Jat Reservation Agitation: Timeline of a Movement

Jats were already on the OBC lists of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh by 2002, but not Haryana’s, where they are the largest single community. From 2007 Jat organisations pressed the case, and from 2010 they used a tactic that would define the movement: blocking roads and railway lines, often at Mayyar village in Hisar district. Two protesters died there in police action, in 2010 and 2012. Each round ended with a government promise, and in January 2013 Haryana created a separate 10% Special Backward Classes quota for Jats and four other communities. The quota fight echoes the 1990 protests over the Mandal Commission.

The Supreme Court’s 2015 judgment in Ram Singh v. Union of India is the landmark. It held that the Union Cabinet could not brush aside the National Commission for Backward Classes’ reasoned advice, that backwardness must be shown with current data, and that caste alone cannot be the test. It decided the fate of one notification; it did not bar a fresh, evidence-based claim. The same tension between numbers, politics and the 50% ceiling runs through the Maratha reservation case.

The Haryana government had agreed on 9 February to a Chief Secretary’s committee to find a route to reservation by 31 March. One faction went ahead anyway. A rally at Sampla on 14 February became a highway dharna, and within three days four railway tracks and 120 roads were blocked. The report identifies three incidents in Rohtak on 18 February — a clash between lawyers and traders, a rumour about a Sir Chhotu Ram statue, and a police raid on a college hostel — as the moment blockades turned into violence. Over the next five days, mobs burnt shops, schools, police posts and a minister’s house; security forces and the Army opened fire at several places; and Jat and non-Jat groups clashed in Jhajjar, Hisar, Gohana, Jind and Kaithal.

The seizure of the Munak canal on 21 and 22 February brought the crisis to Delhi, which draws a large share of its raw water through it. Talks with the Union Home Minister on 21 February produced the promise of a state law and a central committee, and blockades were lifted by the evening of 23 February.

The brief we worked from put the injured at 324, including 67 security personnel. The Prakash Singh report’s own table for 7–22 February records 208 injured — 123 described as rioters, 15 others, 55 policemen, 11 central armed police and four Army personnel — and 30 dead. Other contemporary reports used different figures, often because they covered different dates or relied on hospital counts. Beyond the numbers, the violence left businesses in Rohtak and Jhajjar ruined, and relations between Jats and other communities badly strained.

Appointed on 25 February 2016, the committee examined how police and civil officials in eight districts handled the crisis between 7 and 22 February. It was unsparing: officers stayed in their offices while markets burnt, prohibitory orders went unenforced, and some policemen deserted duty. It traced the reluctance to use force partly to 2010, when the government suspended and charged the police superintendent over the Mayyar shooting. The Indian Express reported that more than 90 officers and officials were criticised. In March 2017 the Union government told Parliament that Haryana had acted against the officers named.

Each case turns on its own evidence, so outcomes must be read one at a time. A pattern is still clear: few cases reached trial, witnesses frequently turned hostile, and the state itself withdrew dozens of cases as part of political settlements. The farm-law protests of 2020–21, covered in our farmers’ protest timeline, drew heavily on the same rural Haryana networks.

We found no final Supreme Court judgment on the 2016 Act and no report that the Block C quota has been applied. The state commission’s work on the size of the quota was overtaken by the 2018 status quo order. Before stating that any connected petition has been finally decided, check the latest Supreme Court cause list and orders.