The issue of the Maratha and OBC reservation has given a new shape to the public life of Maharashtra. The state’s public and policymakers are going through a number of dilemmas. Which identity to accept? Which of the principles of vote bank and social justice should be adopted? Who is the enemy and who is the friend of reservation? These questions have changed the discourse in society and politics—it is a story of how one has influenced the other over the decades.
The basic issue behind reservation is economics. However, the issue of identity continues to be debated. There is a controversy over the issue of identity even within the Maratha-Kunbi community. At the same time, the conflict between the Maratha and OBC communities has intensified. The two communities are divided into various sub-groups in rural areas. Their economic and political aspirations have risen and their internal competition has increased. As a result, their communities have become divided and sub-groups have gone against each other.
Several communities are claiming the backward or most backward identities. The Maratha community has claimed backwardness. Along with the Marathas, some upper castes and Muslims have also claimed backward identity. Some groups within the OBC bloc—Dhangar, Bhoi and Bhandari—claim to be most backward. Compared to the 1950s and 60s, when they didn’t lay such claims, the state’s economy has progressed; yet claims of backwardness have increased. This process underpins a political and social contradiction.
Since the 1990s, there has been an attempt to make the distribution of power in Maharashtra almost equal between the Marathas and the OBCs. Provisions were also made in the field of education. In the later 1990s, the Marathas were polarised into four or five groups. Conflicts over reservation started arising between poor Marathas and rich Marathas, Marathas and Kunbis, Marathas and OBCs, Marathas and upper castes. Also, during this period, a power struggle started over the distribution of seats in the state cabinet. The two factors—political and social—got interlinked, resulting in more complications.
Unrequited economic and political aspirations led to a sense of isolation among these communities—they felt left out. The sense of isolation went against the Marathas themselves. The established Marathas were able to get better education, but not the poor Marathas. As the social differences grew, the poorer Marathas got more isolated. As a result, the poor Marathas turned against the established Maratha elite.
Vote bank politics and reservation go hand in hand. The Maratha and OBC vote banks are major political turfs to be fought over. The Hindutva parties and organizations have tried to organize the Marathas in competition to the OBCs. The formula has been in play in various forms over the last seventy years; today, they seems more effective. Saffron outfits publicly say that Marathas should get reservations; but more than actually giving them reservations, their main objective seems to be to polarise them into binaries—Marathas and OBCs, Marathas and scheduled castes, Marathas and progressive organizations.
Political parties have for long given tactical support on the issue. Shashikant Pawar, Annasaheb Patil (Vidarbha) and Vinayak Mete aggressively demanded Maratha reservation. Saffron outfits maintained strategically friendly relations with them. In 1995, Shiv Sena even took Vinayak Mete to the legislative council. But from Shashikant Pawar to today, the groups claiming reservation know that the Maratha elite do not support the Kunbi identity. But they have used the reservation issue as political currency and kept the issue on the boil to organise young Maratha boys.
Reservation can also be used to change the political narrative of parties and leaders. For example, a narrative was created not long ago about a Sharad Pawar-Uddhav Thackeray tussle. Surveys show that people were responding to this narrative. Due to this, efforts were made to change the narrative to one of Marathas vs OBCs. The effort did change the political discourse. In the earlier narrative, Sharad Pawar was seen as a Maratha strongman; the more recent Maratha vs OBC narrative attempts to take some sheen off that image.
Slogans about enemies of the Maratha reservation and friends of the Maratha reservation have been aired since the 1990s. From the 1980s to the 1990s, Congress leaders would rarely go on the dais with Maratha organizations. An extreme meaning was derived from this, painting the Congress as an enemy of the Maratha reservation.
This was an evolution in perception. In the 1960s, the Congress had the support of all communities in Maharashtra. Maratha groups had similar support, but the caste leadership did not talk about it as a vote bank or in terms of Maratha strongmen. Maratha leaders—Yashwantrao Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Sharad Pawar, Shankarrao Chavan, and Vilasrao Deshmukh—have all led the state. But Sharad Pawar was painted as the strongman, though he led large groups of Marathi-speaking people including OBCs, Brahmins, and urban voters, and not just caste Marathas. This issue was made into a controversy by saffron outfits with the help of Maratha organizations.
Enemies of Maratha reservation is a concept, a false consciousness. Sharad Pawar and Prithviraj Chavan defined this false consciousness as an ideology and then revised their images. But now this false consciousness is reshaping politics. Sharad Pawar later tried to control it to some extent but did not succeed.
As the Hindutva parties know, this awareness is an important weapon. Therefore, they are trying to prevent this identity politics from dissipating. It shows that reservation today is not understood as a social justice issue; it is mainly a tool for political mobilization.
Prakash Pawar
Professor, Shivaji University Kolhapur, and coordinator, Centre for Gandhian Studies