Ahmed Shah Abdali invaded India eight times between 1748 and 1767, following the collapse of the Mughal Empire. To maintain his huge army created by Nadir Shah for invasions, Ahmed Shah Abdali also plundered wealth from many temples in India including Vrindavan, Mathura, Varanasi, and Golden Temple.

Apart from Marathas, the Sikhs also gave the toughest fight and resistance to Afghans in many battles and plunder campaigns. The valour of Baba Deep Singh, Jassa Singh Ahluwalia, Hari Singh Nalwa and many more are well recorded. In 1757, Jat prince Jawahar Singh with 5000 men also offered tough resistance against Ahmad Shah Abdali’s forces near Mathura.

Balaji Bajirao alias Nanasaheb was the Peshwa of Maratha Empire when Abdali attacked India in 1761. Bajirao was a very capable leader who rather than depending on the old leadership of Marathas promoted young and aggressive military commanders like Holkar, Shinde, Dabhade, Gaikwad under his rule.

Bajiro was a heavenly-born cavalry leader and perhaps the best-ever cavalry general in the history of the Indian subcontinent followed by Rajput legend Bappa Rawal, his cavalry was as effective as that of Mongols. Every 2 riders would have 3 horses and would change their horse after the respective horse was exhausted. Marathas were a cavalry-heavy force under Bajirao.

In the battle fought by the Maratha army against the invader Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1761 at Panipat, the Marathas were defeated due to the superiority of the Afghan armory. However, the Marathas gave a tough fight, and 40,000 Marathas lost their lives. The Afghans lost about 30,000 soldiers.

Before the war, there was an explicit instruction from Maratha ruler to his forces to return with victory news only. Consequently, after the defeat of 1761, many Maratha soldiers moved to the hilly principalities of Punjab and Jammu and lived there for the remaining part of their lives. Many Brahmin soldiers became Sanyasin or priests for livelihood. One can trace many such people with Maratha ancestry in these places.

Probing further, I found some truth in the link between Marathas and Jammu. In Jammu and Himachal Pradesh, some people with surnames like Sathe, Ranade, Agnihotri, Padhye (Padha), Pant, and Pawar could be from this lineage. The background of Dogri short story writer Bhagwat Prasad Sathe confirms my belief.

Bhaskar Rao Sathe, the ancestor of Bhagwat Prasad Sathe, fought Abdali’s forces at Panipat as a member of the Maratha army. After the defeat of Maratha troops, he moved to Ramnagar (Jammu) and settled there. The Dogra Rajput Raja appointed him as priest and Kathavachak.

One day, during a religious congregation at Purmandal, Bhaskar Rao Sathe met his son who along with other members of his family was at Varanasi, where Sathe had left them before joining the war. It was in Varanasi that the son learned about his father’s presence in the hills of Jammu. A Sadhu had advised him to go to Purmandal and try his luck to trace his father as Sadhus from the length and breadth of the country would be present over there on a particular auspicious day. And there the son met his father.

A male member from this Sathe clan married a Brahmin girl from Bijbehara and the family was entrusted the priesthood duties of the Shiva temple built on the main highway by Dogra rulers in Bijbehara. Bhagwat Prasad Sathe, the doyen of Dogri prose is from this Sathe clan of Marathas.

Similar could be the story of some Upadhya or Pant or Ranade or Pawar families of Jammu. I happened to know one Ranade family in Basholi during the period I headed the Basholi branch of Punjab National Bank. I am also informed that the Baru Brahmins of Jammu are from Assam.

Bhagwat Prasad Sathe was born in December 1910 at Ramnagar, a small town in the lower Siwaliks, about 30 miles to the east of Jammu. Situated on a plateau 2700 ft above sea level, it has a salubrious climate and a beautiful setting among hills and streams.

Ramnagar had been the capital of Bandral Rajput rulers till the beginning of the 19th century. As typical of Kshatriyas, the Dogra Rajput rulers of Jammu welcomed all essentially, traders, priests, artists, artisans and people who could contribute towards prosperity and development.

The scholarship of Jammu Dogras was Hindu Sanatana Dharma-oriented. The Rajas of Jammu were deeply religious people believing in the doctrine of “Atithi Devo Bhavah” and they and their queens had numerous temples built, making Jammu a city of temples.

There is a Dogri folk song that gives a hint about the desire of every young man to serve the Dogra Rajput Rajas of Jammu for their “benevolent conduct”. It describes a conversation between a man and his wife and goes like this:

“Kuthaan di karni adiya chakri

Kuthaan di hai muhim

Jammu dhi karni adiye chakri.. “

(Where do you want to serve, my love

where do you plan to go?

