Why Jarange-Patil winning Kunbi quota battle may not be the simple solution to Maratha issue

And the clock is ticking.

“The government has already offered several concessions, including measures on education, training and benefits for Maratha, Kunbi and SEBC [socially and educationally backward classes] youth. It has also extended committees examining old Kunbi records and family genealogies until June 2027,” says a retired senior bureaucrat acting as a go-between. “But Jarange-Patil wants complete recognition of Marathas as Kunbis wherever historical records establish the link, allowing eligible members to secure Kunbi certificates and enter the OBC category.”

Outside Maharashtra, complexity surrounding the Maratha identity is often intensified by the casual use of Marathi and Maratha as conflations. Nothing could be more wrong. Marathi is a linguistic and cultural identity spanning castes, religions and communities. Maratha is a caste-community identity shaped by a distinct social and political history.

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The boundary between Maratha and Kunbi has never been watertight. Colonial records contain overlapping classifications, while kinship, occupation, landholding and status often intersected. That historical fluidity now sits at the heart of the political battle.

The Kunbis are counted among other backward classes (OBC) and enjoy reservation under the OBC quota. An agrarian community, Kunbis, over time expanded into other occupation-based caste groups such as carpenters, potters etc… According to many historical narratives, Marathas — a predominantly farming community today — were similarly once part of the Kunbi caste, though some claim they grew as a separate warrior class.

Jarange-Patil argues that where old records establish a Kunbi lineage, descendants should be entitled to Kunbi certificates. The government says about 14 lakh such certificates have been issued to Marathas since October 2023, while genealogical verification continues.

But community coordinator Kishor Chavan warns against treating the Hyderabad Gazette as a blanket solution. The Hyderabad Gazette is a 1918 order issued by the Nizam — the Marathawada region of Maharashtra was then part of the princely state of Hyderabad — granting reservation to the ‘Hindu Maratha’ community in education and employment. The Maratha community today uses it as proof of backwardness. “A historical Gazette can show how a community was classified during the Nizam’s rule. It cannot, by itself, establish an individual’s caste status today.” Applicants must still establish an unbroken vanshaval linking them to the ancestor named in the record.

The legal and documentary gaps are substantial. A 1918 record may need supporting evidence to bridge more than four decades before relevant caste-document cut-offs. The Hyderabad Gazette applies specifically to Marathwada. Marathas in Western Maharashtra and Konkan would need evidence from other archives.

Social Welfare Administration expert Swati Dhariwal points to an even bigger problem. Of roughly 8,550 revenue villages in Marathwada, explicit Kunbi archival entries have reportedly been recovered from only about 1,516. Families in thousands of villages may therefore lack the basic evidence needed to begin a claim.

Even where records exist, tracing a century-old family link is difficult. Names change, records disappear and families move. A proposed “one-clan” formula could simplify certification, but would force an already stretched administration to verify blood relationships on a huge scale.

The deeper problem, Dhariwal insists, is inequality. “Families with money, records and administrative access are more likely to prove their claims. The poorest may have the strongest claim and the weakest paperwork,” she explains and adds, “The real question, therefore, is not whether the Gazette provides a historical basis. It is whether Maharashtra has enough evidence, manpower and a credible verification system to turn that history into thousands of legally defensible certificates.”

That is the point at which history becomes reservation politics.

To understand why the Kunbi route matters, one has to look at the collapse of the earlier push for a separate Maratha quota. In 2018, Maharashtra granted Marathas 16 per cent reservation as a Socially and Educationally Backward Class. The Supreme Court struck it down in its 2021 Jaishri Laxmanrao Patil judgment, applying the constitutional framework around reservations and the 50 per cent ceiling established by Indra Sawhney case of 1992. (The 16 per cent reservation for Marathas had pushed the total reservation in the state to beyond the ceiling)

The state tried again in 2024, granting Marathas 10 per cent reservation in education and government jobs. “The Kunbi route offers something the separate Maratha quota does not,” explains Shrinivas Matey, who has researched identity politics in Maharashtra. “It does not require a new reservation category. It seeks recognition of an existing historical and documentary relationship with a community already covered by the OBC framework.”

That lies at the heart of Jarange-Patil’s persistence.

