Maratha quota agitation: Origins, challenges, and political implications

Although Maratha quota activist Manoj JarangePatil broke his fast after Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shindersquos cajoling the issue has not died down The activist who became a household name owing to the issue flaring across the state in the last two months will soon be touring Maharashtra for the long time pending reservationHow did it come aboutThe issue flared since the Jalna lathicharge incident A violent clash broke out between the police and protestors in the Antarwali Sarati village in Jalna district on September 1 JarangePatil an unknown figure hitherto had been on a hunger strike there since August 29While the cops alleged they only used brute force since protestors pelted stones and security personnel the agitators maintain that the cops were aggressors which resulted in grievous injuries to someWhat ensued was a political slugfest which continued despite Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis offering public apologies Meanwhile Jarange began an indefinite hunger strike and only called it off after repeated cajoling from CM Shinde that the government would give Kunbi caste certificates He gave them a 40day deadline for the sameAlthough CM had established a committee to look into the matter and come up with a Standard Operating Procedure SOP upon the expiry of the deadline Jarange initiated his second hunger strike insisting all politicians be banned from entering villages until Marathas received their quotaHe has since then called off his hunger strike after a government delegation convinced him to grant more time to grant the reservationIs it difficult for the government to grant reservations to Marathas whyAbhay Deshpande a renowned political analyst speaking to middaycom said that the government tried twice to grant Marathas reservation but the case did not survive in the Supreme CourtHe explains ldquoThe basic reason behind their failure is that according to the Indira Sawhney judgement of the Supreme Court a maximum 50 per cent reservation can be granted The limit can be exceeded only in extraordinary circumstancesrdquo and added ldquoThe Maharashtra government could not prove that Marathas were being given reservation under extraordinary circumstancesrdquoSpeaking about the issuance of the Kunbi certificates to the Maratha community members he said that the government cannot immediately grant everyone certificates since it could create tensions with the OBC communityHistory of the Maratha reservation movementWhen quizzed about how the movement for the Maratha reservation began Prof Dr Balasaheb Sarate explained that though the current movement is referred to as the Maratha quota movement it is the Kunbi farmersrsquo movement ldquoThe people of Marathwada we refer to as Marathas were traditionally Kunbis They still are dependent on traditional agrarian occupation and largely live in rural areasrdquo he saidHe explained that according to Ganjendra Gadkar judgement of 1963 there were three indicators of social backwardnessndashpoverty rural habitation and either labourextensive work or lowremunerative occupation longterm He said the judgement also stated that caste cannot be the sole reason for reservationldquoSubsequent judgements in two other cases the court had upheld that caste cannot be the sole reason to grant reservation However in 1967 under a government resolution an arbitrary caste was declared as OBC Maratha Mali Bhandari Gurjar and Vani were excluded and there was no explanation offered The reservationrsquos foundation is unconstitutional in Maharashtrardquo he said and added that without any report or justification different castes were added to the listHe explained in six decades no such study has been undertaken in the stateDr Sarate added that Marathwada was a very backward region and no development had happened in the region However because of the nomenclature of Maratha they were unable to access the reservationldquoUntil the 1970s there was not much literacy in the community To prove we are Kunbis we needed records but due to illiteracy we did not have access to the documents Even the Mandal Commission referred to Maratha as a forward Hindu caste without justification Only this commission treated the Maratha community as suchrdquo the reservation researcher added He said that Marathas representation in politics was obscure and until 1955 the community was out of politicsldquoThe Supreme Court during the Indira Sawhney judgement stated that every state and union territory will establish a Backward Commission and it was made responsible for checking the backwardness of communities mentioned in the list OBC The court also put a ceiling of 50 per cent and they gave a precondition that frequent review had to be done However in Maharashtra till 1994 no commission was formed violating the judgement and arbitrarily they suddenly increased OBCrsquos reservation by 16 per centrdquo he saidDr Sarate who has worked as an expert researcher for the collection of empirical data for the Justice Gaikwad Commission said that up until March 23 1994 the state of Maharashtra had only 34 per cent reservation and arbitrary rise blocked any chances of Maratha community claiming the reservation This became the root cause of the quota issue he statedWhile explaining further he said the application of 50 per cent reservation in the education system policies becoming more urbanregion centric due to globalisation and the same communities receiving political reservation and thus this disabled the Kunbi community who was known as Marathas could not avail any benefitsldquoPeople had grown resentful due to being denied reservation benefits for nearly three decades which took a form of agitationrdquo he saidThe agitation began after a due homework and thus we demanded to be recognised as Kunbis and this became more pronounced Marathas in Marathwada were genuinely backward and the movement only got support from various communitiesUnderstanding Jaranges successWhen speaking about JarangePatilrsquos success who has now become a prominent face of the Maratha quota issue Dr Sarate said that the activist studied well before reigniting the movementldquoMarathwadarsquos geographical conditions are different Jarange visited over a hundred villages in the region and convinced everyone to collectively fight for the reservation for the long termHe said in 2016 the Khopardi case was a proximate cause for the movement to intensify and in 2023 the cause became the statersquos lathi charge It became national news since Sharad Pawar immediately visited the siteldquoThe government was forced to acknowledge the movement The lathi charge also shifted the focus of peoplersquos sympathies and following that incident Jarange too became a hero for the communityrdquo he saidQuestion looms largeWhen asked about how can the researchers prove the backwardness of the community Dr Sarate noted that it could be done through methodology or modality ldquoThe real question is what will the government do if the backwardness is provenrdquo he notedDeshpande too stated that the government is walking on a tightrope Upon being asked about the political ramifications of the issue he said ldquoRight now people can only make assumptions about it Secondly when a community is polarised on an issue the community whose interest will be hurt by this will also be reversed polarised I think that after two months we will get to know whether the government or the opposition will benefit from the prevalent agitationsrdquo