Full Text | Maratha Quota, Manoj Jarange and the Future of Reservation Politics

In an in-depth conversation with Sidharth Bhatia, Sumeet Mhaskar, professor of sociology and a writer, delves into the complexities of the Maratha reservation issue and if the recent protest led by activist Manoj Jarange-Patil could change anything.

Below is the full text of the chat between Bhatia and Mhaskar, as part of The Wire Talks podcast. Transcribed by Maryam Seraj, an editorial intern at The Wire, it has been edited for readability and brevity.

Sidharth Bhatia: Hello, and welcome to The Wire Talks. I'm Sidharth Bhatia. In the last few days, tens of thousands of Marathas have marched into Mumbai, demanding that they be given reservations and their car status upgraded. Their leader, Manoj Jarange, went on a hunger strike, saying he would not budge till the demands were met. 

Originally, they were given permission to protest on one day, but eventually they stuck around in the city for 5 days, throwing Mumbai into chaos. Schools and offices were shut, and there were huge traffic jams everywhere continuously. Mumbai citizens protested. The state government itself was trying to find a solution that would be acceptable not just to the Marathas but in general also politically. Eventually, they left following a strict court order and the government's acceptance of six of their eight demands. But now other cast groups are unhappy. What exactly were their demands? And what is the social and historical background of this agitation? What exactly were their demands? And what is the social and historical background of this agitation? And will there be political repercussions eventually? 

Sumeet Mhaskar is a professor of sociology at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, OP Jindal Global University. He earned his doctorate in sociology from the University of Oxford after an M.A. and M.Phil degree in political science from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has received fellowships from universities around the world. Mhaskar has researched and written extensively on the workers' responses to the closure of textile mills in Mumbai and how this has influenced changes in the working-class districts of the city. He has also written extensively on the maratas and he joins me today to help us understand the reason for this agitation. 

Sumeet Mhaskar, welcome to The Wire Talks. Could you first start by giving us some context on what the main issues are all about? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yeah, sure. So, as far as the Marathas are concerned, they have been demanding reservations in public employment and higher educational opportunities since the mid or late ’90s. But as far as its agitational avatar is concerned, it only began taking shape in 2014, and it is only in 2015 or 16 that we see the mass mobilisation of the Marathas on the question of employment and higher education. Their demand is that several Marathas are poor and unable to access public sector jobs as well as higher educational reservation facilities, and this is the background to the demands since the mid ’90s, but which has been intensified in the last 10 years.

Sidharth Bhatia: Higher education is the key part here, isn't it? Because there are not too many jobs going around, government jobs, and even if there are, they are distributed among a lot of sectors. So it boils down to higher education, doesn't it? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: It is both, I must say. In fact, more than higher education I would give more weightage to the jobs because if we look historically, especially in western India, the Marathas are also the dominant castes, which means they have numerical strength. They are otherwise lower in social status compared to Brahmins or other castes, but they have large numbers and managed to corner a larger share of well-paid jobs both in the public and private sector. If we look at the trajectory of well-paid jobs, individuals with little or no education earlier had access to permanent jobs with social security provisions. These jobs were nearly 8-9% in 1950 and today have come down to 2-3% maximum, together in public and private.

Now, if we look at industrial and manufacturing jobs, which were the major chunk where the Marathas were located, they have disappeared from cities like Mumbai, Pune or elsewhere. Mumbai provided the maximum number of well-paid jobs in textile mills, seat tyre factories, Voltas, and Padmini automobiles. All kinds of organised factories providing permanent employment have disappeared. While this has affected communities and castes across, since the Marathas cornered a larger share – sometimes 40-50% – it is obvious they were affected the most, or at least this is their sense of loss. Therefore, I think education comes later, as part of the growing aspiration among all castes and communities.

In the last 20 years, across caste and class, there is a growing aspiration for higher education. But this coincides with the privatisation of higher education, where the share of government institutes in medical, engineering and other professional courses has reduced. In this arena, the Marathas also feel unable to secure those limited positions in higher education. These two combined have resulted in this particular kind of agitation.

