Lessons from Gujarat Patel Riots

The state of Gujarat again, after a lull of few years, erupted in violence in the form of caste related riots last week. The Patels (Patidars, a mainly land owning caste in Gujarat) are agitating for reservation status under the leadership of a young but confused Mr. Hardik Patel. There are many lessons that we can learn from this past week events. I will discuss them one by one below.

Firstly, I above said that Mr. Hardik Patel is confused. I said it because his agitation for reservation status is based on wrong ideas. The real struggle in society is not between Patidars and other OBC caste or SC or ST or Open cateogry caste. The real struggle is not between Hindus or Muslims or Christians etc. The real struggle in not between Rich or Poor. The real struggle is between, the tax paying class of the society and the tax consuming class i.e., The Tax Payers and The Tax Consumers. Nineteenth century American political philosopher John C. Calhoun identified this struggle very clearly. He wrote:

In an extended critique of The Federalist, the pre-Civil War Southern political philosopher John C. Calhoun argued that any system of taxation inevitably divided citizens into two antagonistic groups - the net tax payers and the net tax consumers:

… it must necessarily follow, that some one portion of the community must pay in taxes more than it receives back in disbursements; while another receives in disbursements more than it pays in taxes… The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is, to divide the community into two great classes; one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes, and, of course, bear exclusively the burthen of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds, through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers.

And this class division of society is due to the existence of the state (ask government) and its taxation which helps state officials to remain in power via their welfare-warfare state system. We must not forget that government's "reservation policy" is just one tool of its overall welfare state policy which it uses to win votes and gain public support to remain in power (notwithstanding which political party whether BJP or Congress or AAP is using it). If we see carefully then tax paying class of the society includes SCs, STs, OBCs, General category, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Men, Women, Rich, Middle Class and even Poor people etc. And the tax consuming class also includes people from these very same categories! The government forcefully takes money from the productive tax payers and hands it over as freebies to parasitic tax consuming class.

So actually the tax payers should be revolting against this whole parasitic welfare system of which reservation system is just one sub-system. All Patidar Patel tax payers should be opposing this parasitic system instead of demanding their share of it! As long as the government can tax the tax paying class, it will continue its welfare policies creating conflicts in society, which will lead to many such riots in future. People must realize that their real enemy is not their own fellow human beings, but the parasitic state officials who are using the policy of "divide and rule" to keep them busy in in-fighting when they rule over them without any big problem.

Mr. Hardik Patel, during his Ahmadabad speech, also said that Patidars will only be ruled by that party who will give it freebies in the form of "reservation"! But the real question is, why anyone will want to be ruled by someone? Are Patels so weak and lazy that someone else is required to rule over them? Are Patels some political party's slaves? Why do they want to be ruled? Why not they rule themselves by becoming productive members of the society and becoming free of any kind of government support? The main issue that most people forget here is that the society doesn't depend on the government for survival, but the government depends on the society for its survival. Remember, the state is a parasite which is sucking the blood of host society to survive. The society comes first always and then comes the state, which depends on it!

Secondly, during this riot we again witnessed the fact that the state officials and their police force is in existence only for their own protection and welfare. According to the views of the statist political theorists, e.g., Thomas Hobbes who insisted on the need of the state, the state exists for the protection of the Life, Liberty and Property of its citizens. How wrong these ideas are was again proved during this riot. The state police, instead of protecting peoples' lives, liberty and property, was itself busy destroying all of them. They killed innocent people. They vandalized innocent peoples' property (see here, here and here). Instead of creating peace and order, they spread chaos everywhere. If you still think that the state is necessary for a peaceful organization of human society then you are inviting more such troubles in future.    

Lastly, as I said above, the real struggle here is between the tax payers and the tax consumers. As long as people are "divided and ruled" by the state officials, our society will never become just and peaceful.