 "Narendra Modi")
Patel community members have, of late, agitated widely seeking the status of other backward caste for the community. The protests have been led by Hardik Patel, a 22-year-old leader of the community.
The Overseas Friends of BJP has already reached out to a Patel community section in the UK, which Modi is scheduled to visit in mid-November, as well as most of the community outfits in the US. A Patel community based in Edison, New Jersey, however, continues to hold out, planning to hold protests during the PM’s visit to the US.
On Sunday, Patel community members in the UK met at Patidar House, Wembley (UK), to denounce police atrocities on the reservation stir in Gujarat last month. But, to the relief of the BJP, by the end of the meeting, they “overwhelmingly” decided to accord PM Modi a “grand welcome” when he visits London in mid-November.
However, nervousness prevails within the BJP, with no such categorical assurance from sections of the Patel community in the US. With less than two weeks left for the PM’s address to the Indian community at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, the BJP leadership, particularly its Patel leaders from Gujarat, has been hard at work. Sources in the BJP were confident that that Patels of the US will not do anything that would embarrass the Prime Minister, but it wants to leave nothing to chance for his SAP Center address on September 27.
Organizers of the SAP Center event are apprehensive that some in the community, particularly the youth, might organize protests outside the SAP Center to express solidarity with Hardik Patel-led protests. A source, privy to the outreach, said the party was confident the Patel community in the US will show maturity and not disrupt the address or embarrass the PM in any way.
According to sources, two-three protests by the Patel community have been announced to coincide with the PM's visit. Mahesh Patel, father of a former BJP MLA in Gujarat, was a key organizer of the event alongside Khanderao Kand and Chandru Bhamra but decided to help in organizing the event away from the spotlight after the protests in Gujarat.
Patels are both numerically and economically influential within the Indian Diaspora in both the UK and US, owning convenience stores and motels. In the US, Patels are concentrated mostly in the New Jersey area but have a good presence in Los Angeles as well. According to the US Census of 2000, the 'Patel' name was the 172nd most frequently occurring last name, up from 591st in 1990. There were 145,066 people using Patel as their last name in 2000, up from 45,470 in 1990.
The Patels run vibrant community outfits, like the Kadwa Patel Samaj of North America founded in 1997 and which has 25 local chapters and 2,000 families associated with it. As many as 50 families are in the Bay area itself. There is also the Leuwa Patidar Samaj of the US.
"They understand that Modi ji had nothing to do with the stir, and even issued an appeal to the protestors. We are confident that the Patels in both the US and UK will support the PM as they did when these countries had refused him the visa when he was Gujarat CM," a BJP source said, adding that Patel and other communities from Gujarat living in the US and UK were conscious of the fact that Modi was only the second Gujarati, after Morarji Desai, to become the Prime Minister of the country.
As for the Patel community in the UK, the Sunday meeting ended with a resolution that not only denounced police atrocities on protestors in Ahmedabad on August 25 and 26 but also called for a review of the reservation policy.
The meeting appealed to the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti to ensure that verbal violence which leads to other extreme violence should never happen again. It asked the Gujarat government to bring to book police personnel responsible for atrocities on the protestors.
According to a statement issued after the meeting, the participants were unanimous that the caste based reservation policy, however noble its intention may have been, "has become untenable in the present day" and "is also embarrassing and insulting to the people whom it aspires to help." It advocated inclusion of economic criteria as well as creamy layer.