Sidharth Bhatia: Can you give a sense of the overall number of Marathas? And is it correct to say that there are various communities within the Marathas? Were they all together in this agitation? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: As far as Marathas are concerned, one can roughly say they form 25% of the entire state population. Among the various dominant castes across the country – such as the Jats in Haryana, Patidars in Gujarat, or the Reddys in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana – the Marathas are the biggest at 25%. Some claim the number goes up to 30%, but even if we stick to 25, that is still the largest. Within the Marathas, there are variations for sure. There are variations between Marathas from western Maharashtra and the Konkan region. Western Maharashtra is where they are predominantly located, while in the Konkan and Vidarbha regions they are a minority, though there is a notable presence in the Marathwada region.

Now, within the Marathas, there are also distinctions such as the 96 clan families tracing their lineage to military activities in the 17th and 18th centuries. But across these variations, what is more important is the classification based on economic status and access to political power. So, on that basis, if we look at those who are at the bottom of the ladder, they are the marginal farmers, small landholders or lower middle-class and poor Marathas in both urban and rural locations – they are the ones who have been the driving force behind reservations. In its current form, the agitation has also taken a political turn, as those with political aspirations also stand to benefit if Marathas are included in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category.

Sidharth Bhatia: You mentioned that they are powerful groups, it's been my impression and it's been a general impression whenever I have spoken to observers and scholars that the Marathas are very powerful as far as Maharashtra is concerned. They control the state's politics, they control the sugar mills of western Maharashtra. Why do they still need reservations? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yeah. In my research, I have come to the conclusion that the demand for reservation is a product of two crises: the urban crisis and the rural crisis. As far as the urban crisis is concerned, it has to do with the disappearance of well-paid jobs in the manufacturing industries. This is especially true in relation to individuals with little or no education or even vernacular education. Those jobs have disappeared. Secondly, there is a massive contractualisation of public jobs. In schools and colleges everywhere, contractualisation means that even those with university or vocational degrees do not have access to better-paid jobs. So, that’s part of the urban crisis: as far as employment opportunities are concerned, especially for rural labour migrants, they have disappeared completely.

Now, linked to the urban crisis is the rural crisis. What is the rural crisis? First, rural youths have no avenue to come to urban areas and support rural livelihoods. Historically, rural migrants who came to cities like Mumbai would send money back home to sustain agricultural activities. That possibility has disappeared. Second, division of land within households means that even small portions do not allow individuals in rural areas to sustain livelihoods. Third, even these youths who now go to cities like Mumbai and have continued to go to different urban areas, are now part of what is known as the informal sector, where wages are extremely low, working conditions are abysmal, you have to work for more than 12 hours and there is no social security. These rural youths are unable to provide financial support in the rural areas.

The last part of the rural crisis is the disturbance of caste hierarchy. While Marathas still hold the highest dominant status within village socio-economic and political setting, mobility has also taken place among the other backward castes in different regions. At the same time, there is also mobility in one or two households within the Scheduled Caste communities in each village. This kind of change, the Marathas see as something which is subverting caste relations within the rural socio-economic structure.

Sidharth Bhatia: So does that mean that they feel that their status is slowly being diluted? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yeah. That’s my conclusion, that these two crises have resulted in what I call the crisis of dominance. As a dominant caste, you’re socially dominant and socially superior. At the same time, it required a material basis for reproducing that dominance, and now they don’t see any way to reproduce that material dominance. The way out of this crisis, as the Marathas see, is reservation in employment and education, especially in the public sector, because that is the only arena where reservation can be applied. 

How will reservations actually help?

Sidharth Bhatia: Let's take a small illustration. Let's say, there are X number of jobs in the public sector, including public sector companies, which are also slowly getting semi-privatised in a sense, because they're also driven by profits. Government jobs are becoming fewer and fewer. If there are such few jobs, government jobs, emerging, and there are so many different claimants in that, even in the reservation, how will these jobs be obtainable and how will they really help the Marathas? What do the Marathas think?