The Maratha reservation movement, however, contains a central contradiction. Marathas have long been among Maharashtra’s most politically powerful communities. Twelve chief ministers since 1960 have come from the community, which accounts for roughly 30–32 per cent of the state’s population. There have been ministers, cooperative leaders, sugar barons and rural political bosses from the community. Yet that power has been concentrated heavily in Western Maharashtra. And it has not guaranteed economic security for every Maratha family.

“A family may still possess land without that land being capable of sustaining it,” says socio-political commentator Mukund Kule. A two- or three-acre holding can provide social status without a secure livelihood.

For young Marathas, the battle is increasingly about government jobs, professional education, coaching and stable incomes. “They want to know whether they can compete in an increasingly difficult economy,” Kule says. Many see reservation as a way to improve their chances.

That helps explain Jarange-Patil’s strong youth following.

In August 2025, 17-year-old Sridhar Patole from Jadgaon in Hingoli first travelled to Mumbai to join Jarange-Patil’s agitation. A Class 10 student from a family dependent on a tiny farm and milk sales, Patole wanted to study medicine but was worried about the cost of coaching and higher education. He is now a great supporter of Jarange-Patil and has been monitoring every development in the movement's current avatar.

“I want to study further and attempt the NEET examination [National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test, for medical education],” he says. “But I'm not sure if I will ever be able to get the proper guidance needed to clear the competitive exam or if my mother can afford the steep fees for classes and higher education,” says Sridhar.

For many like him, reservation was never an abstract caste demand. “If we get reservation, it'll help me complete my higher education at half the cost, maybe even less,” he said. “Right now, applying as an open category student makes everything unaffordable. With reservation, I can at least try to reach my dream.” His reason for being at the protest this time was equally direct. “I was there to get my right to reservation. It is not only for me, but for everyone in my community who dreams of a better future.”

Shivraj, Manoj Jarange-Patil's son, puts the grievance in starkly economic terms. “I pay Rs 1 lakh a year as tuition fee. My OBC friend pays Rs 40,000. Why the discrepancy when we both come from humble backgrounds?”

The younger generation is thus less concerned with old caste hierarchies than with whether it can find a secure future. But there is a larger problem at play here. Maharashtra is using reservation to respond to a crisis that is increasingly about the shrinking supply of secure employment.

A quota can change who competes for a government job. It cannot create more government jobs.

Some among the Maratha youth already recognise this. Parag More from Satara supports the community's demand for greater educational and employment opportunities, but wonders whether OBC inclusion is the answer.

Interestingly, there are also voices of outright dissent among the youth in the community, though their number might be few. Dnyanesh Dabhade, a self-identified Maratha, wrote in a social media post earlier this month and later reiterated to this writer: “100 per cent I am a Maratha too and I don't support Jarange-Patil and this whole Maratha reservation. Maratha community isn't oppressed and doesn't need/deserve reservation.” Another Maratha social media user from Kothrud, Pune, Swati Bhosale, wondered why the Maratha agitation had become an "of, for and by men alone agitation. Where are the women?"

Jarange-Patil was hardly a household name when the current phase of the Maratha movement began. That changed after police action against protesters at Antarwali Sarati in September 2023. Images and accounts spread rapidly, turning a local agitation into a statewide mobilisation.

His appeal partly lies in what he is not. He belongs to no major political family, holds no public office and carries no party baggage. “That allowed him to occupy an unusual political space,” says Matey. His rustic Marathi speeches and sharp media soundbites have travelled widely, with social-media reels giving them a life of their own.

In drought-hit Marathwada and Vidarbha, land fragmentation, rain-dependent farming, rising costs, debt and weak employment have changed what social status means. “Jarange-Patil has been able to weaponise that resentment against the political class itself,” says Maratha Jan Andolan activist Dheeraj Jadhav.

His message is simple: Marathas have political and institutional power, yet many young people still struggle to find secure work. “That exposes a tension within the community itself: Maratha political power versus Maratha economic insecurity,” Jadhav says. “Jarange-Patil has given the second constituency a political voice of its own.”

A Maratha Kranti Morcha coordinator from Beed, Parshuram Mohite points out how many Marathas like him had initially underestimated Jarange-Patil in the initial stages. “When Jarange Patil went on protest, we never thought it'd continue for so long. Many of us ignored the protest.” What changed his mind was the police action at Antarwali Sarati. “But after the police cracked down on people, there was a sharp reaction. Using social media, we organised protests in our own villages, talukas and cities.”

