It all began with Annasaheb Patil. The late Congress leader, who defied his party, can be described as the first martyr in the cause of Maratha reservations, arguably the most vexing topic in Maharashtra politics in recent times.
It was on March 22, 1982, that this ex-MLC ended his life using his licensed revolver to draw attention to an issue that has seen 50 others end their lives since.
Forty years on, reservation for Maharashtra’s largest community still remains an elusive dream.
With the state now in the midst of yet another bout of protests, politicians across party divisions are making a show of backing it.
The latest protest was started by 41-year-old Manoj Jarange Patil, a marginalised farmer who stays in a small tin-shed house with his family in the non-descriptive village of Sarati in Jalna district in Maharashtra’s drought-prone Marathwada region.
“On that day, the media was busy covering the Opposition's INDIA alliance’s meeting scheduled in Mumbai,” said Rajendra Kondre, Maratha community leader who has done a lot of research on this subject.
"So, in the evening, to allegedly divert the attention, the government decided to shoo away these protestors. The local police resorted to lathi charge, air firing and other possible coercive means where senior citizens, women and children were badly injured,” he recounted.
While the strategy may have helped eat into the INDIA alliance’s air time, it also had repercussions that were perhaps not as well anticipated.
In an age when everyone is armed with smartphone cameras and speedy internet, videos of police excesses started circulating on social media by the evening, generating great sympathy for the protestors and triggering anger against government tyranny.
Manoj Jarange Patil, the protestor at the centre of the latest storm, says he sees reservations as a gateway towards education and government jobs, and their life. “Other communities who are engaged in agriculture activities get reservations. So, why are Maratha-Kunbi -- engaged in the same profession -- deprived of the same,” he asked.
Their sheer numbers – Maratha-Kunbis make up around a third of the total population in the state – has ensured that nearly every other politician or minister is from this community. But, says Jarange Patil, this has meant little for those outside this small circle of the fortunate few.
“The Marathas may be the ruling caste. But the affluence that flows from it is enjoyed by less than 1% of the community, while the rest are struggling as marginalized farmers to live hand to mouth. Once a major land-owning community, they have been reduced to a landless class due to multiple divisions of agricultural land with the arrival of each new generation. Moreover, agriculture has become a non-profitable profession. It is because of this that most of the farmer suicides are from this community,” he said.
Since independence, says Jarange Patil, social equations have changed drastically, and it is time for this to be reflected in policies.
At present, out of the 52% reservation quota in Maharashtra, 13% is for scheduled castes, 7% for scheduled tribes, 19% for OBC, 2% for special backward class, and 11% for various classes of nomadic tribes.
The people who got the benefit of reservations have been getting good education and jobs in the government. So, their life has improved. But dominant castes like Marathas are perishing. We want to improve our economic condition. That is why we are protesting and demanding our share of the pie in development,” he explained.
Commissions and omissions
In response to the demands raised by Manoj Jarange Patil, Eknath Shinde – the current Chief Minister of Maharashtra and a Maratha himself – set up a committee under Justice Sandeep Shinde. The primary findings of the Justice Shinde report have unearthed the Kunbi ancestry of more than 13,000 Marathas, who have been included in the Other Backward Class category.
Marathas have long been studied by Committees and Commissions
It began with the Kaka Kalelkar Commission set up by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1953 to identify socially and educationally backward communities in India.
Over the next two years, the commission prepared a list of 2,399 backward castes and communities, including 88 in Maharashtra. However, while submitting the report to the President of India, Kalelkar attached a dissent note as part of his foreword to his own report. Hence, this report was not tabled in Parliament for 25 years.
When it came to the Marathas, the report noted: “In Maharashtra, besides the Brahmin, it is the Maratha who claimed to be the ruling community in the villages, and thus the Prabhu, who dominated all other communities.”
So, the first Backward Classes Commission did not find Marathas to be deserving of reservations. It was to be a pattern that would repeat again and again.
