This is how it happened. Scene I: The Gujjars, spread all over northern India, demand their recognition as a scheduled tribe to get reservations provided under the constitution. They send several petitions and memoranda to the BJP-run Rajasthan government, which ignores them.

One day, on May 29, thousands of them descend on highways in Rajasthan to agitate for their demand. They block traffic, uproot railway lines, burn public buses and pelt stones on whatever comes in their way. Hundreds of travellers and tons of goods are stranded indefinitely.

When the state police -- the army is at hand -- fires at the Gujjars to open roads, they retaliate with guns. Eleven people are killed, including three policemen. Chief Minister Vasundra Raje Scindia, the scion of royal family, holds talks to consider the Gujjars' demand for scheduled tribe status.

Scene II: In the meanwhile, the Meena community, which already enjoys scheduled tribe status in Rajasthan takes to streets to stop the Gujjars from getting the status lest its own share should lessen. (The Meena community has more than one hundred IAS and IPS officers as compared to the Gujjars who have only one person in IPS). Although living side by side for decades, the two communities fight hand-to-hand battles. Four people die on the spot.

Scene III: The Gujjars and the state government reach a settlement. A panel headed by a High Court judge will look into the Gujjars' demand. Their leader apologies for the havoc they have created. All is over in one week.

None of the three scenes should have been enacted in the first place, never the violence. All this could have been averted if the chief minister had intervened earlier. The state government could have appointed a committee three months ago as it has done now to go into the Gujjars' demand. But the chief minister, basking in the glory of being exhibited as Goddess Durga, had no time for the Gujjars.

The Gujjar-Meena confrontation has, however, raised a larger question. A country, which promised to establish a casteless society at the time of independence, 60 years ago, is faced with the piquant situation where a community agitates for the caste status.

Something terrible has happened in the last two decades or so because this very India abolished even the caste column in application forms and official records. Jawaharlal Nehru's order was obeyed without demur. Yet, the reality on the ground is different. The centuries' old stigma of caste enjoys religious sanction. Hindus are not willing to give up the practice of discrimination.

They do not mind the window-dressing, a slogan like casteless society or an application form without the caste column so long as they can see the scheduled caste (dalit) members sweeping the floor, carrying the night soil and remaining on the periphery of the society.

Reservations have improved the economic, if not social, plight of some. Yet, benefits have not trickled down to those at the bottom. The comparatively better off among them -- the creamy layer as the Supreme Court describes them -- corners most. They are the vocal ones.

They, like Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, are in central and state cabinets to see their kin, the creamy layer, continue to dominate.

When the central cabinet discussed the other day the Supreme Court's suggestion to strike out the creamy layer from the list of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes, Paswan and Lalu Prasad Yadav from the backward classes were the most vociferous in their opposition.

Since caste influences the voting pattern, no political party dares to annoy the creamy layer which practically leads their community. Caste is not going to go away from India for many, many years because I do not find the upper castes having any twinge of conscience to feel the treatment meted out to the lower castes.

There is not even a hue and cry when the entry of non-Hindus in certain temples is practiced. A temple in the South is publicly performing "purification" ceremony because a Christian had gone inside. I have not seen a single word of criticism from the Hindutva forces, regretting

that what the temple is doing is against the democratic right of the Indians.

To lessen the rigours of caste and to enable the lowest to get some benefit, the creamy layer has to be kept out. At least those who have enjoyed the benefits of reservation for one or, at the most, two generations should be barred from getting concessions. Both the Gujjars and the Meenas belong to the creamy layer. They should not be entitled to any concessions at all. Whether reservations should have been introduced at all is too late in the day to debate.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the dalits' Gandhi, was against reservations, which he compared with crutches. That was 50 years ago. In 1990, another quota of reservation was introduced for the backward classes.

The very basis of classification looks odd in the 21st century. It is time to change the criterion from caste to economic status. A Brahmin, a Christian or a Muslim should also be eligible for concessions if he is in strait conditions.

A debate should also take place in the country when and where to draw the line. My suggestion is that reservation on the basis of caste should end within the next 25 years, lessening the quota every year by 4 per cent.

Political parties will be hard to convince because they have vote politics in view. Yet, they have to face the facts that the increasing desperation among the have-nots, particularly the youth, may disturb things more and more as the days go by.

What has happened in Rajasthan is the tip of the iceberg. Diverse communities and different areas now want a bigger slice from the cake, which is not big enough to go around. Ordinary people still do not think in terms of confrontation between castes. What they have seen in Rajasthan is not a neighbour versus neighbour story but actions on both sides brutalising people.

The violence is neither spontaneous nor popular. The Gujjars and the Meenas know this. What they do not realise is that it is not a game of interests but of beings, things we stand for and fight for.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.