Maharashtra's quota quicksand

The BJP-led government's decision to grant Kunbi status to individuals from the Maratha community has opened Pandora's box. Shreyas Ubgade explains

- Shreyas Ubgade

On July 29, Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil urged members of his community to wind up their farming activities and prepare to march to Mumbai. Addressing a gathering at Antarwali Sarathi village in Jalna district, a part of the Marathwada region, he alleged the government had reneged on its promises to the Marathas, and threatened to launch a massive protest.

Exactly a month later, Jarange executed his threat with precision. On August 29, the lean and feisty activist began an indefinite strike at the iconic Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, the business hub of India's financial capital. Addressing thousands of his supporters, the 43-year-old announced: "I will not go back until our demands are met. Even if I am shot dead, I will not retreat."

Jarange had been demanding that the Maratha community be recognized as Kunbis, an agrarian caste included in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category — making them eligible for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions. He particularly insisted on the implementation of historical records of the Bombay, Satara, and Nizam-era Hyderabad gazettes, claiming they provide evidence on the classification of Marathas as Kunbis. Marathwada, an arid landlocked region, was under the rule of the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad, till its liberation in 1948.

Three days into the protest, as scores of Jarange's followers from across Maharashtra kept pouring into Mumbai and the activist threatened that he would stop drinking water, the Devendra Fadnavis-led state government blinked. It issued a resolution on the Hyderabad Gazette and announced the formation of village-level committees in Marathwada to issue Kunbi caste certificates to individuals from the Maratha community, provided they could furnish historical evidence of their Kunbi lineage.