COMMENTARY farmers. Farm incomes have stagnated in Distress in Marathaland the dryland agriculture of Maharashtra, while alternative income-earning oppor- tunities have not emerged. This is largely Siwan Anderson, Patrick Francois, Ashok Kotwal, Ashwini Kulkarni because of the failure of government policy to improve agricultural productivity The Marathas, Maharashtra’s aharashtra witnessed the state’s despite the fact that Maratha elites have dominant community, have been dominant community, the Mara- ruled the state for much of the period protesting against the Scheduled Mthas, who form a third of its since independence. This view is consis- population, marching silently for a num- tent with the claim that the “deprived” Castes and the Scheduled Tribes ber of demands in September. The osten- are marching against the “privileged.” (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, sible trigger was the brutal rape and However, the explicit demands voiced 1989 and demanding reservations murder of a Maratha girl by a Dalit youth so far seem to be missing the point. The 1 for themselves and a hike in in a village called Kopardi. The size of problems affl icting the Marathas are not the crowds and the intensity of feeling, caste-specifi c. The fact that poverty is minimum support prices. This however, suggest that it is much more declining much too slowly while aspira- study reveals that these demands than a reaction to a single ugly incident. tions have revved up is a generic Indian do not address the source of This mass movement is an outpouring of problem. Why this movement has taken Maratha distress—stagnation a deeper pool of discontent. the form of a caste movement is a ques- The marches are truly unprecedented. tion that we will answer at the end. of farm incomes and the failure Judging by the numbers, they have found Our argument may not be unfamiliar of the government to improve universal appeal across the Maratha to keen observers of the rural scene in agricultural productivity. Poor community. The poor are marching side Maharashtra. What this article attempts farmers, whether Maratha or by side with the rich. What is especially to contribute is “evidence” that is based noteworthy is that young women and men on primary data. Dalit, have the same grievances, are in the vanguard and the netas (leaders) We will begin with a look at an and therefore, a caste-based have been consigned to the back rows. In empirical picture that sheds light on mobilisation may actually be fact, some of the marchers have claimed some little-known facts. First, though the counterproductive. that “this is a protest of the deprived Marathas are a dominant community, against the privileged.” The whole set-up, they span a whole income spectrum, and including the exemplary discipline they the vast majority of them are very poor. have displayed, is completely uncharac- Second, despite their political dominance, teristic of mass movements in India. they can claim no advantage in educa- However, the demands of the movement tional achievements. This is especially remain somewhat unclear. Normally, a true of Maratha women, an indication mass movement begins to further a specifi c that they are a backward community. cause, its demands articulated at the Third, Maratha leaders, when in a posi- outset. The Marathas, on the other hand, tion of power, have done very little to began marching fi rst, their demands be- uplift their own community. ing voiced almost as afterthoughts. The three demands raised so far are: stop Our Survey the abuse of the Scheduled Castes and In 2007, we surveyed approximately 9,000 the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of households from a random sample of 300 Atrocities) Act, 1989 legislate reserva- villages in three regions (Western Maha- tions for Marathas; and raise minimum rashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha) of support prices (MSPs). Maharashtra. Our villages were relatively Would any of these demands help small, with populations of around 2,000. reduce their distress? The answer depends They were primarily agricultural, and upon the fundamental source of their society is typically caste-based (the per- We are grateful to the anonymous referee for distress. What is that source? In this centage of tribals in our sample was neg- very helpful comments. article, we will attempt to answer these ligible). More than 40% of our house- Siwan Anderson, Patrick Francois and Ashok questions based on data collected for an holds were below the state poverty line. Kotwal ([email protected]) are empirical study carried out in 2007.2 In Maharashtra, a gram panchayat usually professors of economics at the University of We view these marches as a manifes- covers a population of approximately British Columbia, and Ashwini Kulkarni is the tation of the hopelessness experienced 2,000. As a result, in our sample, the gram Director of Pragati Abhiyan, Nashik. by a historically dominant community of panchayats are village-specifi c. We

