Explained: Who are the Dhangars of Maharashtra, and why do they want ST status?

On Saturday, the CM said that a report commissioned by the government to experts from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on the Dhangar community would be handed over to the Advocate General for consultations on the next steps. He had in November said that the state would send a recommendation to the Centre on the Dhangars’ demand for ST status before the Model Code of Conduct for the Lok Sabha elections came into force. The Model Code is expected within the next few days.

Who are the Dhangars, and why are they demanding that they be designated an ST?

The Dhangars are shepherds who live mostly in Western Maharashtra and Marathwada. The population of the community is estimated to be around 1 crore – or about 9% of Maharashtra’s roughly 11.25 crore population. They play a significant role in elections at four of the state’s 48 Lok Sabha seats (Baramati, Madha, Solapur, Satara), and about 30-35 of the 288 seats in the state Assembly.

The Dhangars are currently on Maharashtra’s list of Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes (VJNT), but they have been demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the past several decades. Dhangar leaders claim that their community in Maharashtra is the same as the one that is identified as “Dhangad” elsewhere in the country, and are listed as a Scheduled Tribe.

A typographical error had led to the community’s name being recorded as “Dhangar” in Maharashtra, thereby denying them the benefits available to the ST “Dhangads”, the community leaders say.

Of the 52% reservation in Maharashtra, SCs and STs have 13% and 7% respectively, OBCs have 19%, and the Vimukta Jati/Denotified Tribes, Special Backward Class, and Nomadic Tribes together have 13%. Dhangars are listed as a ‘Nomadic Tribe’.

Ahead of the elections to Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra Assembly in 2014, the ruling BJP had promised the Dhangars that they would be put on the list of STs. At the end of 2015, the Maharashtra government asked the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to establish whether Dhangars met the criteria to be identified as ST. In effect, this meant establishing whether the Dhangars of Maharashtra were the same as the Dhangads elsewhere in the country, and create a safeguard against any legal challenge in the future to the Dhangars being moved from the VJNT list to the ST list.

In November, Fadnavis had said that the government had received the TISS report, and action on it was in the final stage. The state government has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to providing the Dhangars ST status.

The most important Dhangar leader in the state is Mahadeo Jankar, the chief of the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP). The party did not win any seat in the Lok Sabha or Assembly elections; however, Jankar was made an MLC and given the important portfolio of diary development and animal husbandry with cabinet rank in the Fadnavis government.

The other important Dhangar leaders are the BJP Rajya Sabha member Dr Vikas Mahatme, and the leader of the Maharashtra State Dhangar Welfare Association, Prakash Shendge, both of whom have often threatened to scale up their longstanding demand.

Over the past two decades, almost all parties in Maharashtra, including the Congress, NCP, and BJP have supported the inclusion of Dhangars in the ST category. All these parties, however, have baulked at the prospect of dealing with STs who are strongly opposed to any attempt at dilution of their quota by the inclusion of a large community like the Dhangars. ST MPs and MLAs from all parties have made it clear that the inclusion of the Dhangars would be acceptable only if the overall ST quota is increased. In fact, the BJP’s decision to give Mahatme a Rajya Sabha seat was in part a nod to the Dhangar demand, besides an acknowledgment of his status as an eminent ophthalmologist.