Why were the protests happening in the first place? Which were the organisations behind the protests? What toll did Maharashtra have to pay in the protests that turned violent today and yesterday? We will aim to answer all these questions on our Pick of the Day.
The latest news from Maharashtra is that the Maratha Kranti Morcha has called off the Mumbai Bandh. Why were the protests happening in the first place? Which were the organisations behind the protests? What toll did Maharashtra have to pay in the protests that turned violent today and yesterday? We will aim to answer all these questions on our Pick of the Day. My name is Seetal, and you are listening to Moneycontrol.
First, the latest:
After day-long violence in pockets of Maharashtra, Maratha Kranti Morcha, a Maratha group enforcing a bandh to press its demands for reservation in jobs and education, called off the strike in Mumbai city. At the time of my telling you this, protests and strikes are in progress in areas surrounding India’s financial capital. Through the day, protesters blocked arterial roads, including the Mumbai-Pune highway and the Eastern Expressway, and forced shops to shut. Local train routes were blocked in Jogeshwari and near Thane. Violence was witnessed in parts of the state on Tuesday after a protester committed suicide by jumping into a river in Aurangabad, but more on that later.
related news
What has happened up until this point during these protests? Here is a quick lowdown:
First a quick update for our listener commuters: Transharbour services between Thane and Vashi on Transharbour lines have started as per the latest tweet from Central Railway at 4:46 pm.
— Agitators set a BEST bus ablaze in Mankhurd, Navi Mumbai. No injuries were reported.— Police used teargas to defuse protests in Kalamboli, Navi Mumbai. Police also resorted to lathicharge, according to reports.
— The police in Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Raigad and Satara districts were on their toes to prevent any law and order problem.
— In Aurangabad, a man, Jagannath Sonawane, who had consumed a poisonous substance yesterday during the protest, died today at a local government hospital.
— 9 public buses were attacked by agitators in Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai.
— Agitators pelted stones on some buses in Mumbai, including Kanjurmarg and Bhandup areas.
—BEST partially suspended its services in some areas and expects to resume it when the situation improves.
— Protesters tried to block a road in Mankhurd, Chandivali, Jogeshwari and Kandivali, but the police dispersed them.
— Not all protests have been violent. In Bandra, Matunga and Mulund, protesters marched on roads and were seen requesting shopkeepers with folded hands to close their establishments.
— Agitators blocked some areas in Thane, including the key Teen Hath Naka junction, resulting in huge traffic jams on the city's main entry and exit points.
— Contrary to their previous peaceful agitations, this time protesters tried to stop local trains on the Central Railway (CR) and the Western Railway (WR) corridors.
— Agitators also threw stones at trains passing through Thane and Ghansoli stations on the Harbour Lines and services were halted briefly.
—Stonepelting was also seen at the Sion-Panvel Highway in the afternoon as the protests took a violent turn there.
Maratha Kranti Morcha coordination committee member Virendra Pawar said the agitation had turned out to be a grand success. “We showed everyone that caste-based outfits can bring the city to a halt just as well as political parties.” Denying that any member of his outfit had gone on the rampage, he went on to add, “We suspect some political conspiracy to tarnish our image. We peacefully held 58 silent morchas without causing any violence.” Holding the state government responsible for the bandh, Pawar went on to say, “We sought our due from the government for two whole years, but received nothing. This is what pushed our youngsters to do this.”
Now, what's the story?
The Maratha community’s agitation for reservation in the state of Maharashtra in government jobs and educational institutions, got violent yesterday and today, as protesters torched police vehicles and ambulances in Aurangabad and caused all that we spoke about just earlier in various parts of Maharashtra today. Two members of the Maratha community even attempted suicide yesterday, with one of them Jagannath Sonavne, passing away today.
When did it all start?
