Protesters besiege India capital over job quotas

By Krittivas Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, May 29 (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters from an ethnic Indian group burned tyres and blocked roads leading to New Delhi on Thursday, bringing a battle for college and government job quotas in which dozens have died closer to the capital.

Huge traffic jams formed on highways leading into the capital. Some train services to towns outside Delhi, including several tourist destinations, were also suspended.

Thousands of stick-wielding ethnic Gujjars shouted slogans and squatted on main roads on the borders of east and north Delhi. They threw stones at police and at places broke windshields of cars and buses.

The Gujjars, already considered a disadvantaged group, want to be reclassified further down the complex Hindu caste and status system so they qualify for government jobs and university seats reserved for such groups.

Demonstrations turned violent last week after protesters lynched a policeman and police fired on protesters, killing 36 of them in only a few days.

Protesters turned away vehicles from the neighbouring towns of Noida and Gurgaon, home to scores of outsourcing and computer software firms. Many offices were closed.

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.

But the scheme has been criticised for accentuating caste identities in India, where discrimination on caste is banned in the constitution.