BAHADURGARH: Leaders of the Jat community reached a deal late on Monday to end protests that paralysed a northern state and cut water supplies to Delhi’s 20 million residents, after winning a pledge of more government jobs.

Days of rioting and looting across Haryana by the community had challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of better days for Indians who elected him in 2014 with the largest majority in three decades.

A Jat leader said protesters had reached a deal with state and federal leaders to end their mobilisation, in which 16 people have been killed and more than 150 injured.

“The government has promised to meet our demands and we have promised our full cooperation,” Ramesh Dalal, convener of the Jat Arakshan Andolan (Jat Reservation Movement), said.

Thousands of troops were deployed to quell the protests, which had flared again on Monday near Sonipat when a freight train was torched. In neighbouring Rajasthan, Jats attacked and burned buses.

Disruption has been huge, with 850 trains cancelled, 500 factories closed and business losses estimated at as much as $5 billion by one regional lobby group.

Dalal said he had appealed to the entire Jat community, which makes up a quarter of the population of Haryana, to return home. A senior officer said state police still faced a challenge to maintain law and order.

The army earlier on Monday retook control of a canal that supplies three-fifths of the capital’s water. Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said the army had reopened the sluice gates of the Munak canal to the north of the city. Water was expected to reach the metropolis by early on Tuesday.

The Haryana government put the death toll at 16 while police said earlier that there were tensions in some towns as Jats tried to prevent other communities from reopening their shops.

In Bahadurgarh, to the west of Delhi, Jat protesters turned out in force during the day to express their anger against Modi and demand written assurances of more jobs for their community.

Many Jats, who number more than 80 million across north India, are farmers whose livelihoods have suffered as families divide farms among their children. Two years of drought have harmed crops, and they are also missing out on urban jobs.

Their demands for government jobs and student places are based on affirmative action policies that are typically reserved for deprived groups.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2016