The protest first started in 2016, after a teenager from the community in a village called Kopardi, was allegedly raped and killed by men from the Dalit community. As a result, Marathas started a "silent protest march" demanding reservation as well as amendments to the Prevention of Atrocities on Dalits Act, which they alleged was "misused". Over the past two years, Maratha outfits have held "silent" protests across the state with lakhs coming in support of the community. In August 2017, a silent rally in Mumbai, reportedly the 58th such rally, was attended by lakhs of people from across the state and brought the city to a standstill. Marathas constitute nearly 30-40 percent of the state's population. Researchers suggested that the large scale of these protests – involving all classes of the Maratha community – and the intensity of feeling may be suggestive of much more than a reaction to that single ugly incident of the rape, and that the mass movement may indicate a “deeper pool of resentment.” (Anderson, EPW, 2016) The protests, until the developments of this week, have largely been peaceful. While the rape incident may have been the immediate reason for the galvanisation of the protesters, the movement eventually addressed the larger demands of the community, which are primarily three:
1. Stop the abuse of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act2. Legislative reservation for Marathas
3. Raise Minimum Support Prices.
Who has spearheaded the protests?
Several Maratha outfits, such as the Maratha Kranti Morcha, Maratha Kranti Samaj and Sakal Maratha Samaj are leading the agitation. Smaller Maratha groups have joined these larger groups, turning them into umbrella bodies.
Why did the issue corp up again?
According to reports, the agitation started after Maharashtra's Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis cancelled his visit to a temple in Pandharpur — an annual ritual for the CM — after Maratha outfits threatened to disrupt his visit. The visit was scheduled for July 23.
How did the agitation turn violent?
The agitation intensified after a 27-year-old protester reportedly committed suicide by jumping into the Godavari River in Aurangabad district on July 23. The deceased was identified as Kakasaheb Dattatreya Shinde. Following the incident, Maratha outfits reportedly attacked police vehicles and ambulances in Aurangabad, forcing authorities to suspend internet services. According to ANI, a police head constable died due to a heart attack in Gangapur, after protesters threw stones at the police. Shiv Sena lawmaker Chandrakant Khaire was manhandled by protesters in Aurangabad when he went to attend the last rites of the farmer. Posters of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were torn in parts of Thane, near Mumbai. Besides the reservation issue, the Maratha Kranti Morcha is upset with the Chief Minister over his allegation that some members of the community were planning violence during his visit to a temple at Pandharpur town in Solapur district, NDTV went on to report.
The Marathas in Maharashtra – A closer look
Marathas – a politically influential community that constitutes about 38% percent of Maharashtra’s population. Reservations for the community have been a contentious issue for years, and this very issue is on the boil yet again. This is not the first case of such a protest we have seen in Maharashtra. The question we ask therefore is why they happen so often.
Changing societies – is one explanation. Like the Jats in the North West regions of the country and the Patels in Gujarat and Vokkaligas in Karnataka, Marathas have a large share in the state’s population and have historically held sway in local politics. Like the other communities I mentioned earlier, the Marathas too have historically been a land-owning community. Roshan Kishore, writing for Hindustan Times, says, “[this] traditional dominance is being threatened in the new economic order where educations and jobs matter more than farm incomes”, and that this may be at the heart of the protests from the community.
To make his case, Kishore cited two research papers published in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), each with a contrasting result.
The first paper by Siwan Anderson et al, titled ‘Distress in Marathaland’, published in December 2016, argued that, “The Marathas, Maharashtra’s dominant community, have been protesting against the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and demanding reservations for themselves and a hike in minimum support prices. This study reveals that these demands do not address the source of Maratha distress—stagnation of farm incomes and the failure of the government to improve agricultural productivity. Poor farmers, whether Maratha or Dalit, have the same grievances, and therefore, a caste-based mobilisation may actually be counterproductive.”
The Maratha protesters have labelled this movement as a movement by the “deprived” against the “privileged.” Which begs the question – are the Marathas a privileged community? Interesting also is the fact that what began as a movement by the have-nots has turned into a caste movement. But first let’s compare the Maratha community to OBCs and SCs, that is, groups that ¬do have reservations.
The data for the Anderson study came from a 2007 survey of 9000 households in 300 randomly selected villages of Maharashtra, with 40% of the households covered in the survey below the state poverty line. Anderson and others, in their work, found that not all Maratha cultivators were better off than their OBC counterparts, even though only 24% of the OBCs had land holdings greater than 5 acres in comparison to 34% of Marathas holding land greater than 5 acres. OBCs with large landownership reported much larger yields than Marathas with smaller tracts. OBCs – both male and female - also had a higher percentage share in terms of education above secondary level than the Marathas.
The second paper – with contrasting results – came from Ashwini Deshpande and Rajesh Ramachandran and was published in the Economic and Political Weekly in 2017. They used data of 15984 individuals from the India Human Development Survey conducted in 2011-12. The study went on to show that Marathas were actually better off than all caste groups excluding Brahmins not just in land endowments but also education and access to government jobs in Maharashtra.