I want to serve Jammu Kingdom, my love)

*Avtar Mota is an author, writer and poet. He is a blogger at Chinar Shade

Courtesy: The Kashmir Times

The post When The Marathas Came To Jammu? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The whole thrust of the RSS-BJP election campaign for 2021 state assembly elections in Bengal has been to save Bengal from the rule of Mamata Bannerjee who is not a ‘Hindu’.

PM of India, Narendra Bhai Modi, a self-proclaimed Hindutva nationalist, as usual set the polarising agenda. While addressing the first election rally, he called upon the electorate to overthrow the ‘nirmam’ (cruel) rule of Mamata by showing a ‘Ram Card’. He did not name Hindus directly but there was no confusion about the religious identity of the electorate Indian PM was addressing to. [1]

Amit Shah, the RSS-BJP Chanakya or the main strategist for Bengal polls minced no words in exposing the anti-Hindu Mamata Banerjee. According to him, “school teachers in Bengal were beaten up for organising ‘saraswati puja’. The TMC dispensation does not allow Saraswati puja celebration in schools.” [2]

Amit Shah kept on harping upon the theme that Mamata-led government was behind the infiltration of the Bangladeshis [meaning Muslims] in Bengal “who are loved dearly by Didi”. Thus, Mamata Banerjee was indulging in appeasement of Muslims. He added another crime of Mamata against Hindus when he alleged that the latter did not get permission for doing visarjan [immersion] after Durga Puja under Mamata government’s rule.” [3]

How the star ‘Hindu’ campaigner from Bengal Suvendu Adhikari targetted Mamata Bannerjee for chanting ‘Inshallah’ [Allah-willing] and ‘Khuda Hafiz’ [Khuda takes care] used by Muslims and not ‘Jai Shri Ram’ was made clear by Monideepa Banerjie, a Bengal based renowned journalist in the following words:

“A campaign that has seen Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP repeatedly addressing Mamata Banerjee as ‘Begum’ [Muslim lady], repeatedly referring to the threat of Nandigram turning into a mini-Pakistan if she is voted to power, repeatedly warning people that if the Trinamool wins this time, the Hindus will not be able to wear the traditional dhoti and the traditional tilaks (the smear of red on the forehead.)” [4]

RSS-BJP also fielded Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a hard-core Muslim basher and anti-secularist as a prominent campaigner after Modi and Amit Shah. In a series of meetings, he declared Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Bannerjee as a party which was opposed to the chant of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ [Hail Sri Ram]. Yogi was confident that that the public would definitely punish the ‘Ramdrohis’ [disloyal to Rama]. 

Yogi Adityanath, in an election meeting held in the first week of March (2021), went to the extent of describing Mamata Banerjee-led TMC as an organisation which was opposed to God (‘bhagwaan’) in the state. Since festival of colours, Holi was few days away, he reminded the audiences, “Holi will be celebrated after few days. Holika is lit on the day of Holi. Holika also opposed God.” He was seeking votes for RSS-BJP so that anti-god party like TMC meets the fate of Holika. It was not difficult to miss the connection between female demon Holika and a female leader Mamata. Mamata needs to be destroyed. [5]

Adityanath while attacking Mamata Bannerjee kept on referring to other anti-Hindu crimes of her borrowing from the RSS hateful propaganda literature. Cow slaughter, smuggling and ‘love jihad’ were happening due to the ‘appeasement politics’. Without naming Muslims, he kept on stating that “appeasement politics for the sake of vote bank has endangered the security of not only West Bengal but also of the country.”

He also kept on telling the audiences that the raising of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan was not allowed in West Bengal, Durga Puja was banned so the TMC government should be punished for “playing with their religious sentiments”. What did he mean by ‘their’ was not difficult to surmise. [6]

Those of us who are familiar with the RSS-BJP’s propaganda mechanism would know that mere allegations of anti-Hindu crimes of Mamata Bannerjee were presented as truth without offering any proof. Interestingly, the Left and to some extent Congress competing with TMC in these elections criticized her for appeasing the Hindutva forces in Bengal.

Economist, social justice thinker and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen expressed his indignation at “the fanning of the dangerous flames of communal divisions [that] has not occurred as strongly in Bengal since 1946.”

According to him the saddest part has been that “one of the major political contenders in the electoral battles portrays a part of the ‘insider’ population of Bengal — in particular, Bengali Muslims — as less deserving of support, while deriving their strength from the support of Hindu activists coming originally from outside Bengal, the dividing lines are hard to be kept pure”. [7]

UP chief minister Adityanath has been reminding the electorate in Bengal that “the national leadership of the BJP and every worker of the party has come here to connect to the Bengali brothers and sisters to re-establish the identity of Bengal and carry forward a new change through this.”

