Maratha Stir for Reservations
After the Jats of Haryana and Patidars of Gujarat, now the Marathas of Maharashtra have embarked on a warpath. Last few days have seen huge rallies of Maratha people demanding reservation in education and employment. Considering the movements of dalits and OBCs for reservations, these movements can be termed as a comparatively newer phenomenon. Though these landed-castes are not as dominant and oppressor as Brahmins and Rajputs or Kshatriyas, strictly speaking these castes also cannot be termed as oppressed in the caste hierarchy of Hindu society. Rather, in some regions of this country some of these castes have taken a dominant role and to some extent oppresses the dalits. Marathas are not a single, homogeneous entity. Rather, as some observers put it, "it is a highly stratified caste cluster centering on peasant cultivators but reaching up to feudal aristocrats and rulers" ( Political Economy of a Dominant Caste by Rajeshwari Deshpande and Suhas Palshikar, Indira Gandhi Institute of development research ). They have also shown that among the Marathas there are a few clans, ranging from five to ninety six, who identify themselves as pure. The Marathas proper claimed a kshatriya rank and were proud of their Rajputs lineages. Kunbis on the other hand were cultivators and remained within shudra fold. So, it is not surprising that the people of these castes have contradictions with the dalits, which is also clear from the present struggle of Marathas. When it was first started on 2016, one of the major demands of their movement was "Amendment in Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to stop its misuse."(Maratha Kranti Morcha/ Wikipedia). So, why the people of these castes are demanding reservation in employment and education? Can they be termed as socially backward, so that they have to be given reservation in the employment and education to uplift them from that backwardness?
However, it is beyond doubt that these movements cannot be handiwork of any political party of groups. Rather, from the huge participations and expression of anger and wrath of people, it is clear that these movements are manifestations of some deeper anger, grief and frustration of these sections of people. We must try to understand the phenomenon which is causing this anger and frustration and bringing these castes on the warpath, because quite a number of workers and poor toiling people also come from these castes. With the prime and foremost aim to build up the class unity of the proletariat coming from different castes and religion, the communists should first try to understand this phenomenon to take a stand on the issue and address the workers and toiling people. It definitely needs a deeper analysis, but a few comments may be made to start that process.
The first question we face that are these castes socially backward? If not, which is most likely, why they are demanding reservations? From some reports coming out from these regions, the probable cause of this phenomenon is as follows: it can be generalized that the majority of people of these castes hold sizeable section of lands and are also directly involved in the agricultural productions, unlike the Brahmins and Kshatriyas or Thakurs (Maratha being a caste cluster, rather than a homogeneous caste, among them there may be both sections). Due to the Junker method of reforms taken up by the ruling classes to introduce the capitalist production relations in Indian agriculture, these upper sections of these castes initially got benefitted. The rich peasants mainly came from these castes and their financial and political clout increased, which also manifested in the changing political equation of the ruling parties. But, we all know that a large section of rich peasants/capitalist landlords are facing serious problems of profitability of agricultural production. There are many reasons behind this problem, some of which are: rising input costs, and at the same time stagnant yield of agricultural production.Besides these problems the rich peasants are also facing huge losses due to two apparently opposite factors, but both coming from same source: losses during crop failures for obvious reasons and also during over-production due to drop in prices of agricultural produces. This problem of profitability has affected these castes most, because being landowners and directly involved in the production, the rich peasants have come from mainly these castes. On the other hand, due to the very nature of the capitalist development, it has not developed, rather cannot develop, sufficient industries to absorb the surplus population rendered superfluous by the development of capitalism in agriculture. Initially it did not affect these castes as much, but due to the decreasing profitability of agriculture, these sections, who were traditionally not involved in the white-collar jobs, are now aiming these jobs and demanding reservations thinking that better opportunities may come to them that way. They are not demanding reservation for any social backwardness.
Their demand for reservation is facing hurdles due to two reasons: One, the organizations of the scheduled castes and OBC are up in arms against giving any share of their quota, which is very natural and justified also. Secondly, whenever the state governments have made provisions for quota in excess of already given to the SC and OBC?s, those decisions have been struck down by the Supreme Court, because of their opinion that these castes are not socially backward and also, the constitution prohibits the quota from being more than 50%, which has already been achieved due to the reservations allocated to the SC and OBC.
The representatives of the big bourgeoisie, acting as the editorial members and expert commentators of big bourgeois media, recognizing the roots of the problem, are advising the government to unleash further economic reforms. But, can the economic reforms solve this problem? The economic reforms, which is nothing but a metaphor for further opening up of the economy to the big bourgeoisie and the imperialists cannot solve the problem, which it has created in the first place. It may create a few jobs, but that will not solve the problems of majority of people. Moreover, that also seems very bleak considering the present critical period of imperialist economy. It is obvious that bourgeois ideologues are using the situation to further their own agenda.
What should the communist revolutionaries do in such situation? The communist revolutionaries must work for the development of class struggle and class unity of the proletariat belonging to all castes, all religions and also all nationalities for revolutionary transformation of society. To do that, the proletariat of these castes must be won over from the petty-bourgeois leadership, who are leading this movement for reservation because the petty-bourgeois section of these castes will be mainly benefitted by the reservation. For their own interest, they are organizing the poor people of their castes in the name of caste unity. Moreover, these movements are not for abolition of caste oppression. We have already noted that there is not a single demand against caste oppression, rather by demanding amendment of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, they are trying to reverse the steps taken for mitigating the caste oppression, however small those steps may be. So, such movements do not have any potential to develop the class struggle nor these movements can be developed to be a force in the future peoples? democratic revolution. So, communists must work to dissociate the workers and other poor people from the petty-bourgeois leadership to forge the alliance of proletariat of whole country.However, we all know that we are now going through a period defeat of first campaign of International socialist movement, where the working class is disorganized and do not have a class party. The communists are also fragmented and in the main divorced from the working class and toiling masses. In this difficult condition, can we dissociate the workers from the petty-bourgeois leadership? We should not have any illusions about that. But, we must work in this direction. We must educate the workers and poor people, whatever little section of them we can connect, that such demands, such movements are not in their interest, but in the interest of richer section of these castes and also, their emancipation do not lie in such movements, rather in the class struggle against the exploiters. This is the revolutionary task we have in our hand now, where we must be firm and resolute.
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