In its 1,035-page report, the nine-member Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission (MSBCC) headed by Justice M.G. Gaikwad has said that it took into consideration several parameters before recommending 16% reservation for the Maratha community.
Based on the report, the Assembly on November 30 last year, had passed a Bill giving 16% quota in government jobs and education to the Marathas, who were declared as a “socially and educationally backward class”.
The commission considered parameters such as the type of house Marathas live in, the locality and area of residence, number of rooms available per family, non-availability of separate kitchen, bathrooms, toilets, drinking water, use of conventional methods of cooking, suicides, migration of population from rural to urban areas in the last 10 years, occupation of migrated families resorting to physical labour for livelihood, absence of intercaste marriages, practise of superstitions and animal sacrifice.
Reviewing old reports
The commission also took note of the Khatri Commission and Bapat Commission, and said ‘the Khatri Commission had recommended the inclusion of Maratha-Kunbi and Kunbi-Maratha in the list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) as sub-caste of Kunbi, but had not recommended inclusion of Maratha in the list of OBCs.’
It noted that the Bapat Commission was against the inclusion of the Maratha community in the OBC category, which the State government did not accept. The commission notes that in April 1942, a government resolution was issued by the then government of Bombay with a list of Backward Classes, which included the Maratha community for the purpose of education. In 1950, when the Central government prepared a list of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs, the Maratha community was not included in the list.
The commission said 18 hearings were held across the State and 1,95,174 people favoured allotting reservation for the Maratha community. It notes that 784 gram panchayats and gram sabhas passed resolutions favouring reservation and 814 organisations made representations for the same.
The commission found that the percentage of Marathas working as Mathadi workers (labourers) was the highest in comparison with other communities. Of the 13,368 suicides reported in the State between 2013 and 2018, the percentage of Maratha farmers was 23.56%.
The commission through its survey found that the Maratha population was 74.4% in urban areas and 68.2% in rural areas, indicating migration for livelihood and employment. “The exodus from rural to urban areas seems to be landing them in urban ghettos and engagement in lowly jobs involving physical labour, lower esteem and degrading status in social order,” the report said.