Sumeet Mhaskar: I don’t think they have explored this particular aspect in a very deep manner. From whatever we see of the protesters, I don't think they are looking at the political economy in terms of what exactly they will achieve, even after they achieve reservation. So, even if we leave aside the legal part – whether reservation will be applicable or not – the practical situation right now is that government jobs are hardly 2% or 2.5% of the total jobs. Which means, of 100 jobs in the country, you only have two to three jobs in the government sector. And of those two to three, let’s say three, one or two percent are in class 3 and 4 employment. But if you look at government policies since the 1990s, more than 50% of class 3 and class 4 positions are on a contractual basis, which means they are not permanently hired and again do not have access to social security provisions.

Now, the Marathas, if you look at their numbers in the government sector right now, of the 100 jobs, they are already occupying 50% in class A, B, C and D in the Mantralaya, which is the state secretariat, and also in other government sectors. So technically speaking, the figures don’t really support their demand. Even if the Marathas were to be given 10% or 20%, the problem is not going to be solved because reservation was never meant as a policy for economic problems like poverty. It’s not a poverty alleviation program, and that’s why this problem will not be resolved by granting reservation to the Marathas.

So whichever way we look at it, the numbers in terms of jobs are extremely limited for any group, and for Marathas definitely it is not going to solve the problem. Let’s take the case study of the Bombay textile mills, which I studied very closely. By 2006 nearly 90,000 to one lakh workers lost their jobs, of whom 35% to 40% were Marathas – nearly 40,000. So even if we take 40,000 as a number, and their children claiming jobs, and if you take other industries of Mumbai into account, then we have nearly 1,00,000 Maratha youths waiting for jobs. This is the absolute minimum. And right now the total government jobs available with the government of Maharashtra are merely 6,000. So even if you grant 100% reservation to Marathas, that is definitely not going to solve the problem.

So I think Maratha reservation is not going to solve their problem. And as far as their own crisis is concerned, in my understanding it is deeply rooted in the transformation of the political economy. Unless and until they really take this into account, unless they stop the government from putting the jobs on a contractual basis, their crisis is not going to be resolved. The same goes for higher education – unless the government expands the scope of public institutions in higher education, in medical and engineering colleges, this crisis of the Marathas is also not going to be resolved.

Sidharth Bhatia: This directly hits the youth, doesn't it, because they are coming to the job market by the hundreds and thousands on almost an annual basis. 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yes, very much.

Sidharth Bhatia: So is it more of a psychological status?  

Sumeet Mhaskar: No. I mean, if you look, it is a problem, but the problem is not peculiar to the Maratha caste. Everybody is hit by the transformation in the political economy. All caste groups are hit. Therefore, we cannot say that the Marathas’ problem is peculiar. In fact, if you look at the statistics from the Indian Human Development Survey, which we have calculated, of the total poor the proportion of Maratha poor is much lower than any other group in the state – if you look at the OBCs, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and, in some cases, even some of the upper castes. So the proportion of Marathas is much lower than all other groups. So even that is not a criterion. But yes, in terms of absolute numbers they can be compared with all other groups. But as a community they are not in this position because of any kind of social backwardness or social discrimination or historical discrimination that they are facing.

Sidharth Bhatia: It's a peculiar situation when you think about it, a fairly high social status but not coping with all kinds of churning that is happening at the rural and the urban level. As you mentioned earlier, and I was going to bring up that till 2010, ‘12, ‘14, we did not see agitations of this kind. We saw demands but we did not see agitations of this kind. My question originally was that I remember the ‘80s and ‘90s when the textile mills started shutting and were an immensely high source of employment for Marathas. For generations, not one father retired and their sons joined. Why did suddenly it take on this kind of fear of becoming agitationist? When did that happen and what were the factors that were playing into it?

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yeah. I mean, see as far as the Marathas are concerned, even after the ‘82-’83 strike there was already a diversion to other industries such as the police constables. They got employed in those sectors, then there was the municipal corporation, then there was the BEST hospital – so they got accommodated in all kinds of sectors . But in the last two decades what we see is that at each and every level, particularly class 3 and 4 governments, whether it’s a municipal corporation, state government or the Union government, all of them have strictly followed the policy of hiring people on a contractual basis – no permanent employment – and that gradually was simmering in the 1990s and 2000s. As I said, factories began closing down in the late ’90s and 2000s. So once they got their compensation, the frustration was beginning to grow in the late 2000s and therefore what we see, the avatar is a product of that.