The commission’s report, however, was never even tabled in parliament, let alone implemented.
The next development comes in 1961, when the Union home ministry informed respective state governments that they had the discretion to constitute a backward commission to identify socially and educationally backward castes on the basis of their own criteria.
This led to the formation of the BD Deshmukh Commission by the Maharashtra government in the same year. The commission was tasked with drawing up a list of backward classes and suggesting some ways to improve their lot.
The BD Deshmukh committee submitted its report on January 11, 1964 where it identified 180 castes as socially and educationally backward who could be added to the OBC list. Marathas again failed to make the cut, but Kunbis found a place in the final 87 backward communities.
Unlike the Kalelkar commission, this one resulted in concrete results. As per the recommendations, OBCs were given a 10% reservation and another 4% of the reservations were to be extended to VJNT or Vanjari and Dhangar communities.
The next major development came after the national emergency in 1975-77. Reservation for other backward classes was one of the promises made by the opposition Janata Party in the post-emergency elections.
After coming to power under the leadership of Morarji Desai, the Janata Party government appointed the second National Backward Classes Commission, under the chairmanship of PB Mandal in 1979. However, before the report could be implemented, the Janata Party lost power, paving the way for the return of Indira Gandhi again.
However, Indira Gandhi was reluctant to extend reservations to OBCs. She, like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was of the opinion that the poor constituted the biggest caste in India, and set about eradicating poverty with her various ‘garibi hatao’ programs.
Meanwhile, the Mandal commission submitted its report in 1980, identifying the economically and educationally backward communities.
However, OBC reservation had to wait another ten years, as Indira’s successor and son, Rajiv Gandhi, too was not keen on extending reservations to the so-called intermediate castes.
Finally, it was during the one-year tenure of another non-Congress government – a Left-Right coalition government formed under the leadership of Prime Minister VP Singh that it was finally implemented, despite widespread student protests.
The commission suggested a 52% reservation for the backward classes, pointing out that their presence in the population was 52%.
“But giving 52 % reservations to the OBCs would have gone against the Supreme Court judgment in the case of –MR Balaji versus State of Mysore (1963) – that had laid down a limit of 50% for reservations. Therefore, the reservations to OBCs were given only 27% against their population of 52% in India. This commission also identified backward classes from non-Hindus and recommended giving them reservations,” pointed out Babanrao Taywade, president of OBC Mahasangh.
“OBCs have yet to get their rights,” he added, referring to the cutting down of the quota.
Meanwhile in Maharashtra, more castes were added to the list of economically and educationally backward classes after the publication of the Mandal commission report. As a result, the state had a list of 272 such communities, against 3,700 across India.
Like in the case of the first backward class commission report, the Marathas failed to make it to the backward list in the Mandal commission report too, which held that they were a ‘forward caste’.
Marathas found themselves in the company of groups like Brahmins, Bhumihars, Baniyas, Vaisyas and Kayastas. Interestingly, Maratha Maha Sangh – under the influence of RSS and Jan Sangh – opposed the Mandal commission report and demanded reservations on the basis of economic backwardness, not social backwardness.
“There was a massive morcha at the Mantralaya by the Maratha community,” remembers Pravin Gaikawad, president of Sambhaji Brigade, a Maratha youth organisation.
“Most of the workers from the vegetable market at Byculla, people who worked at Mumbai port and other labour class members participated in this morcha and demanded reservations to Marathas on the basis of economic backwardness. Anna Saheb, as a torch bearer for the cause, ended his life,” he remembered.
The Maharashtra government then constituted the Annasaheb Patil Arthik Magas Vikas Mahamandal – an organization to provide skill development, employment and entrepreneurship training to the rural poor. Anna Saheb Patil’s son Narendra Patil was appointed chairman of this state board.
