The OBCs in Maharashtra have never resorted to violence or unconstitutional tactics in their running battle against the Marathas. Even when violence was unleashed against them due to the Jarange factor, they responded with democratic protests through meetings and conferences. And during the elections, they used votes – the most potent weapon in the hands of the people in a democracy – to give a befitting reply. This is the first assembly election in Maharashtra in which the number of Maratha MLAs has fallen and that of OBC legislators has risen.
In the earlier assemblies, the number of Maratha MLAs was upwards of 150. But the assembly that came into being following the 2024 elections has just 130 Maratha MLAs, and even among them, 19 are Kunbis. In the Vidarbha and Konkan regions, the Kunbis strictly refrain from calling themselves Maratha. But just to make the case for reservations, some Maratha leaders insist that the Kunbis are Marathas. The number of OBC MLAs in the assembly had never exceeded 25. But in the present assembly, they number more than 60. If Kunbis are counted among the OBCs, the number of OBC MLAs is more than 79 and that of the Marathas is 111.
After the recent expansion of the Devendra Fadnavis-led council of ministers, the number of OBC ministers has also grown. The council of ministers in Maharashtra generally had less than five OBC ministers. Now, their number is more than 13.
The reason is all too evident. In these assembly polls, the OBCs have given a big jolt to the Maratha clans that have dominated politics for a long time. Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat, who was a claimant for the chief minister’s position, and Jayant Patil of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) belong to Maratha clans with a long presence in politics. Both used to win with a margin upwards of 1.5 lakh votes. But this time, OBCs voters ensured the defeat of Thorat and whittled down the victory margin of Patil to 10,000 votes.
The increase in the number of OBC ministers, the decline in the number of Maratha MLAs and the reduction in their victory margins – who but the OBC voters could have worked this wonder? But neither the miracles performed by the OBCs are analyzed nor is due credit given to them. Just as Marathas count the Kunbis among them, they also treat OBCs like their chattel. And it is useless to blame the Marathas or the Brahmins for this situation. The reason for this is that the OBCs have failed to assert their independent socio-cultural identity. They are still slaves to the Marathas and the Brahmins in economic, social and cultural terms. The OBCs have proved their political mettle for the first time in these elections. But the impact of political assertion doesn’t last long. That is why the miracle worked by the OBCs has not drawn much attention and the poll results are being analyzed only in terms of money power, the Ladli Behan scheme and EVMs. Fadnavis, who described OBCs as part of his DNA during the run-up to the elections, hasn’t uttered the word OBC after the declaration of the results.
It is being said that the BJP candidates won because the party distributed cash in a big way. If we accept this argument, were members of political clans like Congress’s Thorat and Jayant Patil short of money? These Congress leaders have been in power for a long time and are sitting on mounds of cash. Besides, they have a formidable network of cooperative sugar mills, other cooperatives and relatives and friends. Neither the BJP nor most of its candidates can match them.
If the EVMs were tampered with, how was it that in the past opposition parties won elections conducted using the same machines? And if machines can pave the way to power, why would anyone spend crores of rupees? If the Dalit, Muslim, OBC and Adivasi vote banks can be tapped by fiddling with the machines, where is the need to appoint members of these communities to top positions like Prime Minister and President? There is no way all the EVMs can be tampered with. Perhaps, this can be done in some places and to a limited extent. An analysis based on the presumption that the EVMs can’t be used to doctor more than 10 per cent of the votes would be realistic. As for Ladli Behan, it is not for the first time that populist schemes have been used by governments to influence the voters. But they could never create a political upheaval.
The elections that cause a political upheaval often come riding on waves. For instance, the anti-Emergency wave in 1977, the Hindutva wave that followed in the wake of communal riots in 1992, and the unseen OBC wave in 2014 that owed its origin to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) projecting an OBC as its prime ministerial candidate. Political upheavals are caused by such visible or invisible waves. To ensure that caste equations are not identified as responsible for birthing the wave, issues like cash distribution, EVM tampering and Ladli Behan are being foregrounded and discussions are confined to them.
Which wave could Fadnavis sense in 2019 that made him so confident of returning as the chief minister? He was banking on Maratha voters because he had announced 16 per cent reservation for the community in 2019. But as Balasaheb Prakash Ambedkar has said the Marathas ditched Fadnavis and brought Maratha parties to power. But OBCs are honest. They never betray the trust reposed in them. That’s how these elections brought Fadnavis back to power with the OBCs ensuring a steamroller majority for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Interestingly, Chhagan Bhujbal, who led the charge, has been kept out of the council of ministers. No one has come out with an explanation for this. It is being said that he will be sent to the Rajya Sabha and inducted into the Union Government. Clearly, neither Fadnavis nor Ajit Pawar can afford to antagonize this only undisputed leader of the OBCs. The price one has to pay for antagonizing the OBCs is evident from the fate of Sharad Pawar in the recent elections.
To sum up, you can love unconditionally in personal or family relations, but it is injurious to you in case of social and political relations. A community suffering from fear and inferiority complex born of insecurity is not in a position to impose its terms and conditions. Why do some specific communities vote for established parties like the BJP or the Congress? The Muslims want their lives to be protected; Dalits want reservations to be continued; and OBCs want protection from Maratha aggression. But they could never make these preconditions for their support before the elections. Realizing that these three communities will anyway support them unconditionally, the established parties continued to indulge in politics of fear by engineering riots and violence.
The Congress did manage to come to power with the backing of the Dalits and the Muslims, but there is nothing to show that it tried to stop communal riots or clear the reservation backlog. The OBCs backed the BJP as Hindus and also as OBCs but the BJP governments never tried to protect the OBC quota. And neither did it do anything to secure a respectable place for the OBCs in the Hindu religious hierarchy.
The Congress and the BJP and the parties that are part of their electoral conglomerations use catchwords to secure the support of Muslims, Dalits and OBCs and come to power. But the story that unfolds thereafter follows the standard script – riots, violence and politics of fear to keep these communities in perpetual insecurity.
Dalits, OBCs and Muslims want security and self-respect, which they will never get from the Maratha-Brahmin political parties because the very existence of the power-hungry castes hinges on keeping these communities under their thumb and ensuring that they always feel insecure. Unless they make these communities more and more insecure by engineering caste and communal riots, they cannot hope to capture power again and again.
The Tamil Nadu pattern is what these weaker and backward sections of society need to put a permanent stop to caste and communal riots. They don’t have an alternative. The Dalits, OBCs and Muslims of Tamil Nadu have built a Tamil Nadu model under the leadership of Ramasamy Periyar. Barring exceptions, the state has not witnessed a single communal or caste riot over the past 60 years. All sections of the populace have been getting rights and facilities proportionate to their numbers.
OBCs, Dalits and Muslims cannot hope for freedom from insecurity till they forge a strong political alternative. And that would become possible only by adopting the Tamil Nadu model of politics.
(Translation from the original Hindi by Amrish Herdenia)
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