So already demands were beginning, but still they were accommodated. But the government from the late ’90s began massively recruiting only on a contractual basis and that is a major problem. Right now 50% of class 3 and 4 are on contractual basis and that is a big number, and therefore they are unable to accommodate. Because if you look at the statistics, Marathas are very well in a position to exploit the general category, open category positions. It’s not that if you look at the open category the Marathas have less number. On the contrary, if you look at the current state secretary, more than 50% in each and every category A, B, C, D. So at all levels they have a really good proportion without any reservation, which essentially means that as a community you are able to gain access to resources by competing in open positions.

But that is not enough, because the crisis is real. But that crisis is not restricted exclusively to Marathas. The sense of having access to better-paid jobs is definitely going, it’s not entitled anymore, and therefore the problem is here to stay. No matter how many agitations they do, unless the state takes a major shift in the political economy, this crisis is here to stay.

Sidharth Bhatia: But if you've got access to the better-paying jobs even without reservations then what is the need for this? I mean then it's kind of it doesn't hold up on this argument. 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yeah that’s what the Supreme Court has been saying. But the problem, as I said, like basic calculations, the numbers, the demand is so big from the people that even the government sector cannot really accommodate all of them, and therefore there is a major problem. The agrarian crisis is also adding to these challenges.

But also here I must highlight one thing – in the last 15 years, in general among the upper class, there is a sense of being abandoned by the state, and that’s why we have the Economically Weaker Section reservations, which is actually a very interesting case in itself. Because Marathas are eligible for EWS reservation and getting good benefits – definitely they are getting more than 5% of the total 10% reservation in the state. And so that’s why it’s very curious that as a community, as one particular caste, you are actually gaining more than 5% within the EWS and yet that demand still remains.

So that opens up a lot of questions in a sense – what exactly is the source? Because as I said, the reservation debate has been constantly going into economic deprivation, and that is not the case. It was never meant to resolve the economic deprivation of individuals, and somehow everybody is moving towards that.

Sidharth Bhatia: Can you give us a background on Manoj Jarange? Where has he emerged from and how has he come up with this argument and convinced people despite the Supreme Court pointing out the facts of the case and despite the facts of the case being what they are?

Sumeet Mhaskar: Manoj Jarange comes from the Marathwada region, and the Marathwada region is also a drought-prone region. So in contrast to the western Maharashtra region, which has all the major resources of the state from the post-independence period, Marathwada region lacks that, and therefore the intensity of the problem is far more acute in Marathwada region, and that is the region Manoj Jarange represents. 

So initially this was about economic deprivation and they wanted to have reservations. But if you look at the history of Maratha reservation, or even the Maratha community from the 1950s onwards, three state government commissions have rejected their demand to be included in the OBC list. 

Until 2008, the Bapat Commission also rejected Marathas’ demand to be part of the OBC list, which simply meant that the Marathas were unable to present their case as a socially and educationally backward community. They are not a socially backward community, and they are also not educationally backward compared to the rest of the communities. And because they constantly failed this test of proving that they are socially backward, their demand was constantly rejected.

And because of this political pressure, you only have the Gaikwad Commission set up somewhere in 2013–14. So that commission actually, for the first time in history, prepares a report and establishes the fact that yes, Marathas are socially backward, but the Supreme Court rejects it completely.

Sidharth Bhatia: But with so many commissions already appointed, why was there demand or political pressure to appoint another one? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Because already if the commissions have been rejected, then what happens after the Bapat Commission is that political pressure is growing from the Maratha side. So the RNA Committee is formed and they begin to grant reservations, and that is again challenged in the court of law. Each reservation is challenged in the court of law, saying that they are not a socially and educationally backward community.

Now, to prove that they are socially and educationally backward, you need a Backward Class Commission report, and that’s why the GIO Commission was constituted by the Maharashtra government, whose entire purpose was to see whether they are backward or not. But it is a controversial committee, the report is itself controversial, and therefore the Supreme Court argued that it does not really match with the earlier findings. And therefore this community cannot be treated as socially and educationally backward, and therefore it cannot be granted reservation on its own as a separate reservation, and secondly this group cannot be part of the Other Backward Class groups.

