Hyderabad: January 30th, 1948, changed the course of history in many ways. It did change the course of politics of Maharashtra as well.
As is known, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on that day in Delhi. The assassin was Nathuram Godse, a Brahmin from Maharashtra.
Despite being just about three per cent of the total population in the state, Brahmins, historically dominated all spheres of life, from culture to politics. This dominance was strongly resisted first by Mahatma Phule, Shahu Maharaj and, later by Dr Ambedkar. In the 1920s, just like Periyar's self-respect movement in the south, Maharashtra witnessed a strong Non-Brahmin Movement which formed the base of later-day Peasants and Workers Party.
The state was preparing itself for a big change for a very long time and, perhaps, waiting for the opportune moment to come. Godse's act provided that trigger, which set in motion a lot of political churning. Brahmins as a community were blamed as being anti-Gandhi, anti-Congress and anti-people and were thrown out of politics over the next few years. Incidentally, when Gandhiji was killed, the chief minister of the then Mumbai State was a Brahmin – B.G. Kher, himself a staunch Gandhian. But once he faded, so did the Brahmins from the state's polity.
Forget the state-level, but even at the Panchayat level, Brahmins were virtually forbidden from being active or assuming any public posts. This was a sort of reversal of the social boycott that Brahmins had practised for centuries towards others.
Incidentally, all this space vacated by Brahmins was captured and occupied by mostly the Marathas and to an extent by some relatively well-off OBC castes like Mali or Bhandaris.
Now cut to 2019 assembly elections in Maharashtra. Chandrakant Patil, the number two in the state cabinet and the BJP State President has decided to contest from Pune, which is called to be a den of Brahmins. Patil, who is a Maratha, is from Kolhapur, which is seen as a centre of Maratha politics ever since Shahu Maharaj's time.
Patil's decision created a storm of sorts in the state as he wants to contest a seat which is currently being held by his own party's Brahmin MLA Medha Kulkarni. Her constituency, Kothrud, comprises of mostly a Brahmin population. Suddenly, the self-proclaimed leaders of Brahmin Mahasangh got an opportunity and they started giving statements against Patil. They also threatened to field a Brahmin candidate against him. Subsequently, Patil met these leaders and pacified them.
Ironically, RSS, to which BJP pledges its allegiance, is alleged to be dominated by the Brahmins. Obviously, the Brahmins threatening the BJP has lot many connotations which could hardly be missed.
Now, how much support this Mahasangh does really enjoy of Brahmins is matter of great doubt. But the real point is something else. That is - till about ten years ago, it was unthinkable in Maharashtra for any organisation to do politics in the name of Brahmins in the first place, leave aside being so strongly assertive.
And it is not entirely a coincidence that ever since the BJP's ascension to the power at center and the state, this assertiveness has been on the rise. In the last few years, various Brahmin organisations have taken out huge morchas on Parshuram Jayanti.
Of late, these organisations have also started demanding reservations for Brahmins in education and jobs.And they are leveraging it with the reservation for the backward castes. So in a huge morcha in Beed last month, Brahmins demanded doing away with the reservations entirely or giving them to Brahmins as well. In the state of Dr Ambedkar, this is quite unprecedented.
Certainly, the next in line would be political reservation. Such demands provide them an agenda and controversy like Kothrud election provide them an occasion to organise themselves into a solid pressure group. This is quite a watershed moment in the state's politics based on caste equations and its effects could be far reaching.
New identity for Marathas
While Brahmins are regrouping as a political entity after a long hiatus, Marathas, who dominated the political scene in all these years are trying to discover themselves in a new way.
In 1960, when the new Marathi state came into existence, a question was doing the rounds in public discourse – Will this new state be Marathi (language) or Maratha (caste). Yashwantrao Chavan, the then tallest leader of the state and Chief Minister had clearly said that it will be a Marathi state. But subsequent political scene over the years proved that the doubts raised were not totally unfounded. Since 1960, barring four, all the chief ministers of this state have been Marathas. In 2014, 134 of the total 288 MLAs were Marathas and Kunbis (which is like a sub-caste of Maratha). In the Devendra Ministry, 40 per cent ministers are Marathas.
But despite being at the helm of affairs for so many years, Maratha population at large remained a deprived lot. Their despair snowballed into a demand for reservations. The state saw a huge churning, like never before. Five to ten lakh Marathas took part in various cities across the state for making this demand.
Until recently, Marathas were staunch backers of Congress and NCP. In fact, NCP was and still is called the party of Marathas. But the Maratha morchas changed this. Many places, BJP and Shiv Sena supported and organised these morchas. And ultimately it was Devendra Fadnavis government which got a Supreme Court-proof (like water-proof) reservation for Marathas. Subsequently, BJP also engineered a lot of defections in both the Congress and the NCP, weaning away lot many Maratha satraps. So today, the Marathas are a divided lot, and not unified anymore.
With 32 per cent share, Marathas are the biggest caste group in the state's population, making them very vital in any power-sharing arrangement. Since majority of the Marathas had gathered under the Congress banner for very long, the anti-Congress politics took a form of politics of non-Maratha groups. Hence, in their initial years, both the Shiv Sena and the BJP focused on the OBC castes, which could counter the Marathas at the village level.
2014 was the culmination of this non-Maratha politics and hence, a non-Maratha Chief Minister could be installed here.
Now, BJP has marched ahead and made inroads into Maratha groupings, as explained above. The BJP leadership has given a systematic impetus to this huge churning. Its efforts will be put to test in the 2019 assembly elections. Hence, here again, this is going to be a watershed moment for Maratha politics.
The BJP is trying to disrupt the traditional Congress politics in a massive way all over the country and even in Maharashtra. It will have many repercussions and also likely raise many questions in future. One of the foremost could be - how the OBCs, who were the main backers of the BJP enjoyed influential positions in the party's power structure up till now, are going to make space for the Marathas and share power with them in future? It will be interesting to see how the BJP leadership is going to maintain a balance among these various caste groups.
We will watch that next.
Read: Could Deshmukh Brothers be the face and future of Maharashtra Congress on national level?
