The mobilisation in

Since last few months, lakhs from this dominant , known for its clout in politics, agriculture and the cooperative sector in the state, have been staging massive silent rallies or “muk morchas” in district after district in a strong display of discontent.

The trigger for this mobilisation was a horrific incident in July in Kopardi village in district, in which a 15-year-old Class nine student from the Maratha community was gang raped and murdered. The three accused in the case, who have been arrested, are youths from the community.

Maratha rallies attended by two to five lakh people each were held in , , Parbhani, Osmanabad and Jalgaon districts in the last few weeks. More are scheduled in , Amravati, Buldhana, Nagpur, , Wardha, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri and other parts of Maharashtra.

The two primary demands of the community is that Marathas be granted reservations, and that the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act be repealed. There’s also a contradictory demand by a section of the community seeking an “equal citizen law” to end quotas altogether. The demand for reservations is a long-standing one. In fact, ahead of the 2014 State Assembly polls, the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine had announced 16% reservations for Marathas in government jobs and education. However, the Bombay High Court stayed the move.

The fact that this jumbled set of political demands is detached from the crime in question indicates lack of a clear political agenda even though reports say that the rallies were well- organised, indicating the involvement of an organised body.

What is clear, however, is that the roots of discontent among Marathas go a long way back. It is related to economic and social factors and the gradual decline of this community’s political dominance over the past few years. Marathas – a highly-stratified community with small, landless farmers at one extreme and the political elite at the other – constitute roughly one- third of the state’s population. Land reforms, political movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the agrarian crisis, poor prices for agricultural produce and the cornering of resources and schemes by a section of elite, politically-connected Marathas has, over time, fuelled frustrations among the poorer groups of the landed community.

Anand Teltumde, a veteran scholar has classified Marathas in following three categories:- a) The uppermost class is the gadhivarcha Maratha which owns sugar factories, educational institutions and controls big co-operatives and also has a major influence on politics. b)The second class is vadyavarcha Marathas, which owns large tracts of land, gas agencies, petrol pumps and small-scale co-operatives. c)The last one is the lower class known as wadivarcha Marathas who are largely small and marginal farmers.

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In addition, there are two more classes from the urban areas such as the lower middle-class and the middle-class Marathas.

The discontent among this dominant community is related to economic and social factors and the gradual decline of its political dominance.

Veteran activist Shantaram Pandere from Aurangabad linked the Maratha mobilisation to anger due to a host of reasons.“Marathas are restless because they are not in power,” said Pandere. “In Kopardi they found a chance to hit out at . Nobody has supported the Dalit accused, but there are rallies at taluka level.” He added: “Marathas are angry over reservations and land struggles, as they could not find labourers to work in their fields. The created a mass of vocal Dalit youths who questioned the establishment. The renaming of the Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar exposed the fissures between the two communities. Collective attacks on Dalits followed.”

The participation of Marathas across classes in the rural and urban areas, seemingly spontaneous and without any one person or organisation assuming leadership, was the most striking feature of the Maratha Kranti Morcha.

Scholars and commentators have argued that some of these factors may have played a role in unrest among the Marathas: first, the decline in the political dominance of Marathas in the rural and urban local bodies since the mid-1990s. This is primarily due to the implementation of the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments that provided reservation to Dalits, Adivasis, women, and most importantly to the OBCs.

Secondly, the Marathas allege that the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 has been misused against them which was despite the fact that the conviction rate is merely 5% in such cases.

Thirdly, the agrarian crisis that began in the 1990s had a major impact on the large majority of small and marginal Maratha farmers.

Finally, the neo-liberal model of development adopted by the Indian state has resulted in its withdrawal from the social sector expenditures. In addition, and perhaps, the most important aspect that has received very little attention is the way in which the economic transformation of city over the last two decades has affected urban lower middle class and small and marginal Maratha farmers.

Maratha labourers and Mumbai

Since the late 1990s, Mumbai city witnessed a large scale closure of textile mills, along with chemical, engineering and other manufacturing industries. These industries provided well- paid job opportunities for rural labour migrants with little or no education. Also, these jobs also provided health care benefits through the Employees State Insurance Corporation and protected its employees with several social security measures. As several studies have documented, the Marathas, as a caste group, not only dominated the industrial workforce but also they had a major share in the well-paid occupations.

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Marathas were the most affected by the closure of large-scale manufacturing industries in Mumbai. Their problems further got complicated with Mumbai’s transformation into a service sector economy, which demanded a workforce with altogether different skills and knowledge than what was needed in the manufacturing industries. In the service sector economy, knowledge of English became a necessity, not just for mobility but also to obtain better-paid jobs at the lower level. As a result, even those individuals who would have obtained a slightly better education but in the vernacular medium found it difficult to obtain well-paid jobs. These developments clearly signalled the disappearance of better-paid job opportunities for individuals with little education or vernacular education. As a result, there was no option before the rural labour migrants with little formal education (especially of the English language) but to work in the informal sector. Such jobs, as is widely known, are marked by low wages, long and unpredictable working hours, lack of clear-cut conditions of work and a total absence of social security provisions. While these changes in the political economy affected individuals across , it had a major impact on the urban lower middle class and the lower Marathas who had earlier dominated well-paid blue-collar occupations.

Conclusion

Despite all the odds, even if the state manages to place the Marathas in some economically weaker group, the challenge of meeting the demands of the Marathas for employment and education is not going to be easy. The economic transformation of Mumbai has completely diminished well-paid employment opportunities for individuals with little or vernacular education. Government initiatives will only help a tiny minority. The increasing dominance of the private sector in education means that unless the state increases the share of public educational institutions or start large scale scholarship programmes for economically weaker sections, the problems will continue to persist. In such circumstances, the only way out probably lies in larger public welfare programmes for all, given the fact the problems of Marathas are rooted in the failure of economic policies rather than social marginalisation. This, however, might be complicated given the adoption of a neo-liberal model of development by the Indian state which is less committed to the social sectors.

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