Meanwhile, after missing the bus with the Mandal commission, a request was forwarded to the National Commission for Backward Classes for the inclusion of “Maratha” in the Central List of Backward Classes for Maharashtra, along with Kunbi, as a backward class in Maharashtra.
The call to be recognised along Kunbis
The National Commission for Backward Classes conducted a public hearing at Mumbai and after the hearings, the Chairman of the Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission submitted a detailed report on February 22, 1980 holding that the Marathas are not a socially and educationally backward community but a socially advanced and prestigious community. Therefore the request for inclusion of “Maratha” in the Central List of Backward Classes for Maharashtra along with Kunbi should be rejected. “In fact, ‘Maratha’ does not merit inclusion in the Central List of Backward Classes for Maharashtra either jointly with ‘Kunbi’ or under a separate entry of its own,” stated the commission report.
“Not a single Maratha wanted to call themselves a backward class,” pointed out Tayawade, president of OBC Mahasangh. “The backward status was quite repugnant and socially inferior to them. So, Marathas refused to count themselves as OBC in Maharashtra. Their demand was that Marathas should be given reservations on the basis of economic status only," he said.
“The Maratha is a higher caste like Brahmin in the social hierarchy of the Hindu community. Now, PM Narendra Modi has given them the Economic Weaker Sections (EWS) reservations. The original demand of the Maratha community has been fulfilled through the EWS. Like Brahmins and other upper castes, the Marathas should avail the reservations benefit under EWS. Why are they protesting and making hue and cry to call them as Kunbi and include them into OBC, something they opposed in the 1980s,” Gaikawad wondered.
This demand had come to the fore in 1995 when the Maharashtra government appointed the Khatri commission to study the report of CD Deshmukh and identify the other backward communities in the society who are deprived socially and educationally.
“It was decided that all the backward communities had to be brought into the mainstream and they should enjoy the fruits of development,” stated the report.
The newly founded Maratha Seva Sangh, the government servant organization of the Maratha community in 1990 under the leadership of Purshottam Khedekar, made representations to the Khatri commission that Marathas and Kunbis are one community, and if Kunbis are recognised as OBCs, then Marathas too should be.
“There is roti (trade) and beti (marriages) between Maratha and Kunbi communities. So, there is no difference between them. It has again and again been established that Maratha is not a caste at all: it is a geographical term, as used in the national anthem. Castes were established on the basis of trades – Kunbi means those engaged in agriculture as a trade, like the Bara Balutedar – the 12 traditional occupations. In the old revenue and school records of the British and Nizam eras, all Maratha people’s caste is mentioned as Kunbi only. But later, due to a social and cultural upward movement, or Sanskritization as per noted sociologist MN Srinivas, they started seeing Kunbi as a backward caste and called themselves ‘Maratha’ – a forward caste to show that they were second to Brahmins in the caste and social hierarchy,” Gaikwad stated.
He pointed to historical evidence proving that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the great Maratha warrior, was not accepted as a Kshatriya by contemporary Brahmins, who refused to consecrate his coronation for this reason. Gaikwad said community leaders submitted various social and judicial papers to the commissions to prove that Marathas are a backward community.
“As per Manusmriti; there are only two castes – Brahmin and Shudra. Marathas are not Brahmin. So, they are part of the Shudra community,” Gaikwad added.
He said despite their earnest requests, the Khatri Commission constituted by the Maharashtra government in the mid-90s refused to accept the Marathas as backward caste due to the higher representations of Marathas in electoral politics and government.
A senior government official pointed out that the Khatri commission had said that if Marathas are added to the OBC list, then injustice will be done to smaller castes which are in OBC.
A writer’s arrival and Justice Bapat’s veto
”Later the Maharashtra government constituted the Justice RM Bapat commission that submitted its report on July 25, 2008, conclusively recording that Maratha could not be included in the OBC list because it is a forward Hindu caste,” the official noted.
