BJP’s caste conundrum ahead of 2024: Maratha quota to jati census to OBC sub-categorisation

In May 2021, the Supreme Court Constitution Bench had struck down the Maharashtra Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act, 2018, enacted for providing quota to Marathas, for violating the 50 per cent reservation ceiling.

Currently, the Central list of OBCs includes a total of 261 castes from Maharashtra, which is the largest number of OBCs among all states in this list. It is followed by Odisha (200 castes), Karnataka (199) and Tamil Nadu (181). Bihar’s 136 castes are part of the Central OBC list, while it is just 76 in the case of Uttar Pradesh.

Among Maharashtra’s 261 entries, “Kunbi, Lewa Kunbi, Lewa Patil, Lewa Patidar, Kurmi ” are listed at serial number 70 in the Central list. Marathas are currently demanding the Kunbi status to get quota in government jobs and education under the OBC category.

Marathas’ quota demand seems to be similar to that of the Jat community, which was initially not in the OBC category but was later included in it in five states. Jats of Rajasthan (except Dholpur and Bharatpur districts) were also included in the Central OBC list by the then Atal Behari Vajpayee government. Jats from other regions have also periodically raised their demand for inclusion in this list.

In Maharashtra – which was formed in 1960 by stitching together Bombay state, Marathwada region of Hyderabad state, Vidarbha region of Central Provinces and Berar state – the demands by several castes to be listed as OBCs started coming from its various regions just a few years after Independence.

G S Ghurye, renowned academic and anthropologist, wrote in his book Caste and Race in India (1969), “In Maharashtra we have good evidence of caste making progress in getting itself recognised by government for purposes of ascertaining backwardness. In 1953…there were 125 castes listed as backward but by (August) 1967 as many as 160 castes were enumerated in detail as Other Backward Classes.”

However, Marathas had not been considered as an OBC, especially in view of the community’s significant political empowerment. So far, for about half of the period since its formation Maharashtra has been ruled by Maratha chief ministers, which include Yashwantrao Chavan, PK Sawant, Shankarrao Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Sharad Pawar, Babasaheb Bhonsale, Shivajirao Nilangekar, Narayan Rane, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Ashok Chavan, Prithviraj Chavan and the incumbent Eknath Shinde.

For decades various commissions and committees categorised Marathas as upper caste Hindus.

Following the creation of Maharashtra, in November, 1961, the then Maharashtra government headed by Yashwantrao Chavan, himself a Maratha, appointed the B D Deshmukh Committee for defining OBCs and to suggest steps for their development. This committee, which submitted a report in January 1964, did not categorise Marathas as an OBC.

Following up on the Deshmukh panel’s report, the Vasantrao Naik government, on August 13, 1967, issued a list of OBCs for the state, which also did not include Marathas but showed the Kunbi community as an OBC. Kunbis have been in the Central list of OBCs as well.

In the meantime, while the report of the first OBC Commission at the national level, headed by Kaka Kalelkar, was not implemented, the second OBC commission, headed by B P Mandal, was constituted by the Union government led by Prime Minister Morarji Desai in December 1978.

In the case of Maharashtra, the Mandal Commission report, submitted in December 1980, estimated OBCs’ share in the state’s population to be 52 per cent, including 8.40 per cent from the non-Hindu communities. It listed as many as 272 castes and sub-castes as OBCs, but did not include Marathas among OBCs.

The Marathas’ demand for the OBC status got momentum in early 1980s when Anna Patil called for inclusion of the community among OBCs along with Kunbis.

The Maharashtra State OBC Commission, in a report in February 1980, stated that “Maratha is not a socially backward community but is a socially advanced and prestigious community and therefore the Request for Inclusion of ‘Maratha’ in the Central List of Backward Classes for Maharashtra along with Kunbi should be rejected”.

But this demand has been growing since. The Maharashtra OBC Commission headed by Justice R M Bapat submitted a report in July 2008, concluding that “it would not be appropriate from social justice perspective to include Maratha community in the ‘Other Backward Class’ category”.

Things changed after the Maharashtra OBC Commission in 2013 rejected the state government’s request seeking review of its July 2008 conclusion. The government then set up a special panel headed by Narayan Rane on the issue.

In February 2014, the Rane Committee submitted its report, on the basis of which the government promulgated an ordinance granting 16 per cent reservation for Marathas, which was stayed by the Mumbai High Court.

Meanwhile, the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) got the constitutional status. In November 2018, the State Backward Classes Commission submitted its report, declaring Marathas as a social and economic backward class of citizens with inadequate representation in services.

In 2018, the then CM Devendra Fadnavis (a Brahmin) offered Marathas reservation as a socially and educationally backward class (SEBC) based on the recommendations of the M G Gaikwad-headed State Backward Class Commission, enacting a legislation on the issue, which was quashed by the apex court in 2021.

With the Maratha quota demand again hotting up in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections and the Maharashtra Assembly polls, which are both slated for 2024, the BJP finds itself in a spot on the matter, even as it grapples with the larger issues relating to the caste census and Rohini panel report.