14 DECEMBER 17, 2016 vol lI no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly COMMENTARY administered questionnaires at the house- out that 33.7% of Marathas have viable gram pradhan positions. Likewise, when hold and village level, and to the gram landholdings (> 5 acres), while majority a gram pradhan position is reserved for panchayats directly. The household ques- are small and marginal farmers and a woman, they fi ll 62% of those posi- tionnaires asked about the economic acti- labourers like other castes. tions. In the gram panchayats without vities of household members, their social In terms of education, particularly for reservations, where a Maratha does not capital (for example, the level of trust males, Marathas are not on an average fi ll the gram pradhan position, Marathas they have towards other people in the more educated than members of the are very much a minority, forming on an village), and their views on the function- OBC. Although Marathas are more likely average 17% of the village population. In ing of the gram panchayat. For some to be literate compared to SCs, at slightly these unreserved villages without a information, particularly to obtain the higher educational levels (that is, higher Maratha gram pradhan, 44% of villages balance sheets of gram panchayats, we than primary), the differences are not have no Marathas at all. This implies had to use the Right to Information Act. very big. It is noteworthy that despite that if Marathas are present in the vil- being better-off in terms of landholdings, lage, they almost always fi ll the gram Numerical Dominance their educational achievements are not pradhan position if there are no reserva- of Marathas any better than those of the OBCs. tions in place for the lower castes. Of the 9,000 households we randomly A comparison of female education Maratha gram pradhans are typically surveyed, 37.6% were from the Maratha amongst Marathas and OBCs reveals larger landowning cultivators—the ma- caste, 27.8% from Other Backward Classes similar fi ndings. If anything, OBC females jority of them own more than fi ve acres (OBC) caste groups, and 25.6% from are more educated than Maratha females. of land and almost all of them (84%) Scheduled Caste (SC) groups. As a single Maratha cultivators have better access depend on cultivation for their primary jati (caste) group, Marathas overwhelm- to irrigation and produce higher yields livelihoods. Moreover, Maratha gram ingly dominate the population of the state (kharif) on their land. Tables 4 and 5 pradhans tend to be better educated, at close to 40%, as compared to the next report these differences for small (< 5 and more than 80% of them have at three largest jatis—the Mahars at 12%, the acres) and large (> 5 acres) landowners least middle school education. Kunabis at 8%, and the Dhangars at 6%. respectively. Clearly, Maratha farms are We would expect that households better irrigated and hence their yields, benefi t from having a gram pradhan be- Heterogeneity within Caste Groups and consequently incomes, are higher. longing to their own caste. Using our In Tables 1–3, we see a signifi cant het- Table 4: Irrigation and Yields (Kharif) by Caste— survey data, we can compare outcomes erogeneity within the Maratha caste, as Small Landowners for villages where the gram pradhan is represented by landownership and edu- Marathas OBCs SCs of the same caste with villages where Acres owned 2.1 2.1 2.0 OBC cation levels. Compared to both s and % land irrigated 33 23 15 they are not. SC s, the proportion of landless Marathas Private tube well 28% 18% 10% Anderson and Francois (2016) found is signifi cantly lower, and the proportion Yields/acre (`) 20,108 17,324 13,414 that lower castes (OBCs and SCs) report of landholders holding more than fi ve signifi cantly better provisioning of public Table 5: Irrigation and Yields by Caste—Large acres is signifi cantly higher. Table 1 points Landowners goods in their caste neighbourhoods if Table 1: Landownership by Caste (%) Marathas OBCs SCs the gram pradhan is from the same Landownership Marathas OBCs SCs Acres owned 9.9 9.0 6.8 caste. They also have a more positive