EDITORIALS

The Silence of the Marathas

The signals of the silent Maratha morchas are loud; the Maharashtra government must act.

n 13 July, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, the daughter of poor

brick kiln workers belonging to the Maratha community,
was gang-raped and murdered in Kopardi, in Ahmednagar
district of Maharashtra. According to reports, her body had been
brutally mutilated. The accused are three Dalit youths who were
arrested immediately. More than a month after this incident,
muk (silent) morchas led by Maratha organisations began in
Ahmednagar, and spread to other districts. The slow build-up is now
beginning to get widespread media and public attention and on
21 September, one such morcha was held in Navi Mumbai.
There are plans to hold one in Mumbai in October. The marchers
have three main demands: rigorous punishment to the accused,
grant of reservation in educational institutions and government
jobs to the Maratha community and review of the Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (PoA).
As with the Jats in Haryana and Rajasthan and the Patels in
Gujarat, the trajectory of the Maratha communitys economic
and political fortunes has been marked by dwindling returns
from agriculture, division of landholdings among succeeding
generations, lack of attention to educational training of the youth
and resultant resentment towards communities who have the
advantage over them due to reservation. The Marathas have
dominated the states political life and inevitably, the formation
of the state cabinet since its inception. Maratha politicians and
leaders have spawned huge educational complexes and led the
states vast cooperative sector for a long time. But the youth of the
poor and small landholding sections of the community, who face
low returns from land and joblessness, are not willing to be content
with stories of its valorous and glorious history. Marathas account
for between 32% and 33% of the states population while the Dalits
form 10.8% and the Other Backward Classes (OBC) 26% of it.
According to unofficial estimates, 35% of the Marathas are landless
labourers and their economic hardships only seem to be growing.
The demand for reservation by the community in the OBC list is
at least two decades old but has gained urgency and greater support in recent years. The previous CongressNationalist Congress
Party (NCP) government (Marathas dominated in terms of numbers
and power) granted the community 16% reservation in education

Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

september 24, 2016

vol lI no 39

and jobs as the 2014 general elections drew near. This did not infringe on the reservation for the OBCs because the latter had made
clear their intention to agitate if that happened. However, the
Bombay High Court scrapped the reservation and the matter is
now before the high court in the form of more than one petition.
Maratha organisations claim that the largest number of persons
prosecuted under the PoA are Marathas, and that this stringent law
is being used to wreak revenge for reasons other than casteist acts.
Although the law was amended last year to include more offences
and ensure speedy implementation, media reports based on information gathered under the Right to Information (RTI) reveal that
the total number of cases filed under the act have decreased in 2015
compared to previous years. Also, the number of first information
reports (FIRs) filed under the law in Maharashtra are fewer when
compared to states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and
Rajasthan. While the police admit that many of the complaints are
registered as non-cognisable when the correct procedure is to
record an FIR, they also say that in 60% of the cases, the provisions
of this law were added only because the complainant belonged
either to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) and
even if they involved land disputes. Clearly, almost every law has
the potential for misuse. We need to address the challenges all
such laws face in their implementation in the face of a prolonged
judicial process and an inefficient law enforcement machinery.
While none of the Maratha politicians, especially, from the
Congress and NCP have openly attended these marches or spoken at the rallies, it is assumed in rival political quarters that as
a number of them face corruption charges and are out of power,
this could be one way of making their presence felt.
Meanwhile, critics of the agitation question the need for it as
the accused have been arrested and the case is being pursued
swiftly. The reasons for the morchas then are more economic
and political, they say. However, it is certain that the state government faces a difficult task. It needs to deal with the demands
while the agitation continues to remain peaceful, without giving in to political expediency or electoral pressure. This is a tall
order given the politics of reservation and the clamour by different sections of society for the economic pie.