In the light of the totality of the content of his speeches during the current Bengal elections or otherwise it is too obvious to know that Adityanath’s reference to Bengali brothers and sisters meant Hindus of Bengal only. [8]

Interestingly, it is not for the first time in the history that Hindus of Bengal are being promised liberation from the anti-Hindu rulers by the outsider Hindus. RC Majumdar (1880-1980) was a doyen among Indian historians whose works on ancient India and freedom struggle are rated highly. He is even described by the Hindutva scholars as a true ‘Bhartiya’ historian. He narrated how once Marathas promised to establish ‘Hindu Raj’ [Hindu rule] and what the consequences were.

According to Majumdar,

“There are good grounds to believe that some such idea was present in the mind of the great Peshwa Baji Rao 1 (1700-1740), and he openly preached the ideal of Hindu Pad Padshahi (Hindu empire). This ideal evidently helped him in great deal, as the Hindu Zemindars and ruling chiefs showed active sympathy with the Maratha cause. But, unfortunately, this ideal was not systematically pursued, and seems to have been altogether given up by his successors. As an evidence of this, we may cite two positive facts.

“In the first place, when the Marathas invaded Bengal during the reign of Alivardi Khan, they terribly oppressed the Hindus and Muslims alike. Contemporary Bengali records seem to indicate that the Hindus of Bengal at first regarded the Marathas as deliverers from the yoke of the Muslims, but the incredible atrocities perpetrated by the Marathas completely alienated the Hindus from them. Secondly, it is a well-known fact that far from enlisting the sympathy and support of the great Rajput chiefs, the Marathas terribly oppressed them and made them their enemies. [9]

Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), again a renowned historian, held no brief for Islam or Muslim rulers in India. In fact, he is regarded as a narrator of the Hindu history during the Mughal rule. However, his description of the Maratha invasion of Bengal in 1742, too, makes it clear that this army of ‘Hindu nation’ cared least about honour and property of Hindus of Bengal. According to Sarkar, “the roving Maratha bands committed wanton destruction and unspeakable outrage”. [10]

Sarkar, in his monumental work on the history of Bengal, quoted eyewitnesses to relate the stories of sufferings of Bengali Hindus at the hands of Marathas. According to one of the eyewitnesses, Gangaram, whose testimony was reproduced by Sarkar, the Marathas snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything else. Of some people they cut off the hands, of some the nose and ear; some they killed outright. They dragged away the beautiful women and freed them only after raping them. [11]

Another eyewitness, Vaneshwar Vidyalankar, the court Pandit of the Maharaja of Bardwan, thus narrated the horrifying tales of atrocities committed by the Marathas.

“Shahu Raja’s troops are niggard of pity, slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans and the poor, fierce of spirit, expert in robbing the property of every one and committing every kind of sinful act.” [12] 

What the RSS-BJP is attempting to accomplish as champions of Hindus of Bengal is not a new strategy of the ruling classes when faced with challenge to its dehumanized exploitative rule from its own people. Karl Marx, in his monumental work, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), brilliantly, highlighted this character of the rulers who when faced with periods of revolutionary crisis,

“Anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle-cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowed language.” [13]

*Views expressed are the author’s own.

References:

[1] https://theshillongtimes.com/2021/02/08/bengal-got-nirmamta-in-mamatas-rule-pm/

[2] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/amit-shah-egra-rally-religious-freedom-under-bjp-rule-1781872-2021-03-21

 [3] https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/amit-shah-slams-mamata-banerjee-over-infiltration-in-west-bengal-confident-of-bjps-win.html

[4] https://www.ndtv.com/blog/in-nandigram-begum-mamata-vs-suvendu-the-traitor-2403225

[https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/suvendu-adhikari-mamata-banerjee-hindu-mantras-minority-appeasement-1777663-2021-03-10

[5] https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/up-cm-yogi-adityanath-takes-on-west-bengal-counterpart-mamata-banerjee-at-malda-poll-rally.html

[6] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/uttar-pradesh-smuggling-love-jihad-appeasement-politics-yogi-adityanath-west-bengal-malda-mamata-banerjee-1774771-2021-03-02

[7] https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/west-bengal-assembly-elections-2021-amartya-sen-backs-local-not-central/cid/1813094

[8] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/uttar-pradesh-smuggling-love-jihad-appeasement-politics-yogi-adityanath-west-bengal-malda-mamata-banerjee-1774771-2021-03-02

[9] Majumdar, R. C., History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. i (Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay, 1971), pp. 2-3.

