A question follows the ascension of Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra: has the Bharatiya Janata Party subdued the dominant Marathas in the state’s politics, a treatment also meted out to the Jats in Haryana?
If Nayab Singh Saini is a rare non-Jat leader in Haryana to have triumphed over the powerful Jats, the return of Fadnavis marks a similar moment of a Brahmin prevailing over the studded marquee of Marathas.
Having already completed one full term as the chief minister, if Fadnavis remains at the seat for just around two more years, he will be the second longest serving head of the government in a state whose most power structures – from the polity and cooperative societies to sugar mills – continue be dominated by Marathas.
Despite considerable influence over the intellectual and artistic milieu in Maharashtra, Brahmins yielded significant political ground to the Marathas over the last century, more so after independence. The reason lies not in the numerical weakness of Brahmins in the state, but in the historical evolution of Maharashtra. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, the Brahmins, similarly fewer like in the western state, dominated politics for a long time, before the Kamandal movement threw open the polity to the middle and lower castes 1980s onwards.
A history of caste movements
In contrast, Maharashtra has had a history of anti-Brahmin movements, first led by lower caste leaders like Jyotiba Phule and Dr B.R. Ambedkar, and later by the OBCs and middle castes, among whom was Prabodhankar Thackery, whose son later formed the hugely influential organisation named Shiv Sena which brought numerous OBCs to its ranks.
Such caste movements politically weakened the Brahmins, and despite having pioneering community leaders like Mahadev Ranade, Gopalkrishna Gokhale and BG Tilak, Maharashtra barely saw the community at the helm after independence. Even when a Brahmin leader, Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi for instance, became the chief minister, the strings remained with Matoshree.
Significantly, the Hindutva movement in Maharashtra was led by Brahmins, through two distinct branches, one by VD Savarkar and the other by RSS sarsanghchalaks (chiefs). Being influenced by both, the Chitpavan Brahmin Nathuram Godse, was the most notorious ambassador of the ideology. It is in this context that several right-wing accounts point at what they believe was the ‘genocide’ of Brahmins in Maharashtra after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
The two branches barely converged for several decades, as not only the atheist Savarkar was firmly opposed to rituals like cow worship, he had reserved his unconditional and choicest abhorrence for the RSS. “The epitaph for the RSS volunteer will be that he was born, he joined the RSS and died without accomplishing anything,” was how Savarkar is quoted as saying, in Vaibhav Purandare’s biography of the Hindu Mahasabha leader. It is an irony therefore that Savarkar has become an RSS icon, an atheist, a champion of the Hindu right.
Also read: In Maharashtra, ‘Upper’ Caste Men Kill Youth Who Ensured Village Celebrated Ambedkar Jayanti
Embracing Marathas
Amid such complexities is distinctly placed the tussle between the Brahmins and the Marathas, whose well-recounted origins can be traced since the era of Maratha rulers and their Brahmin ministers called Peshwas, who gradually became de facto rulers. The conflict carried forward to the contemporary polity, with Sharad Pawar once famously asking people whether they wanted the return of the Peshwai or the rule of the Brahmins.
It is here that one can credit Fadnavis for embracing the Marathas during his first term as the chief minister. The most notable of his steps was providing reservation to the Marathas under the Socially and Educationally Backward category. Similarly, his current ascension doesn’t rest on any perceived notion around Brahminical superiority, but by a carefully crafted campaign by the Parivar to stitch several lower and middle castes together.
That, however, has not been sufficient to dispel the distrust between the Marathas and the Brahmins. When the chief minister Fadnavis secured the Rajya Sabha nomination for Sambhaji Raje, a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, Pawar quipped that once upon a time Chharapatis (Marathas) appointed the Peshwas, but now the Peshwas appointed a Chhatrapati.
Amid this, does the return of Fadnavis, which would not have been possible without the unflinching support of the senior most Nagpur pracharaks, mostly Brahmins, indicate the revival of the political clout of the community? Perhaps not so early. Neither one should hastily infer the slide of the Marathas.
But what can be safely concluded is that while the state’s social foundation successfully resisted the Hindutva movement led by the Brahmins over the last hundred years, it now registers decisive faultlines. A state that witnessed Uddhav Thackeray moving away from the legacy of his father, has now succumbed to the sloganeering by leaders from UP and Gujarat.
In that sense, Fadnavis may now reflect a trait not so pronounced during his first tenure, a trait that should please both Savarkar and the influential second RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar. While most parts of the country have witnessed the OBC or subaltern Hindutva of late, Maharashtra may now offer a Brahmin Hindutva.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
