A Movement Like the Marathas, Against Marathas: Can Maharashtra NDA Pacify OBCs?

As OBCs take a leaf from Maratha protests playbook, the war between its two largest voter bases has the BJP worried.

In April 2010, just a few months after the Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Gopinath Munde and Chhagan Bhujbal, two big names of the state's politics were both sharing a stage at an event organised by the All Indian Muslim OBC Organisation.

Both stalwarts of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the then united Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) respectively, and both ideologically opposite parties who were not allies back then, what was common between the two leaders was their command within the OBC community.

Taking the dais at the event, Bhujbal said: "The data available on the OBC census is from the British Raj. Today, there are 340 castes among the OBCs, who constitute 54 percent of the country's population. There is a need for the OBC Census, but they (government) don't want it.”

The comment was seen as a mild criticism of his own UPA government that ruled both at the state and the Centre. When Gopinath Munde took the dais, he backed Bhujbal saying that he "should lead the struggle" to consolidate a fairly diverse and fragmented OBC community.

Come 2024, the NCP and BJP are now allies, Bhujbal is a part of the BJP-led ruling Mahayuti in Maharashtra, and the conflict between Marathas and OBCs over reservation is at its peak.

While Bhujbal is now at the forefront of the OBC movement and has renewed his pitch for a caste-based census, BJP leader Pankaja Munde, staying true to her late father's legacy, has openly voiced her support for the community.

But fourteen years since Gopinath Munde and Bhujbal shared the dais in 2010, the OBCs, that constitute about 38% of Maharashtra's population, are building a movement in Maharashtra that has the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in the state on high alert.

Taking a Leaf from Maratha Playbook, an OBC Movement Brews

For the past 10 months, the Marathas led by reservation activist Manoj Jarange Patil, have been demanding reservation for the community in education and jobs. But the conflict with the OBCs arose when Jarange, as OBC leaders allege, "altered his demands" to ask for reservation for the community under the 19% reservation that the OBC community is entitled to in the state.

For the clear risk of alienating OBCs, the Maharashtra government stalled on Jarange's demands but faced a wipe-out from Marathwada and Vidarbha regions as a consequence of the Maratha movement.

But taking a leaf from Jarange's 'hunger strike politics', a similar movement has been launched by the OBC community.

Since 13 June, activists Laxman Hake and Navnath Waghmare have been on an indefinite hunger strike in Jalna's Wadigodri village, merely a kilometer away from Antarvali Sarati where Jarange's latest hunger strike was underway until last week.

Among several demands, Hake and Waghmare have one key demand — the government must explain in writing how it plans to meet demands of Jarange while leaving the OBC reservation untouched.

Prakash Shendge, prominent OBC leader and founder of the OBC Bahujan Party who has been working towards consolidating OBC outfits, said that Hake and Waghmare's huger strike has come at an opportune time and will make it difficult for the government to "blindly give in to Jarange's demands."

"On one side, there was Manoj Jarange who was doing constant hunger strikes and the government was listening to all his demands. The OBCs were expected to be mute spectators. Now, Hake and Waghmare are on a hunger strike. There are strikes going on in Pune, Sangli, and Solapur. The spark of the OBC movement will spread the fire across the state now," Shendge said.

In a meeting in Nagpur on 16 June led by Shendge, several OBC outfits agreed to place three key demands before the government:

• Revocation of the 'sage-soyare' ordinance that provides reservation to all relatives of those identified as Kunbi Marathas in a recent government exercise. (The Kunbi Maratha sub-caste is entitled to reservation under the OBC category in the state.)

• Caste census should be conducted on the lines of Bihar model

• The certificates of 57 lakh Marathas identified as Kunbis in the recent government exercise should be revoked.

Why BJP Cannot Upset the OBCs Further

Already struggling to quell the Maratha movement, the BJP-led NDA is looking to avoid any consolidation of the OBC votes against it.

On 17 June, a three-member delegation of the state government, including Aurangabad MP Sandipan Bhumre, met Hake and Waghmare at the protest site in a bid to persuade them to end the hunger strike.

In the past few days, key state leaders including Pankaja Munde and NCP's Gopinath Munde also visited the site while urging their own government to fulfill their demands.

To gauge the possible impact of the movement, a look at the results of the recent Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections.

According to to data released by Lokniti-CSDS:

• The INDIA bloc received 39% of the OBC votes - 11% by the Congress and 28% by its allies NCP (Sharad Pawar) and Shiv Sena (UBT).

