Though increased reservation for the community is the stated purpose of the Maratha rally, the real force behind it seems to be the anger against the alleged misuse of the Prevention of Atrocities Act against Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes communities, by some Dalit groups.
The Maratha Kranti Mooka Morcha or the silent rally for revolution by Marathas was started after the alleged rape of a teenage Maratha girl by three Dalits in Kopardi village in Ahmed Nagar district in July this year.
The rally in Bidar on Wednesday was the 36th in these four months, according to a Maratha leader.
A memorandum submitted to the government after the end of the rally on Wednesday by the Maratha Samaj, listed as demands reservation, protection to farmers, a holiday on Shivaji Jayanti and development of the tomb of Shivaji’s father Shahu Maharaj in Davangere district. The Atrocity Act or the crimes against women were not mentioned in the letter. The community is included in 3 B category in Karnataka, but it wants to be added in the 2 A list.
Nobody raised any slogans during the rally, but a team of 11 girls from prominent Maratha families in the district addressed the rally at the end. Dressed in black and wearing saffron turbans, the girls spoke mostly about the honour of Maratha girls and the pride of belonging to the community.
Anjali Biradar made an impassioned plea to return to a Maratha Samrajya like the one led by Shivaji Maharaj. “Like Jija Bai, the mother of Shivaji, all women were protected then. Now, women have no protection,” she said. She asked evil forces “not to cast their eyes on girls from the Maratha community”. Or else, she warned, “the silent Maratha will have to speak up and what happens then, no one will know.”
Another girl referred to the Kopardi rape incident and alleged that some communities were misusing some laws meant for their protection. She said that Marathas were strong enough to give fitting reply to any evil force, but they were waiting for the law of the land to act against them.
Raising the slogan Ek Maratha, Lakh Maratha, (One Maratha equals a Lakh Marathas), another speaker said that no one could underestimate the power of united Marathas.
A girl, who read out a copy of the memorandum, claimed that 90 per cent of the Maratha community was backward. Since agriculture was no longer a profitable vocation, the youth from the community needed security in the form of reservation in education and employment.
The other demands of the Maratha community include declaring Shivaji Jayanti as a government holiday, considering Marathi as a minority language, building hostels for Maratha community students in taluk and district headquarters, developing the tomb of Shahu Maharaj, Shivaji’s father, in Hodigere in Channagiri taluk of Davangere district, as a national monument, total implementation of the Swaminathan committee report on ensuring remunerative prices for farm produce, and steps to protect farmers, as it is the traditional vocation of most Marathas in the State.
The rallies are being held in several States. The memorandum submitted in these States have some common demands and other unique points, Prakash Patil, Zilla Panchayat vice-president, said.
Political leaders MP Bhagwant Khuba, MLA Prabhu Chouhan, the former Minister Bandeppa Kashempur and Suryakanth Nagamarapalli, president of the Gurupadappa Nagamarapalli Foundation, all expressed solidarity with the rally.
