For the past couple of years, Akash Sudrik (25) follows a morning ritual: visiting a memorial constructed in the memory of a minor who was raped and murdered at Kopardi village in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district in 2016. “I will keep coming here till I die. I just cannot forget what happened,” said Sudrik. He is among several others from the Maratha community who frequent the memorial. The victim hailed from the Maratha community and the three accused in the rape-murder case were from the Mahar caste, a Dalit community. The heinous crime had triggered unrest in the Maratha community. Days after the incident, Maharashtra witnessed its first Maratha Kranti Morcha, silent rallies that saw lakhs take to the streets demanding justice for the victim, reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs and amendments to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. On November 29, 2017, a local court found the accused guilty and sentenced them to death. The ruling has been challenged by the family of the accused. A year later, the state government extended reservations to the Maratha community. Three years later, an undertone of caste tension still runs through Kopardi. At the memorial, saffron flags of Maratha empire are installed. The victim’s father says members from other communities too visit the memorial, but her mother says the incident “drove a wedge between the two castes”. Villager Laxman Pawar recounts how Mahar caste members would participate in social functions of the Maratha community earlier. “That’s not the case now,” he says. He, however, adds that the “tension has eased in the past year-and-a-half”. Ahmednagar, the largest district in Maharashtra, has a history of caste strife. Ahead of the polls, even as major political parties avoided an overly casteist campaign, local residents admit that caste will play a role in the results. The Karjat-Jamkhed assembly seat, under which Kopardi village falls, is witnessing one of the fiercest battles in this election. Maharashtra’s most politically powerful Maratha clan member Rohit Pawar, grandnephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar, is up against sitting MLA and state Water Resources Minister Ram Shinde, who hails from Dhangar community — a nomadic tribe currently demanding Scheduled Tribe status. Even as Pawar and Shinde claim that their poll plank is development of the backward region, sources said the backroom campaigns of both candidates have a caste undertone. While voters rank water, irrigation and roads as main issues, many admit that “who they are voting for” matters too. In Jamkhed’s Kharda village, Rajiv Aage (55), a Dalit, says, “We may not like to admit it, but caste discrimination prevails in the region.” In 2014, Aage’s son Nitin’s body was found hanging from a tree in the village. Police charged nine people from the Maratha community with killing him over the suspicion that he was in a relationship with a girl from the community. On November 23, 2017, a local court acquitted them for want of evidence. “I lost my son to violence. But did not get justice as witnesses turned hostile owing to pressure by members of the upper caste,” he alleged. He also alleged lack of support from the government and the prosecution to pursue the case. His daughter was given a government job on compassionate grounds a few months ago, but Aage complains that “his own community too let him down”. His wife Rekha says has tears in her eyes. “Who killed my son?,” she asks.