As one can see – there is already a contrast between two academic studies on the performance of the Marathas as a community along certain socioeconomic parameters. Which is why, let’s take a closer look at the numbers and see how the Marathas, as a community, stack up in terms of dominance and political clout.
Meena Menon, writing for the Hindu in 2012, gave us some numbers: “From 1962 to 2004, of the total of 2,430 MLAs, 1,336 or 55% were Maratha. Nearly 54% of the educational institutions in the state are controlled by them. Of the 105 sugar factories, 86 are headed by Marathas, while 23 district cooperative banks have Marathas as chairpersons. Marathas dominate the universities in the state, with 60% to 75% presence in the management. About 71% of the cooperative institutions are under the control of this community. In Maharashtra, 75% to 90% of the land is owned by the community. In addition, all the milk cooperatives and cotton mills are either owned or controlled by them. In 54 of the 288 assembly constituencies, only Marathas have ever been elected—even without any reservations.” Anderson’s survey found that even though Marathas had a share of 38% in the population, they filled 63% of the unreserved gram pradhan positions. Deshpande’s paper shows that Marathas have a greater probability of having a panchayat member who is close to or from their own households than all other caste groups. Let’s not also forget that Sharad Pawar, union agriculture minister for ten years 2004 to 2014, is a Maratha. Since becoming a state in 1960 till 2012, Maharashtra has had 18 Chief Ministers, 10 of whom have been Marathas.
Why then the discontent?
I said earlier that the anxieties in many agrarian communities may be rooted in the economic transformations that India has seen since the 1960s. Researchers have demonstrated that among the greatest beneficiaries of the green and milk revolutions of early independent India were Jats, Marathas, and Patels – predominantly agricultural communities. Deshpande et al write, “The transformations happening in the economy, in particular, the declining importance of agriculture, the growth of corporatised agriculture, and the increase in water shortages have added to the possibility that these groups might feel increasingly vulnerable, especially given their former positions of strength.” They further elaborate – “Overall, there is discontent among powerful farming communities due to the perception that real economic power lies in the hands of big corporations, and that the state, overtly or covertly, acts in the interest of these corporations. These farming communities feel their power slipping away or eroding, in addition to feeling ill-prepared to shift towards livelihood opportunities in the urban and formal sector.”
Sonalde Desai, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, talks about the perception of prosperity. She discusses how a “sense of fairness in economic outcomes is strongly related to perceptions of prosperity.” The implication being that individuals or communities are more likely to feel deprived if they feel strongly that the odds of economic success are stacked against them – a similar argument has also been made about the white working class communities in rural America.
Research on the ground seems to indicate otherwise – that often, these communities are not the most marginalised, and indeed have consolidated their advantage over other marginalised groups, and have narrowed gaps with the dominant groups in their respective states between 2004-2005 and 2011-12. And yet, Desai goes on to report, “forward castes were about 30% more likely to feel that they were worse off in 2011–12 than in 2004–05.”
The last question we ask therefore is – do the protests have any real merit? The answer to that is Yes, in so far as the fact that protests address a wider problem faced by all communities. The movement has certainly galvanised the Maratha community across subcastes to give voice to the overwhelming opinion that the agrarian communities need more help. But we must also emphasise, as multiple researchers have consistently, that these anxieties are not one community’s alone and that the movement should champion the cause of all farmers, across caste and community lines. One must also be aware of deepening the Maratha-Dalit divide and take all steps to prevent that from happening in an already divided society.
On the topic of reservations, I will let the researchers have the last word. Deshpande and Ramachandran write, “Economic changes that give rise to widespread anxieties need to be understood, and genuine grievances, including those that might come from forward castes dealing with agrarian transformations, must be addressed. With regard to demands for inclusion into the OBC category, we argue the following: given increased levels of privatisation, the total number of jobs that are eligible for reservations, is already shrinking. In another paper (Deshpande and Ramachandran 2016), we demonstrate how existing OBCs and SCs/STs are further lagging behind upper castes when a range of material indicators are considered. In this context, extending quotas to relatively richer and more powerful groups would result in diluting the already small and shrinking entitlement for communities that are truly disadvantaged and discriminated against.”