There is, however, another Maharashtra beyond the Maratha mobilisation. It is the OBC population.

For many OBC organisations, the Maratha demand for Kunbi certificates does not sound like a technical correction to historical records. It sounds like a potential expansion of the number of people competing within an existing reservation framework.

Former MLA and leader representing broader Bahujan and OBC coalitions Prakash Shendge’s outfit has been vocal against what it calls ‘the backdoor dilution of quotas.’ “If large swathes of Marathas enter it through Kunbi certification, existing OBC communities fear that competition for government jobs and educational seats will intensify,” he warns.

This is why the counter-mobilisation cannot simply be described as “anti-Maratha”. Many OBC leaders frame their position as opposition to dilution of the existing quota rather than opposition to reservation for Marathas as such.

The dispute has consequently acquired an almost mathematical quality. One of the most politically explosive figures in the agitation is 58 lakh. Jarange-Patil repeatedly cites it in connection with ‘available’ Kunbi records and demands certificates on that basis. But the number requires caution.

“A historical record does not automatically entitle a living individual to a caste certificate,” says Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, a member of the cabinet sub-committee on Maratha reservation. Between the two lie genealogical verification, documentary evidence, administrative scrutiny and, where required, caste validity procedures. “Due process will have to be followed,” he said after his September 3 exchange with Jarange-Patil. Taluka-level committees examining family genealogies and applications have now been extended until June 2027.

The real question, therefore, is not how many historical records exist, but how many living people can establish a legally defensible genealogical link to them. That number matters because it could directly affect the future balance of Maharashtra’s OBC reservation system.

Another question has received less attention: what happens to the movement if Jarange-Patil can no longer lead it?

“His extraordinary strength is also his vulnerability,” says Chavan. “The movement has village committees, organisers, activists and community leaders, but Jarange-Patil remains its central political reference point. That gives the agitation coherence, while making a sudden deterioration in his health difficult to predict.”

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Both the government and protesters understand this. His physical condition has therefore become part of the political equation.

Jarange-Patil has repeatedly threatened to take the agitation to Mumbai. “The state wants to prevent a large mobilisation in Mumbai. The movement wants to show it can reach the state capital if its demands are not met,” says political observer Malhar Ghatge, who is himself from the community. “The geography matters. The agitation began in a village, spread across the Marathwada countryside and now threatens to move towards Mumbai.”

Yet reducing the movement to reservation alone would be a mistake, says Dhariwal. She sees the quota demand as a symptom of a deeper rural malaise that has gone unaddressed for years. “A generation has watched farm incomes stagnate as education costs rise. They have degrees but few secure jobs, land but often little irrigation, smartphones and access to a national economy but remain trapped in local labour markets,” she says. “Government employment is therefore seen as one of the few routes to stability, while reservation is seen as a way of improving the odds.”

That explains the emotional force of the demand. But the deeper problem is Maharashtra’s lack of a comparable political answer to rural unemployment. “A Kunbi certificate cannot create irrigation. A quota cannot raise cotton prices. A caste certificate cannot stop land fragmentation. Reservation can open one door. It cannot create enough doors,” she says.

The immediate question is whether the government can persuade Jarange-Patil to end his fast, perhaps through further administrative concessions. But the larger issue will remain.

The Supreme Court’s intervention in the earlier Maratha reservation case did not end the demand. It changed the route. The 2024 Maharashtra law granting Marathas 10% reservation is one route. The Kunbi certificate strategy is another.

“Neither has resolved the political question, becoming harder to evade,” says Ghatge. “What does a state do when a historically powerful community says its political status has survived, but its economic security has not? What does it do when another large group says correcting that imbalance cannot come at its expense? What happens when documentary evidence exists for some families but not others? Who gets the benefit first? And what happens when both groups believe the government can solve the problem but is choosing not to?”

Those questions cannot be settled at Antarwali Sarati. But neither can they be ignored there.

“For the young men around Jarange-Patil’s tent, this is not a debate about caste history. It is about their next five years. For older farmers, it is about what happens to their children after the land is divided again. For OBC communities, it is about whether a reservation system designed to address historical exclusion can absorb a much larger constituency without losing its purpose,” says Dhariwal. “For the Maharashtra government, the hardest question is this: how do you give a movement entry into an existing reservation system without making those already inside believe the door is being opened at their expense?”

That is the real Maratha question. No government order can make it disappear.