[10] Sarkar, Jadunath (ed.), The History of Bengal- Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D., volume ii, (Delhi: BR Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), 457.

[11] Ibid., p. 457.

[12] Ibid., p. 458.

[13] Marx, Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Karl Marx–Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 11, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979), p. 130.

The post A peep into Hindutva narratives of Bengal’s history appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image credit: Scroll.in

In 1940, as Mahomed Ali Jinnah laid out his vision of the Two Nation Theory in Lahore, he argued that Hindus and Muslims in the subcontinent have separate pasts. “It is quite clear,” said the soon-to-be Qaid-e-Azam, “that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history”.

More than anything else from the 1940s, this unfortunate – and erroneous – formulation has stuck on across the subcontinent, raising its head most recently in Karnataka, where a furious debate rages over celebrating the birth anniversary of a 18th-century ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan.

Two-nation theory versus reality

Even as the ruling Congress party in the state is adamant about celebrating the birthday of the monarch on November 10 – spurred in large part with an eye on Muslim votes – the Bharatiya Janata Party is organising anti-Tipu rallies and has declared the occasion to be a “black day”. In a mirror image to the Congress, the BJP hopes its stand will attract Hindu votes. “Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other,” Jinnah had said in Lahore, little aware that this would describe Kannadiga politics eight decades later.

Yet, the historical record is far more complex than modern politics would have you believe. For example, where does the tale of a Muslim Tipu Sultan as the defender of a Hindu temple fit? Especially when he was defending it from the Marathas, who are often seen in modern India as archetypal Hindutva heroes, battling for a mythical proto-nation.

Third Anglo-Mysore War

In the late 1700s, the subcontinent was in flux. The Mughals, while still seen as token sovereigns, had lost actual power. Any hope of the Marathas replacing them was dashed at the Third Battle of Panipat, where the Afghans won a crushing victory. As subcontinental powers declined, the star of the British rose.

In 1789, the British teamed up with their allies, the Marathas and the Hyderabad Nizam, to pluck out the last thorn in their side: the king of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, who had, more than any other ruler, understood the grave threat the East Indian Company posed.

The Marathas and Tipu Sultan did not like each other very much and their hostilities predated this war. In fact, Hyder Ali, Tipu’s father, first made his mark by taking the fort of Devanhalli (close to Bengaluru) from the Marathas in a bitterly fought battle.

In 1791, therefore, the Marathas, under the command of Raghunath Rao Patwardhan invaded the Mysore district of Bednur. Here, there proceeded to sack the Sringeri monastery.

Temple, run

Attacking temples during war wasn't exactly unusual (for example, the Maratha attack on the Tirupati shrine in 1759 is little remembered). But this was no ordinary place of worship. It had been founded a thousand years before by the father of Hindu Adviata philosophy, Adi Shankaracharya. The monk set up an abbey in each corner of the subcontinent: Shringeri in the South, Puri in the East, Dwaraka in the West and Joshimath in the North.

Given this lineage, the Sringeri monastery had been patronised by rulers – both Hindu and Muslim – ever since it was founded. Tipu continued this tradition and maintained a close relationship with the abbey, sending it valuable gifts and awarding it tax-free land. In fact, in his personal correspondence, Tipu would address the monastery’s swamy, head reverentially as “jagadguru” or “ruler of the world”.

This prestige meant the temple was also wealthy, which was probably why the Marathas sacked it – the first time it was to see such a calamity in its millennia-long history. The Marathas stripped the monastery of its considerable wealth, killed many Brahmins and desecrated the idol of the temple's presiding deity, the goddess Sharada.

After the attack, the Swamy, who fled the sack, wrote urgently to Tipu asking for his help in reconsecrating the idol of Sharada. Tipu replied back angrily, writing in Sanskrit, “People do evil smiling but will suffer the penalty in torments of agony." The Sultan also made monetary arrangements for the consecration of the Goddess and also sent along his token gifts for the idol.

Past is a different country

With the rise of Hindutva in Karnataka in the 1990s, Tipu’s image was sought to be changed from a secular freedom fighter to Muslim tyrant. However, this incident stuck out like a sore thumb. The event – where “Hindu” Marathas attacked a temple protected by a “Muslim” Tipu – confused people who would have liked to see medieval Karnataka as a mirror of modern India, with Hindu-Muslim communal sentiment being a major axis of politics.

