Maratha quota stir: Govt’s balancing act irks all stakeholders

Every state government in Maharashtra in the last decade-and-a-half has had to deal with one constant — the vexed issue of Maratha reservation .

The Marathas constitute close to a third of the population of a state that sends 48 representatives to the Lok Sabha, second only to Uttar Pradesh, and have produced more than half of the state’s Chief Ministers. Driven by protests governments led by the Congress, the NCP, the unified Shiv Sena, even the BJP have all sought to find legislative solutions, only for them to be struck down by the courts.

And the absolutism of Maratha demands have made other solutions difficult.

For instance, in the last fortnight, even as protests raged in Jalna, led by Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil , the Eknath Shinde led government hurriedly announced a “government resolution” that would effectively mean Marathas in Central Maharashtra would be included in OBC reservations if they could prove that they were categorized as Kunbis in “Nizam era documents”, a time pre-1948 when the region was under the Hyderabad state. The Kunbis are categorised as an other backward class in the state. On September 6, Sinde said that a five-member panel headed by retired judge Sandeep Shinde would determine a standard operating procedure for this. The state government, wary of the opposition looking to capitalize on the Maratha anger ahead of a crucial 2024 parliamentary election, hoped this would assuage tempers.

Except, the move angered existing OBCs that have argued against Marathas taking part of the pie. And Jarange himself, wasn’t mollified either, declaring that he would cease his protest only if all Marathas across Maharashtra were given Kunbi certificates.

The slicing of the pie

The state currently has a 52% quota based on caste -- 13% for scheduled castes ; 8% for scheduled tribes ; 19% for OBCs; 2% for special backward castes another 2% for vimukti jati or denotified tribes, and an 8% split across nomadic tribes of various kinds. Apart from this, there is a 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).

Chastened by a 2014 humbling in the parliamentary election, where they won six of the 48 seats, and ahead of an assembly election later that year, in July 2014, the Congress-NCP government in the state promulgated an ordinance granting 16% reservation in education and government jobs to the Marathas. In four months, however the Bombay High Court issued an interim order staying the ordinance’s implementation.

In January 2017, under the Fadnavis led BJP-Shiv Sena government, the Maharashtra government sought to resolve the issue again, establishing the Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission that recommended 12% and 13% reservation for Marathas in educational institutions and appointments in public services respectively. Upon the commission’s recommendations, Maharashtra passed the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act, 2018, but this too, was challenged in the Bombay High Court that in 2019, upheld the constitutional validity of the act. In May 2021 however, the Supreme Court struck down the act and quashed the demand for a review petition two months later.

At the heart of the Maratha demand is a problem that has played out across India -- as agriculture becomes less remunerative, once dominant land-owning agrarian communities such as the Patidars and Jats and Marathas have lobbied for reservation in educational institutions and for government jobs, conscious of how this has helped those from other backward classes and scheduled castes and tribes.

Protests and more protests

In the last week of August 2023 , members of the Maratha community in the stronghold of Marathwada, led by Manoj Jarange Patil of the Maratha Kranti Sena sat on a hunger strike at Antarwali Sarati village. The protest turned violent, leaving 20 protesters and 37 police personnel injured, with at least 15 vehicles set ablaze.

As Sharad Pawar and other politicians rushed to Jalna and chastised the government for their handling of the situation, Deputy Chief Minister Fadnavis apologised for the police action. The violence fuelled protests by the Marathas across the state, forcing the September 6 announcement by Shinde on Kunbis.

Shinde held talks with a delegation sent by Jarange late on Friday but the latter has thus far refused to withdraw his hunger strike. On Saturday, in the presence of a government delegation, Jarange said the impasse continues. He said that the government has also not kept its word on the withdrawal of police cases against protesters and action against officers responsible for the lathi-charge. “The government should first issue a government resolution, announcing blanket reservation to us as Kunbis...until then I will not call off my indefinite strike,” Jarange said. On Sunday, Jarange Patil said that he would now stop consuming water.

He was also critical of the Maharashtra government for failing to keep its word on the withdrawal of police cases against protesters and the lack of action against police personnel responsible for the lathi-charge on September 1.

But the government now also faces the threat of a statewide agitation by other OBCs. Chandrakant Bavkar, working president of the OBC Janmorcha told HT that they would oppose “any move to share our reservation benefits with the Marathas.”

“The government resolution cannot be sustained in a court of law. We do not hate Marathas but we will fight for our rights and also against the government, and not the Maratha community. It is more a political than a social issue,” he added. An ultimate solution, Bavkar said, was a caste based census, either national or akin to the process being conducted by Bihar, to provide quantitative and qualitative data of communities to the government.

Demands for a caste census have increased in recent years, and gathered momentum over the past few months with parties opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party seeing it as a likely way to tackle the welfarism-plus-Hindutva appeal of the current national political hegemon.

Meanwhile, in Maharashtra, the Kunbis themselves are not happy with the government’s move on the Marathas.

Vishwanath Patil, chief of the Kunbi Sena said that while the community was not against reservation to Marathas, they should not be given Kunbi certificates. “We will strongly oppose it if the state government takes any such decision.”

These rumblings are significant, for the OBCs have been among the core votebanks of both the BJP and the unified Shiv Sena. The BJP, in fact, expanded its base after it implemented a formula called “Madhavam”- Maratha, Dhangar, Vanjari and Mali.

The protests also seem to have revived other similar demands, with the Dhangars, for instance, reasserting a long-standing demand for scheduled tribe status. The community has long argued that they were kept out of the scheduled tribes list because of a typographical error in 1976.

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole said that the BJP was inciting the Maratha and the OBC communities against each other. “The BJP doesn’t want to give reservation to Marathas by conducting a caste-based census. Now they are talking about Marathas being given reservation from the OBC quota.”

Political analyst Abhay Deshpande said that the move to give Kunbi caste certificates to Marathas in Marathwada opens a Pandora’s box . “The OBCs are also worried they will lose reservation in local self government bodies once Marathas get certificates. All this can have political repercussions and would also may not stand legal scrutiny.”