Quota is the wrong answer

Marathas in Maharashtra experience a sense of relative deprivation. Reservation is not the solution

THE UNION CABINET has decided to replace the existing National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) with a National Commission for the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (NCSEBC). This transformation has been endorsed by the Lok Sabha on April 10, but the Rajya Sabha has referred the bill to a select committee whose report will be tabled in the Upper House during the Monsoon Session.

The new legislation will transfer the power of amending the list of the OBCS from government to Parliament and will also shift the responsibility of determining the list of their OBCS from the states to this new body. Someobservers,includingsatishdeshpande in a recent oped (‘Misreading caste’, IE, April 12), did not rule out an attempt by the government to extend reservations to not only dominant castes like Jats, Marathas or Patidars, but also “economically backward” upper castes.

While we have reviewed the case of the Patels and Jats in previous opeds, the situation of the Marathas deserves more attention, because it is more complex. First, the Marathas have not only asked for quotas, but also for the revision (abolition?) of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Second, they have mobilised in a very peculiar manner. Their agitation started exactly one year ago, in April 2016, after a Maratha girl was allegedly raped by a Dalit. In contrast to the Jats, the Marathas opted for a non-violent — and even silent — modus operandi. Rallies were organised at thedistrictlevelinaugust-october2016,mobilising more than 1.2 million people. Third, Marathas form a huge caste cluster, representing more than 30 per cent of the population of Maharashtra, a record number in India.

The reasons why Marathas are asking for quotas are very similar to those of the Jats and the Patels: While their elite group is doing fine economically, a large fraction is lagging behind. Certainly, the Marathas have dominated Maharashtra’s politics for decades (with a record number of MLAS, 36 to 40 per cent of the total since 1967) and are second only to the Brahmins in terms of per capita income, Rs 36,548 against Rs. 47,427 — according to the 2011-12 round of the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS) by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in collaboration with the University of Maryland. The other forward