At least three people were killed on Friday in clashes between police and an ethnic Indian group demanding job and college quotas, taking the death toll to 43 in a week of protests. The deaths come just as top leaders of the ethnic Gujjar community met on Friday to discuss a possible meeting with authorities to end the impasse. The violence began on May 23 when protesters belonging to the community lynched a policeman in the state of Rajasthan. Police opened fire, killing dozens in the next few days. Since then thousands of Gujjars have taken to the streets, blocking roads and rail tracks both in Rajasthan state and elsewhere. On Thursday, protesters briefly halted traffic on several main highways into New Delhi. Police fired tear gas and then bullets that killed two people on Friday in Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur district. A policeman was also killed. “Failing to control the stone-pelting mob, police had to resort to firing,” Umesh Mishra, police inspector general, told Reuters. The Gujjars, already considered a disadvantaged group, want to be reclassified further down India's complex Hindu caste and status system so they qualify for government jobs and university seats reserved for such groups. The government reserves about half of all seats in state colleges and universities for lower castes and tribal groups to flatten centuries-old social hierarchies, in what has been called the world's biggest affirmative action scheme. The scheme has been criticised for accentuating caste identities in India, where discrimination on caste is banned in the constitution. Some critics say the quota system masks India's failure to provide good universal education and social equality. The Gujjars fall into the Other Backward Classes grouping and seek to be reclassified under the Scheduled Tribes and Castes grouping. Police said Gujjars in Rajasthan's towns of Bayana and Sikandra continued to block roads with bodies of some of those killed in the police firing a week ago, saying the bodies would not be cremated until the government relented. A year ago, Gujjars in Rajasthan fought police and members of another caste that already qualifies for job quotas. At least 26 people were killed in that violence. After these protests, a state government committee said it would spend 2.8 billion rupees ($67 million) improving schools, clinics, roads and other infrastructure in Gujjar areas. But Gujjars rejected this option.