So this has been the consistent position of the Supreme Court. Now, after that rejection, there is another survey done by the government of Maharashtra, where they somehow showed that again Marathas are backward. So there have been consistent commissions, or at least committees; the government is under pressure to somehow show that the Marathas are socially backward for this reservation to be given. Because if you only look at economically backward reservation, it’s already there. So there is no need to have a separate reservation.

Sidharth Bhatia: I was asking where he's come from, Maratha which is a drought-prone region but how has he emerged? How has he emerged, also with all this background, despite the political pressure surely he is aware of all this?

Sumeet Mhaskar: No, I mean also there are political forces. Once the issue had gained I mean we already discussed that in mid '90s the issue was already simmering. But by the time Jarange emerged on the scene it had already you know kind of it a consensus had emerged among the marathas particularly among the poor marathas or those with marginal land holding that reservation is a way out and since he was the only person who was you know taking a very hard line on reservation, it actually grew more support for him and also various forces really supported him and elections after elections everybody realised the potential of this mobilisation and therefore it is you know not surprising that this agitation may have some kind of political currents, which are not very much visible. 

Sidharth Bhatia: Well, in fact, that leads me directly to my next question that there has been speculation that the current agitation has a political dimension. As you just said, and to put it in a kind of political gossip terms, there is a plan either to rattle or to even unseat Mr. Devendra Fadnavis and there are people within his own Mahayuti alliance, who have joined hands with people across to the opposition camp to somehow unsettle him. Is that, without going into this bizarre speculation, one kind of possibility that there are those dimensions also emerging?

Sumeet Mhaskar: If you look at the history of Maharashtra since 1960, you predominantly have Marathas as chief ministers. And unless the chief minister is controlled by the Maratha lobby, especially Brahmin chief ministers had to step down. Manohar Joshi had to step down after two and a half to three years. In that sense, Fadnavis has actually been chief minister in the first term for five years, and in this second term things are constantly moving up and down for him.

Therefore, there is of course an anti-Brahmin sentiment as well, which goes back to the non-Brahmin movement. Within the non-Brahmin movement, the Marathas represented what we understand as the anti-Brahmin sentiment. They were not necessarily against the restructuring of caste relations but merely wanted to replace the Brahmin hegemony, and that remains a strong current even today.

So if you look at all the social media, Fadnavis is constantly trolled by being called Annaji Pant or something linked to the Peshwa regime. That kind of sentiment is obviously visible. So the anti-Brahmin sentiment remains, so I’m not surprised if somebody says that. But beyond that, he’s also a man from the Vidarbha region, and power has always been concentrated in the western Maharashtra region or to a certain extent in the Maratha region. So that does create imbalances, and it is not surprising that they’re using his caste background, that is the Brahmin background, to remove him so that a Maratha could become a chief minister.

Sidharth Bhatia: No, in fact not at the highest political level but even at the social level there is a kind of anti-brahmin sentiment, which has permeated for the last I would say even 150 years, which cuts across all kinds of social sectors. I think Fadnavis is a Brahman who's been put in charge of a state where the sentiment is generally anti-Brahmin. So sure, it's not just the political thing but I think a lot of other people might be happy to see him go.

Sumeet Mhaskar: Not necessarily, that's what I'm saying. So as I said within the non-Brahmin, there are three strands: one is led by the Marathas, the other by what we know as the other backward classes or castes, and third by the Dalits. So as far as the Maratha is concerned, they have represented the anti-Brahmin strand throughout history. The OBC's have largely taken at least till early 20th century a very anti-caste position of the caste order in terms of its relationships in terms of the hierarchy and the Dalits have consistently taken a position of the annihilation of caste. So these are three different positions and anti-Brahmin sentiment is largely restricted to that but overall, I don't think that Fadnavis will have more problems, let's say, with the OBCs. They would rather prefer to go with Fadnavis than with a Maratha chief minister. Therefore, it's not that sharp that having anti-Brahmin sentiment means others will also go with that. Things have changed.

