A TICKING TIME-BOMB

T he July 13 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Maratha girl in Kopardi village of Ahmadnagar district of Maharashtra has become a catalyst for the Maratha community to seek redressal of their long-pending grievances. There is no question that the authorities will pursue the investigation into the gruesome crime with requisite vigour and determination. Already, the police has arrested four Dalit youths who were the alleged perpetrators of the gruesome act. However, it is the cascading fall-out of the crime which has served as a rallying point for a State-wide agitation by Marathas. This ought to be worrying for the ruling coalition. Ostensibly an apolitical agitation, the Marathas have held large rallies throughout the State to focus on their old demands. A dominant caste which has called the shots in the State’s rural economy, controlling a very large proportion of the cooperative sugar mills and banks, private education institutions, etc., on the face of it the demand for reservations might appear unjustified. But when you consider that the gains of dominance in the political, social and economic sectors have remained confined to a relatively small portion of the community, the agitation for reservations in educational institutions and jobs makes sense. In fact, the Maratha demand for caste-based reservations is no different from such agitations in Gujarat by the Patels and the Jats in Haryana. The plain truth is that agriculture is no longer able to sustain the growing numbers of the peasant castes. While the land holdings over the years have shrunk, the farming families have grown with each generation. Poor returns from agriculture and the preponderance of non-irrigated lands in the hinterland have further shrunk farm incomes. In the meantime, the churn in the larger society thanks to caste-based reservations has produced a new assertiveness among Dalits and OBCs. The feeling among Marathas, Patels and Jats that they are being left behind is therefore hard to counter. The fact that politically all three communities have dominated the politics of their respective States has only further aggravated their sense of grievance. That would explain why the Patels in Gujarat despite identifying closely with the ruling BJP have now challenged it frontally under a newly-emerging youth leadership. The recent agitation by Jats, which unfortunately turned violent due to the covert incitement by the Opposition Congress in Haryana, too spotlights the deteriorating socio-economic condition of the once-proud community. It is undeniable that the tangible improvement in the socio-economic conditions of Dalits and OBCs too rankles Jats and others demanding reservations in jobs and educational institutions. The Maratha community, in fact, reveals its hand in no uncertain terms when it seeks the abrogation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Though there is hardly any credible evidence of the Act being abused in Maharashtra, the demand barely conceals the actual objective of the Marathas. (Incidentally, under the BSP rule in UP there were wellfounded complaints about the overzealous use of the antiatrocity law for harassing upper castes.) It is also clever of the Marathas that they have kept politicians of all hues from fronting their agitation. Admittedly, all major groups in the State are tacitly lending support to the Maratha protest. A 25-lakh-strong rally in Mumbai in October is on the cards according to the protest organisers.

The High Courts in all three States had earlier shot down half-hearted attempts at appeasement of the respective agrarian community on the ground that the proposed reservations exceeded the permissible ceiling. But it would be a mistake to ignore the ticking time-bomb. A wide-ranging consensus needs to be evolved on addressing the grievance of the dominant castes for a share in the national cake. Public sector jobs are not growing that these can accommodate the ambitions of the rising numbers of unemployed who want to quit farming for the security of government employment. The aggrieved communities will however be well-advised to seek redressal of their own problems without targeting the Dalits or OBCs. A wise political leadership would treat the on-going Maratha protest as an early warning and have a re-look at the entire gamut of issues involved rather than wait for the agitation to take a violent turn. Indeed, national leaderships of major political groups should sit together to find a way to quell the rising discontent among the non-reserved castes. Eventually, the solution lies in expanding the national cake which will automatically happen should we continue to grow at a decent clip for a decade or two.