Puzzle of Maratha Quota

Around 40 years ago, Mathadi Kamgar Union leader Annasaheb Patil first began the Maratha reservation agitation. The demand has time and again come up, mostly around elections making its direct impact across Maharashtra. Since late August last year, 41-year-old Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil hailing from drought-prone Marathwada region, has brought the Eknath Shinde government to its knees by demanding blanket reservation in education and government jobs for all Marathas in the State.

A year ago on September 1, a lathi-charge on protesters demanding Maratha reservation altered the course of Maharashtra’s politics against the ruling Mahayuti, leading to a wipeout of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Marathwada in recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, and did significant damage to the candidates of its allies Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena.  The immediate trigger for a renascent Maratha quota agitation was a violent fracas last year between protesters and police in the Antarwali Sarati village in Jalna district.

The Maratha population enjoys political dominance in the state. A land-owning community, Marathas are estimated to constitute over 33 percent of the state control over most sugar cooperatives in the state. This three-decade-old demand, now revived by Jarange-Patil, went out of the state’s control with sporadic bandhs being announced across many districts. In some places, the agitation turned violent with the police resorting to lathi-charge on the protesters, further worsening the situation. With state assembly elections in sight, the vexed problem of Maratha reservation demand is once again back to dominate the state politics. For the past two months, political leaders across parties have been making a beeline to meet Jarange-Patil extending support.

Manoj Jarange-Patil, the Maratha agitator, mostly unknown until his first agitation last year, has now become a household name, with the agitation taking an aggressive turn across the state. Jarange-Patil, who has been active in Maratha politics for over a decade, says he is an “apolitical person”, working for the welfare of his community. One of the primary demands of this agitation is the issuance of Kunbi caste certificates for all members of the Maratha community. The Maharashtra government issued a resolution saying that Kunbi caste certificates will be issued to all Marathas from the Marathwada region who possess the ‘Nizam-era’ documents such as revenue, educational and other supporting records, and if “Kunbi” is mentioned in their genealogy.

Throughout his protest, Jarange-Patil has maintained that he will continue the agitation until his demands are fully met. But he is willing to have a dialogue with the government. The government had called for an “all-party” meeting where it was decided that the home department would withdraw all the cases against the protesters in the Jalna district where the police had resorted to lathi charge.

In 2014, just months before the assembly elections, then chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, relying on the then Congress Minister Narayan Rane committee report, brought in an ordinance introducing 16 percent reservation for the community, particularly in government jobs and education. This was taken forward by the Devendra Fadnavis-led government in 2014.

The Bombay HC, however, brought the 16 percent reservation down to 13 percent in jobs and 12 percent in education. In 2021, the SC quashed the quota altogether for Marathas. “Reservation cannot cross the 50 percent limit in states,” the court had opined. However, the Supreme Court blocked the Maratha reservation citing a 50 percent cap on total reservations it had set in 1992.

The majority of Maharashtra’s CMs since 1960 have been from the Maratha community. Between 2014 and 2019, nearly half of the total 288 MLAs were Marathas.