MUMBAI: For five days, Manoj Jarange-Patil had the Maharashtra government with its back against the wall, forcing it to concede six of his eight demands on Tuesday. As the Maratha quota activist accepted a glass of fruit juice from a government delegation, to symbolically break his fast at Azad Maidan, the senior government leadership was wiping egg off its face.
The government caved after the Bombay High Court gave it a dressing down on Tuesday, for allowing the situation to spin out of control, with Martha protestors occupying public spaces and bringing parts of South Mumbai to a standstill.
As the 43-year-old Maratha quota activist celebrated his win, the BJP-led Mahayuti government reluctantly admitted to a series of missteps. Its gravest error was allowing the mass protest at Azad Maidan in the first place. It had given the go-ahead despite being censured by the Bombay High Court. The government had simply not anticipated the scale of the agitation.
And it wasn’t just the court’s stand. Citizens and businesses too had grown weary due to the widespread disruption caused by the protestors, placing the government under further pressure.
By Tuesday, the weight of these factors had become impossible for the government to ignore. Finally, the government conceded key demands made by Jarange-Patil. The most contentious demand was the acceptance of the Hyderabad and Satara gazetteers as valid historical evidence for issuing Kunbi caste certificates to members of the Maratha community.
This will pave the way for lakhs of Marathas to be included in the OBC quota after their eligibility as Kunbis is verified based on records in British-era gazetteers.
The government has also promised to expedite the process of issuing Kunbi certificates on the basis of the 5.8 million documents collated by the Justice Shinde Committee. This will enable even more Marathas to be included in the OBC quota.
The Mahayuti government granted the demand, even though its decision could alienate existing OBCs, a traditional vote bank of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. The OBCs will now have to share reservation benefits with a larger pool of beneficiaries.
“The leadership and even the cabinet sub-committee on Maratha reservations was not convinced of implementing the gazetteers as it would upset the OBCs. But the government had no choice as Jarange-Patil would not budge on that demand,” said a BJP leader.
“According to government estimates, over 1 million Marathas are expected to benefit from the gazetteer records. The government smartly rejected the demand to implement the gazetteer with regard to all the Marathas in Marathwada,” he added.
Insiders in the Mahayuti government concede that allowing Jarange-Patil to stage his protest at Azad Maidan was a mistake. Despite objections from the Mumbai police, the government underestimated the scale of the Maratha quota activist’s mobilisation.
“The decision to block access to food and water for the protesters, and allowing them to fill the streets of South Mumbai backfired, a further embarrassment for the government’s top leadership.
While slamming the protesters for building illegal shelters at Azad Maidan and causing immense hardship to citizens, the Bombay High Court criticised the government as well.
Pressure on the government had been mounting for five days and the court’s remarks were the trigger to it to dispatch the cabinet sub-committee to meet Jarange-Patil and his followers for the first time since the protest was launched. “With the situation escalating, the government felt it could not permit Jarange-Patil’s indefinite fast to continue even a day longer,” an official familiar with the developments said.
The Maratha quota activist’s protest also exposed cracks within the ruling partners in the Mahayuti government – neither deputy chief minister, Eknath Shinde nor Ajit Pawar were included in the decision-making process in the initial stages. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis met with them for the first time on Monday, the third day of the agitation, that too after the matter reached the Bombay High Court.
In his first reaction to the agitation being called off, Fadnavis tried to save face. He claimed the government never had the slightest hesitation in conceding the demand to implement the Hyderabad Gazetteer.
“The cabinet sub-committee had been in constant touch with Jarange-Patil’s core committee. The government is concerned for the welfare of all communities without hurting the interests of other communities. We have taken due care while admitting the quota-related demands that they pass legal scrutiny,” Fadnavis said.
He also expressed his regret to Mumbaiites for the inconvenience owing to the protest, perhaps a tacit admission that some of the blame rested on the shoulders of the government.
The state government ensured that the cabinet sub-committee which helped Jarange-Patil break his fast comprised Maratha leaders from three ruling parties. “Shivendraraje Bhosale, a descendent of Chhatrapati Shivaji, was part of the delegation. His assurances went a long way in convincing the Maratha activist to end his agitation,” said the BJP leader.