In acceding to six of the eight demands of the Maratha reservation activist Manoj Jarange Patil, which allowed him to claim victory and thousands of his followers to celebrate, the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra led by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis went farther than its predecessors but, ironically, cannot claim complete credit or leverage it politically—yet. This stems from the fact that in granting some of Patil’s demands, such as implementing the Hyderabad Gazette (1909), the Satara Gazette (1884), and the Pune-Aundh Gazette to facilitate Kunbi certificates for the Marathas in the OBC category, and issuing a Government Resolution specifying the process based on the 58 lakh records found, the Fadnavis-led three-party government has riled the OBCs and their leaders, including Chhagan Bhujbal, a cabinet minister.
Fadnavis would not want a Maratha-versus-OBC formation, given the overwhelming electoral influence of both he asserted that his government will not let a dispute happen but this is far easier said than done. The government would have to brace itself for a degree of backlash from the OBCs. Maintaining peace between the two powerful sections and coming good on the assurances made to Jarange Patil on Tuesday will call for deft handling of competing demands, time sensitivity, political smarts, and leveraging personal equations across the political, social, and academic realms. The road ahead is more slippery than it appears in the warm glow of the accord between the government and Jarange Patil.
For now, though, Fadnavis has bought himself elbow room and time by agreeing to most of the demands, which include, besides the key one on issuing Kunbi certificates on the basis of the gazettes, the withdrawal of police cases on Maratha activists filed during the agitation in the past two to three years, granting compensation and jobs to family members of those killed in these protests, forming village-level committees to scrutinise applications of Marathas applying for caste certificates, and time-bound clearance by the caste verification committee. What the Fadnavis government desisted from accepting is the activist’s demand to recognise all Marathas as Kunbis in a blanket manner, which the government representative, minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, and others convinced Jarange Patil is unlikely to stand scrutiny in the courts.
However, despite most of the demands being acceded to, it would be premature to declare that the Maratha reservation issue, complex and vexing for all governments for more than a decade, has been resolved. For one, Jarange Patil, who emerged as the community’s leader in the past few years, pushed the Fadnavis government with its back to the wall on this occasion after calling off his previous agitations without anything in hand; he and his team of advisors-academics will be closely watching if the Fadnavis government comes good on what has been agreed. Secondly, the government’s every decision and action can be—and may well be—challenged in the courts and would have to withstand judicial scrutiny.
The Maratha quota stir goes back nearly three decades, but in 2014, prior to the Maharashtra Assembly elections, the then government led by Congress’ Prithviraj Chavan had granted 16 per cent reservation to Marathas and 5 per cent to Muslims on the strength of the ‘social and economic backwardness’ of the communities. This was struck down in the Bombay High Court. In 2018, the then Fadnavis-led government granted the quota again. It was upheld in the HC but capped at 12 per cent; however, the Supreme Court struck it down in 2021. The agitations, since then, have taken parts of Maharashtra and Mumbai by storm. Lakhs of protestors descending on Mumbai ended up severely disrupting parts of south Mumbai, prompting even the HC to sternly warn Jarange Patil about it. Whether the current GRs, issued notably without a full cabinet meeting, will stand legal scrutiny is an open question.
The political leveraging will prove to be difficult for Fadnavis not only because of this aspect and the implementation headaches but also because his two deputies—Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde and Nationalist Congress Party’s Ajit Pawar—have been rather hands-off on this issue. This further crystallised the perception that the three leaders are hardly on the same page, though they jointly make the government. And it is noteworthy that the government’s negotiators, with Jarange Patil and his team, were mostly politicians from the Congress or the NCP who had switched allegiance to the BJP. So, Fadnavis cannot claim to be the unlikely hero for Marathas yet. In fact, his acumen, patience, and political goodwill will be sorely tested in the months ahead.
For the Marathas, especially in Marathwada, the relative success of this agitation does not spell the end of their troubles. At the core of their demand for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions lies the diminished opportunities for young people of the community. This has been triggered by the continuing agrarian crisis in the state and has brought out sharp differences between them and the small section of wealthy and politically powerful Marathas, including most of the state’s chief ministers. Reservations, even if they are fully implemented, are a transitional move; the real issue of making agrarian work sustainable for the community remains to be addressed.