The state government official said there was no consensus among the Bapat Commission members on giving reservations to the Maratha community. So, he pointed out, they decided to put the resolution to vote. In between, one member of the Bapat committee passed away and a new member, writer Raosaheb Kasabe, was appointed in his place.
“Kasabe neither attended a single meeting of the Bapat commission nor did any research as part of the committee. But when it came to voting, he was allowed to vote against giving reservation [to Marathas]. When the proposal of giving Marathas reservations was taken up, there were equal number of votes on either side. So Bapat, as the chairman of the commission, used his veto and voted against giving reservations to the Maratha community and submitted his report to the state government in 2008. The state government rejected his report and also did not table it on the floor of the state assembly,” the official added.
After rejecting the Justice Bapat commission report, the Maharashtra government, headed by then Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan – a member of the Maratha community – appointed fellow Maratha community member and cabinet minister Narayan Rane to head a committee to reevaluate the issue. The Rane committee submitted its report on February 26, 2014 to the Maharashtra government, recommending special reservation to the Maratha community under Article 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution of India.
The Rane committee stated that the Maratha community was socially and economically backward and entitled to 16% reservation against its total population of 32% in Maharashtra. On the basis of this report, on July 9, 2014, the state government promulgated an ordinance giving 16% reservations to the Maratha community in education and government jobs.
Later, journalist-turned-activist Ketan Tirodkar filed a public interest petition (PIL) against the Rane committee recommendations. Soon after, the Bombay High Court stayed the reservations put in place on the basis of the Rane committee report on two grounds – what it felt was faulty data used to establish Marathas as backward and the cap of 50% imposed on all kinds of reservations by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case of 1992.
A rape case becomes a trigger
Gaikwad said there was a lot of unrest and anger in the community against the Bombay High Court order, but there was no platform to express it. But the incident of the Kopardi rape case – involving a minor girl belonging to the Maratha community in Ahmednagar – acted as a trigger and caused a major uproar in the Maratha community against the incumbent BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
“The Maratha community started coming on to the streets in large numbers with the slogan – Eak Maratha, Lac Maratha (One Maratha is equal to one lakh) in a peaceful way. There were a total 56 such mammoth peaceful Maratha Kranti Morcha protests across the state. That forced the government to undertake some concrete steps for the community, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha and state assembly elections,” said a Maratha community leader.
After the judicial setback, the state government – on November 2, 2017 – appointed yet another Backward Classes Commission under the leadership of Justice MG Gaikwad. The nine-member committee submitted its report on November 15, 2018.
The Justice Gaikwad Commission recommended declaring Marathas as a social and economic backward class with inadequate representation in services. The Commission also stated that looking at the exceptional circumstances, including the declaration of Marathas as Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC) and their consequential entitlement, the state government will not be in breach of legal and constitutional provisions to extend reservation to the community.
The report had its intended impact and the Bombay High Court upheld the Maharashtra government’s decision to offer reservations to Maratha in education and jobs. However, it reduced the quota from 16% to 13% in education and 12% in government jobs.
This was however again challenged in the Supreme Court, where the petitioners argued that Marathas constitute a powerful community with demonstrable dominance in government service, sugar cooperatives etc.. They also cited earlier reports from the National Backward Class Commission and State Backward Class Commission to buttress their arguments.
The petitions also highlighted the aggressive tactics adopted by the Maratha community to push for reservation. It was further pleaded that the Gaikwad Commission's report is not based on financial data and that the data was inadequate. “A community which was found not to be backward for the last 50 years is now declared as backward class without any change in circumstances,” one of the petitions read.
In 2020, the Supreme Court struck down the quota, holding that the State Backward Commission report tabled by Justice MG Gaikwad and his team failed to prove the existence of extraordinary situations and exceptional circumstances as stated in the Indra Sawhney judgment.
The Supreme Court held that only the president of India or a national backward classes commission can include or exclude any caste and community with regard to the reservation list. “The state can make only suggestions and recommendations, but final rights are with the central government only.”