Sidharth Bhatia: OBC reminds me of my next point. The moment this thing was announced, the OBCs reacted to say that they are angry at what has happened because they don't want the Marathas to be included among the other backwards castes. What do you think are going to be the future currents. Will the OBCs now react and protest? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Yeah, they will certainly react because the consciousness among OBCs has grown tremendously in the last two decades. It was not there before. Even when the OBC reservation was announced, the OBCs themselves were not really politicised about these rights or you know whatever facilities that were granted to them. But right now the OBCs are very much politically aware and they don't have any other choice but to oppose this because if Marathas, through whatever means, if they are included in the OBC list then the entire OBC politics is threatened because Marathas are socially superior – they have various kind of resources, economic resources, also political resources – and they will pretty much take over all the positions which OBCs right now have gained. 

They will also go and contest elections on OBC seats and this is the major fear. Especially for the urban and rural local bodies, all the municipal corporation elections or the rural local bodies where there is reservation for the OBCs, the Marathas will contest on those seats and OBCs will pretty much have no chance in the political sphere and the same will happen also with jobs as well as educational opportunities. 

So the fear of OBCs is absolutely real and I see that the OBCs will also go to the court of law and they will take this matter to the streets. 

Sidharth Bhatia: So that means this has not really ended. But then it leads to the logical question firstly what has the Maharashtra government agreed to six out of eight what are they and secondly what pressured the chief minister in agreeing to the demands of Manoj Jarange to end this strike. What motivated him? Is it just the agitation or is it some other large political calculation? And if this is so, what has he agreed to?

Sumeet Mhaskar: First of all, the context is very important because the state is supposed to announce the elections to municipal corporations across the state very soon as well as to the rural local bodies. So this would have definitely affected the chief minister, Fadnavis, if he would not have reacted in a way the protesters wanted them to. So the context is absolutely clear. Now what the government has done essentially has taken two paths. One is that they said okay we agree that the information in the gazetier whatever the Kumbhis or Marathas, is more or less the same, that will be applicable and so that the Marathas can go and acquire caste certificates. 

But at the same time what the government resolution says is that a committee has been established and they will take some time until December to look into particularly the gazettes of Satara and one more region to see whether the Kumbhi Maratha thing can be resolved also by looking at that gazette information. So right now what they have found is some information in the Hyderabad gazette. Now what they want to do, if they want to really do it across the state, then they need similar information from the formerly princely states in Satara and other regions. So right now what has happened is that only the Marathwada region people can have access to that kind of facility of reservation, particularly through the Kumbhi certificates – again, that will be challenged. 

So it goes without saying that this is just a government resolution and any form of reservation or caste recognition is done by the backwards class commission. A mere resolution cannot actually do that. This will be easily challenged. So therefore the government clearly accepted the exact demands of what they had asked but they have also taken their own time to make sure that a new committee is established, which will take time till December, which means by then all the elections would have been over, particularly the municipal corporations and the rural local bodies. 

Sidharth Bhatia: So this whole issue is far from settled?

Sumeet Mhaskar: Very much. Because see, I mean, one thing I want to highlight here is that there is a confusion between the Marathas and the Kumbhis here. Now the Kumbhis are essentially a category of peasants. If we look at the different periods, 17th and 18th century, pretty much the Kumbhi category was used for peasants and some of them would also be part of the military but it was of very porous category. So the people would claim Maratha status but that was pretty much porous in terms of Kumbhi and Maratha. It also remained porous even in the late 19th century. 

Only in the early 20th century do we begin to see a sharp distinction between the Maratha and the Kumbhi people. So there is a strong relationship historically. There is absolutely no doubt and people will find all kinds of information if we go back historically, 200 years ago. But what is more important is that the Maratha as a group definitely defined their boundaries by the 1940s. That as a group the distinction emerged in 1940s and 50s and they had closed their doors for Kumbhis and that is precisely the reason that Kumbhi as a category was included in the OBC list. Because as a group, it was able to establish that they are socially and educationally backward and Marathas were not. So even though they have a kind of porous history of border between these two lines – you know, there is a popular saying in Marathi that ‘when a Kumbhi is more prosperous, he becomes a Maratha’ – the Kumbhis have transformed themselves into Marathas they have claimed higher social status.

