plans to do that, leading to fears among the Gujjars and Bakarwals, two major