• The NDA received 50% of the OBC votes - 33% by the BJP and 17% by its allies NCP and Shiv Sena.

• The INDIA bloc received 39% of the Maratha votes - 14% by the Congress and 25% by allies.

• The NDA received 46% of the Maratha votes - 27% by the BJP and 19% by its allies.

Clearly, both OBCs and Marathas are the top two voter bases of the BJP. If there is a lesson from the recent elections, it is the fact that it cannot afford to alienate either of the communities.

Bhujbal Seeks Caste Census: Will it Resolve Reservation Issue?

Earlier this week Bhujbal said that he will meet PM Narendra Modi to seek a caste-based census on a national level.

"Once a caste census is conducted, various issues of OBCs will be highlighted. We will not only understand the population but also the situation of OBCs. Hence, the funds from the central government, which are now available only to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, will also be available to OBCs. But for that, a census should be done," Bhujbal said.

Several OBC outfits, including Shendge's party, have backed Bhujbal's demand.

Mrudul Nile, a PhD scholar in Political Science and a senior professor in the Department of Civics and Politics at the Mumbai University, told The Quint that politics aside, a caste-based census may be the only way forward for the conflict in the state but that alone will not suffice.

"The bottom-line of everything is that there should be a caste census. But there is also a need for socio-economic census along with it. Let all that data come and only then can any community make any statement or decisions that they want to. If one looks at the claims, the demography, the 'hunger-strike-blackmail' politics, and the nuisance value that such movements can bring with them, one also needs to look at what are the constitutional mandates and the committees formed on its basis," Nile said.

Calls from Within NDA for Introspection, Strategising

Since the 1980s, leaders like Vasantrao Bhagwat, Pramod Mahajan and Gopinath Munde gradually shifted the OBCs towards the BJP with what is popularly known as the 'Madhav’ formula (Maali-Dhangar-Vanjari castes). While promoting leaders from these communities and ensuring political representation, Mahajan, a Deshastha Brahmin and Gopinath Munde, a Vanjari, went on to become one of the most prominent names of the party. What aided their efforts was also the fact that Congress was perceived as a party dominated by Marathas.

Hence, the failure to control the Maratha vs OBC conflict and the recent rout of the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections has sent sent jitters across many MLAs and party leaders ahead of the upcoming elections.

"Protesting is every individual's right in a democracy and ensuring that the protesters get justice within the ambit of the law is the responsibility of the government. The big leaders of the government must come here and ensure that the protesters get justice," Pankaja said while addressing people at the protest site in Wadigodri on 16 June.

"I urge CM Eknath Shinde and both deputy CMs that my brothers have many demands but they must explain how the OBC reservation will not be affected," she said.

Dhananjay Munde, too, urged the government to take the "demands of all communities into consideration," adding that the government must reflect upon why the situation in the state has reached this stage.

Meanwhile, the BJP's defeat in OBC-dominated constituencies like Chandrapur and Gadchiroli-Chimur in the Lok Sabha elections has many political observers pointing to a possible shift of the community away from the BJP.

The issue of reservation for Marathas and the OBC movement was also a significant part of discussion in ever internal party meeting held by the Maharashtra BJP since the Lok Sabha election results.

Can OBCs Unite Like Marathas Did?

For the OBC movement to become as effective as the Maratha movement, the lack of consolidation of the community's voters remains a big issue, experts say.

Despite a significantly strong movement that has full political attention, several key leaders of the community, including Babanrao Taywade of the Rashtriya OBC Mahasangh has questioned the rationale behind the demonstrations by Hake.

The consolidation of the Marathas, meanwhile, has taken place gradually for decades. Over the past decade, there have been attempts to give reservation to the community thrice, with the move not standing legal scrutiny the first two times and leading to constant protests and foot marches.

The Marathas have been consolidated under Jarange's leadership after decades of fragmentation.

Whether the OBC outfits will be able to unify and corner the government ahead of the Assembly elections is something that remains to be seen. But with Marathas on one side and the OBCs on the other, the Maharashtra NDA continues to be between the devil and the deep blue sea.

"If the government accepts the demands of Jarange, we will ensure that the state government's MLAs don't win the upcoming Assembly elections. Every party wants that the Maratha vote bank shifts to them because they are united. The poverty that has befallen the Maratha community, the OBCs are not responsible for it. Their leaders have been in power always, they have been responsible for it. If they are impoverished, there should be schemes to eradicate poverty. The claim that caste reservation will eradicate poverty is no argument," Shendge said.