In fact, let me clarify one more point that whether it is Kumbhis or Marathas, in the caste hierarchy, they had a Shudra social status but it is through the political transformation in the late 19th and 20th century that the group within the Kumbhis managed to actually acquire a superior, Kshatriya status for themselves and Shahu Maharaj controversy is one of the turning point for that. Therefore I think one may find information on Kumbhi in different records but it's not about the current period because being a Maratha does not mean you are socially backward. It actually means you are extremely socially superior and they have managed to retain their socially superior position without even resources.

Sidharth Bhatia: I would say what you're saying is that socially they are strong, economically too they are not particularly weak as various commissions have found and the courts have said, but it is this social and political changing economy as well as changing society at the ground level which is giving them a feeling of restlessness. And loss, that land holdings are becoming smaller, the urban political economy is no longer what it was, there are very few jobs to be held for example. I'm just saying, suppose there were reservations in the private sector, it would have been a different game than at least what you're claiming, which is you know unending here. So that is a question of the youth not being able to cope with these realities. Is that so? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Partly, yes, but see the reservation in the private sector, we have to make a distinction between jobs and well-paid jobs with social security benefits. Historically speaking, from the 1950s onwards, 92% of our population has worked in less paid jobs or informal sector jobs and right now the figure has gone to 96%. So, of the total 100 people, 95 people are working in what is known as the informal sector where the wages are extremely low and there is no social security benefit whatsoever, in the private sector. Things won't change for them. 

Sidharth Bhatia: Is there a growing sense of entrepreneurial spirit among Maratha youth? 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Among the Maratha community – historically, they have always been entrepreneurial – but you have at least two bigger groups which actually control the political economy of the state especially in the rural areas but also in the urban areas. You mentioned sugarcane but that goes back to the post-independence era. Now you have the vineyards, that's just one example, then you have different kinds of agro-products and now you have the real estate development and the real estate is something – especially in Pune city and different urban areas – where the Marathas have phenomenal control and therefore, as the entrepreneurs, they definitely have enough capital to come into the market. 

But again there are limits because there are also the historical trading castes and communities. You have the Jains, you have the Baniyas, you have the Marwadis, all of whom they have to compete with but overall, they very much have a good control over various entrepreneurship in the state. 

Sidharth Bhatia: So one might argue with what you have said, that it's difficult to pin down the problem. 

Sumeet Mhaskar: Partly yes but I think as I said the decline of well-paid jobs is probably where we can actually pin down and as well as the decline of state in the educational sector because as long as these sectors so government jobs as well as the government share in higher education since both are shrinking and this is what the protesters are not really talking about. If the protesters were to talk about the declining share of government-protected permanent jobs, probably the situation would be different and same thing if they were to demand you know the expansion of government-led medical colleges as well as engineering colleges I think much of the problem would be still resolved, but that I don't see happening in the near future. 

Sidharth Bhatia: Well,it's a complicated issue I must say very complex very complex but you are right in that the framing of the entire problem by the agitators and their leaders did not give this impression. What it does give is a straightforward demand for reservations and that you know has many other dimensions attached to it. 

Sumeet Mhaskar: It is also very helpful for the ruling political elites that they don't really have to address the problem of increasing public employment or increasing the government share in higher education because they can still play around with this reservation thing and not do much about changing the low overall structures. 

Sidharth Bhatia: I was concluding that it works both ways that they have not given this much thought or at least framed their demand in that context, which suits the ruling class completely because then they don't have to address this critical aspect to increase government colleges. They have to do away with contractual jobs. 

Sumeet Mhaskar: In fact, I mean it's very ironical that the majority of the engineering and medical colleges in the state are controlled by the Marathas and this it just adds to the irony further and you know therefore you know the more we dig deeper into this we just go deeper and there is no way out in some way. 

Sidharth Bhatia: Yes, well that really is as I said, it's a complex issue. Very difficult to pin down but sometimes just one word or one phrase, you know, becomes a catchphrase of the entire argument. 

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