Gaikwad said that the Maratha quota has been witnessing a roller coaster ride. Therefore, the community should choose a two-way fight: One, they should start availing reservation benefits in Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category, as it is constitutionally approved and accepted by the Supreme Court. He said there is major scope for reservation in the EWS category. So, instead of pushing themselves into OBC where already several small castes are vying against each other, Marathas should focus on getting into EWS as was the original demand of Annasaheb Patil who committed suicide for Maratha reservations.
“My humble appeal to the community is that they should also look beyond the reservations and opportunities in government jobs. Our inspiration Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj ruled from Attock in Pakistan to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu with broad vision. Due to globalization, the world is one village and we are citizens of this global village. So there are huge opportunities in developed countries due to their aging populations. Our educated and skilled youth should go out and work at any part of the universe,” he said. Sambhaji Brigade as a social organization decided to work in the job facilitating sector and hence started Aahat Australia, Tahat Canada and Sarva Mulk Apala (the entire world is ours), he added.
He said that more than 2,000 youths including plumbers, electricians and others are working in Germany, Japan, Poland, England, Dubai, US, Australia etc. due to the efforts of the organization.
Why politicians are fanning the fire now
Meanwhile, the issue is being used by all sides to mobilize support – both among Marathas as well as among the current OBCs.
A political leader belonging to the Shiv Sena (UBT) said that the current Chief Minister, Eknath Shinde of the breakaway Shiv Sena group, and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, of the BJP, are both trying to leverage the situation to their own advantage.
“CM Eknath Shinde wants to shed his tag of being a traitor, as alleged by Uddhav Thackeray, and wants to emerge as the leader of Marathas by granting reservations to the community. As part of the strategy, despite knowing that nothing can be done with Maratha reservations unless the central government takes it up, he deliberately gave importance to Jarange Patil’s protest by sending ministers to meet him, and later going there himself.
“On the other hand, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis wants to keep the RSS-BJP’s OBC vote bank intact. So, he is giving importance to NCP minister Chhagan Bhujbal in the name of safeguarding reservations of small castes and communities. They all know nothing will happen. Still both are giving importance to these protests to divert attention from real issues like drought, unemployment and inflation ahead of the general elections. Besides, they want to cut down the sympathy of the public towards Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar through this artificial conflict. This is a well-planned strategy to fool both the Marathas and the OBCs to consolidate their position and remain in power,” the Shiv Sena (UBT) leader added.
A senior leader from the community pointed out that Maratha reservation does not affect the entire state, but is limited to a few districts of Marathwada and western Maharashtra.
“In Vidarbha and North Maharashtra, most of the Maratha got their Kunbi certificates 20-30 years ago when their leader Bhausaheb Hire and Panjabrao Deshmukh asked them to get Kunbi certificates and get the benefits in OBC. That time, Marathwada and western Maharashtra leaders were falsely calling themselves upper caste and refused to be included into OBC. They felt like downgrading themselves in the caste hierarchy and now, they are fighting for it," he said.
“Meanwhile, Marathas from Konkan and some parts of western Maharashtra are against calling themselves Kunbi. They want separate reservations as Marathas. It shows that they are divided over reservations. By being included in OBCs, the Marathas will not get anything. They should get reservations under EWS where there are higher chances of getting benefits to our children in education and government jobs,” said the senior Maratha leader.
Jaideo Dole, a political analyst and social observer, said Maratha reservations can have an impact on poverty in the Marathwada region. Over the last 60 years, he pointed out, there has been no major development in Marathwada region and most of the development is concentrated in Mumbai and Pune only.
“Manoj Jarange is not a scholar and an ideologically studied person, still he is getting good support from the community. It is not only the Maratha community supporting him, but other smaller communities are also rallying behind him because they are seeing their children's future in his protest. The high fees and unemployment is a major issue and due to this protest, people are talking about these key issues as well. Some churning is happening and we hope that something good will come out,” he added.