Landless 13.4 31.0 62.1 % land irrigated 45 33 23 perception of their gram pradhan’s hon- < 2.5 acres 23.0 21.1 17.4 Private tube well 37% 28% 20% esty and ability to provide public goods, Yields/acre (`) 35,006 30,442 18,590 2.5–5 acres 29.9 23.7 14.7 believing that a gram pradhan who > 5 acres 33.7 23.8 5.8 We fi nd, even amongst Marathas, after shares their caste is signifi cantly more Table 2: Male Education by Caste (%) controlling for education and the size of likely to cater to the particular needs of Male Education Marathas OBCs SCs landholdings, yields per acre are strongly their caste. Illiterate 9.5 11.3 19.1 and signifi cantly correlated with irrigation. In contrast, we see none of these < Primary 3.5 4.2 5.3 This indicates that the key to improving effects for Marathas. Average Maratha Primary 9.8 9.8 11.3 agricultural incomes in the dryland agri- households do not report any signifi cant Middle 30.9 28.7 27.8 culture of Maharashtra is irrigation. It positive effects of having a Maratha Secondary 26.6 26.9 20.8 allows wider crop choice, double-cropping, gram pradhan in their village. They per- > Secondary 19.7 19.9 15.6 and higher yields for the same crop. It is ceive no improvement in public goods Table 3: Female Education by Caste (%) surprising that irrigation has not been provisioning in their caste neighbour- Female Education Marathas OBCs SCs voiced as a dem and by the marchers. hoods, and they do not feel that the Illiterate 28.9 27.8 42.5 < Primary 5.7 5.3 5.5 needs of their caste groups are better Maratha Political Representation Primary 15.5 13.8 12.3 looked after. Nor do they have a more Middle 30.5 26.8 22.4 Although the Maratha caste comprises positive view of the gram pradhan if he Secondary 14.2 17.0 12.1 roughly 38% of the population in our or she is a Maratha rather than a lower > Secondary 5.2 9.1 5.2 sample, they fi ll 63% of the unreserved caste group (OBC or SC).

Economic & Political Weekly EPW DECEMBER 17, 2016 vol lI no 51 15 COMMENTARY Economic and Political Power the problem, considering that there are the demand for reservations. Second, To reproduce a paragraph quoted in our a few million Marathas aspiring to get caste networks facilitate organisation of earlier article (Anderson et al 2015b): admission to engineering (clearly their a mass movement. Marching in solida- Drawing on the work of Dr Suhas Palshikar, stated preference) colleges and jobs. rity with people you identify with is describes the transformation of the Marathas Note also that 38% of the seats remain more appealing than marching for an from a backward community to being the unfi lled, though under the economically abstract cause. dominant caste in Maharashtra. She cites the EBC following numbers: ‘From 1962 to 2004, of backward class ( ) families with annual The marches have achieved the goal the total of 2,430 MLAs, 1,336 or 55% were incomes below `1,25,000 get their tuition of unity across different Maratha sub- Maratha. Nearly 54% of the educational insti- fees paid by the state government, irre- castes, but it is not clear to what pur- tutions in the state are controlled by them. Of spective of caste. The only explanation pose. On the negative side, it may have the 105 sugar factories, 86 are headed by Mar- athas, while 23 district cooperative banks for the unfi lled seats then seems to be deepened the Maratha–Dalit divide. have Marathas as chairpersons. Marathas that many households with incomes Poor farmers in dryland areas of Maha- dominate the universities in the state, with greater than the threshold for EBC can- rashtra—whether Maratha or Dalit— 60% to 75% presence in the management. not afford the full tuition fees that col- have the same grievances, and therefore, About 71% of the cooperative institutions are under the control of this community. In leges charge. This points further to the a caste-based mobilisation could be Maharashtra, 75% to 90% of the land is indifference of the Maratha elite who counterproductive. Instead, what is nee- owned by the community. In addition, all the own 58% of the private colleges in rural ded is a farmers’ movement across all milk cooperatives and cotton mills are either areas and run them as profi t-making agricultural castes to champion the cause owned or controlled by them. In 54 of the 288 assembly constituencies, only Marathas have businesses. Clearly then, reservations of productivity improvement in agricul- ever been elected—even without any reserva- will not solve the fundamental back- ture. Such a movement should, for a tions.’ (Menon 2012) wardness of Marathas. start, demand a reversal of the trend of In addition, Sharad Pawar, a promi- An increase in the MSP for crops grown declining public investment in agricul- nent Maratha leader, had been the union in Maharashtra is the only demand that ture. This would not only help to relieve agriculture minister for 10 years from is related to improving agricultural in- the distress in Marathaland but to induce 2004, and the Swaminathan Report3 that comes, and therefore makes more sense a change across the country by reorient- the marchers are demanding implemen- than the other two demands. However, ing the course of development. tation of, was accepted at the beginning its benefi ts would be disproportionately of his tenure. Maharashtra has had 18 lower for the poorer Marathas as their Notes chief ministers since it became a state in staples become more expensive. 1 Ironically, an equally heinous crime in the 1960, 10 of whom have been Marathas. What is needed is a boost in agricul- same area in 2013, the “Sonai Murders” (http:// www.thehindu.com/news/national/three-dalit- There is little evidence that the Maratha tural productivity that will increase the men-murdered-in-apparent-case-of-honour-kill- elite (leadership) has done much for the incomes of farmers across the spec- ing/article4383182.ece), where the victims were Dalits and the perpetrators Marathas, failed to rank and fi le of Marathas. In fact, as trum—irrigation, greater connectivity produce similar outrage among the Marathas. we have shown in our previous work to markets, more helpful agricultural 2 This study aimed to understand why poverty alleviation programmes are not implemented (Anderson et al 2015a; Anderson et al universities and extension services—as in rural Maharashtra despite the formally 2015b), they have actively suppressed well as a reduction of uncertainty about democratic structure of panchayati raj. The the demand for the Mahatma Gandhi government price policy (for example, data revealed the key role of the dominance of the Maratha caste. The research fi ndings from Nati onal Rural Employment Guarantee export bans). If rural incomes grow, this 2007 survey were published in 2015(a) and Act (MGNREGA) projects that would have there will be greater demand for non- 2015(b). 3 The National Commission on Farmers was benefi ted the Maratha poor. As television agricultural services, and consequently constituted in November 2004, chaired by interviews with some of the young mar- more jobs will be created even outside of M S Swaminathan, to recommend policies to address the general malaise affl icting Indian chers have affi rmed, “those long depri- agriculture. An increase in purchasing agriculture. The fi fth and fi nal report was sub- ved are marching against the privileged.” power in rural areas would inevitably mitted in April 2006. Reforming the act may be a justifi able bring better-quality educational and demand if it was being misused, but it healthcare institutions. This is the only References would certainly not affect the vast ma- way out of their distress for Marathas Anderson, Siwan and Patrick Francois (2016): jority of the community. Reform or even and all other agricultural castes. “Reservations and the Politics of Fear,” Wor- king Paper, Vancouver School of Economics. abolition of the act will do very little to If the fundamental source of distress Anderson, Siwan, Patrick François and Ashok Kotwal address the distress of the Maratha com- is the agricultural stagnation that affects (2015a): “Clientelism in Indian Villages,” American munity, even while it endangers the all agriculturalists, irrespective of caste, Economic Review, Vol 105, No 6, pp 1780–1816. Anderson, Siwan, Patrick François, Ashok Kotwal and safety of Dalits. why has this movement become caste- Ashwini Kulkarni (2015b): “One Kind of De- Reservations, as the Maharashtra chief based? There are two reasons. First, when mocracy: Implementing MGNREGS,” Eco nomic & Political Weekly, Vol 50, Nos 26–27, pp 44–48. minister has pointed out, would make the pie (opportunities available to the Menon, Meena (2012): “Nation in a State: That only 900 additional seats available in masses) is not growing, the share of the Maratha Demand, Once Again,” Hindu, 12 June, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/ engineering colleges, and 7,500 govern- pie for your own kind becomes imp ortant. Nation-in-a-State-That-Maratha-demand-once ment jobs. It would not make a dent in This is one possible explanation for -again/article 12899793.ece.

16 DECEMBER 17, 2016 vol lI no 51 EPW Economic & Political Weekly