Of course, the past is a foreign country. There is no doubt that Tipu committed, what would be by modern standards, atrocities and war crimes. But so did the Marathas, in Sringeri. While Tipu's violence was par for the course during his age, the mistake many modern-day readers do is to backread a modern communal motive to his actions.

They do things differently there

What Tipu was doing was an old template of power politics in the region. For example, he demolished the Varaha Temple, which employed the boar symbol of the Mysore dynasty that he had replaced. But he also let other temples in his kingdom remain unmolested. In fact, like with Sringeri, Tipu patronised a number of powerful Hindu temples. He donated silver vessels to the Sri Ranganatha temple in his capital and even ordered the installation of a jade linga, Shiva idol at the Nanjundeshwara temple at Nanjangud.

Hindu and Christian communities were targeted by Tipu but, as historian Kate Brittlebank points out, “this was not a religious policy but one of chastisement”. The communities he targeted were seen as disloyal to the Mysore state. Tipu also, in fact, acted against Muslim communities such as the Mahdevis, who would support the British and find employment as horsemen in the East India Company’s armies. Even as Tipu attacked Hindus and Christians from outside Mysore, as Susan Bayly says, he “was careful to foster close ritual and political relations with Hindus and even Christians with his own domain, provided these groups posed no threat to this authority”.

Tipu’s right-hand man, in fact was a Hindu: Purnaiya, his chief minister. This is so different from the modern subcontinent that it is actually quite difficult to think of a Hindu being the second-most important person in the Pakistan government or a Muslim in the present Indian government.

In the end, the Tipu Jayanti fracas provided a ringside view of how modern politics uses history to create and reinforce present-day identities.

(This article was first published on Scroll.in.)

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They proudly claim to be descendants of Shivaji Maharaj, not the exclusionary sword wielding Hindu but the humane inclusive leader, whose governance not just had representation for all, but whose legacy can be seen in the policies that Shahu Maharaj brought in affirmative action for the first time towards the end of the 19^th century, in Kolhapur state. Hence the emotive demand for one large statue in honour of Shivaji.

Presently, the Maratha Reservation Resolution is being circulated and scrutinised by large numbers of village panchayats in Maharashtra. This will form the basis for the demands to be put first before the collector and then the government. The young leaders of the Maratha Kranti morcha are busy in this task. (The resolutions apart from the demand for capital punishment in the Kopardi rape case and amendment to the atrocities act, speak of the implementation of Dr Swaminathan's report highlighting fair prices of grains, Shivaji Maharaj memorial in Arabian Sea project, etc. All these were unanimously approved in the general body meeting of the village panchayat.)

"The village panchayat resolutions can be used as the referential evidence in the court. The 73^rd amendment in the Indian constitution has given the independent rights to the local bodies," said Advocate Vishal Kadam, activist of the Maratha Kranti morcha. Advocate Kadam is studying all aspects of the Maratha reservation and collecting all sort of evidence to support the demand. "It builds the pressure on the government," he added. "Critically, last Sunday (October 3, 2016) the village panchayat of Lok-Khed Akot Taluka in Akola district passed the resolution of Maratha reservation, punishment to Kopardi accused when across castes – Dalit, Vanjari, Dhangar and Muslim community unanimously approved the resolution at the general body meeting. Teesta Setalvad spoke to Vishal Kadam in Pune on the surging anger within the Marathas and its roots.

Vishal Kadam

Jati Madhye Arthik Prashnachya Ladha —it is a struggle for economic rights within a wider caste struggle; yes, we are talking about caste, the Marathas but also for Maati, the Land (earth).

It is an insult (apman) to interpret this as a narrow caste struggle. On the issue of Atrocities Act too, the way the law exists, it is not even benefitting Dalits. All we are saying amend it slightly to prevent its misuse: make the offences bailable but ensure stringent procedures through the special courts. If the complainant who made out the complaint, and the witness, on the basis of which the atrocities case is filed, does not stand by his initial version, let there be punishment. We know there are atrocities against Dalits and do not want to repeal simply an amendment. The media, particularly large sections of the corporate-driven media are trivialising the issue; at the ground level the reporter knows what we are saying has merit.

Do you know the kind of discussions afoot within Maratha WhatsApp groups? Serious questions affecting the people are being debated in these groups. Real life concerns. There is no glamour or ‘powerful backing’ as is being insinuated. The debates and the agitations reflect a ground reality which is not visible in the media speculation. The superficial interpretation that, because, after years, Maharashtra does not have a Maratha chief minister, that grievance is at the root of these agitations across towns and cities is one such trivialisation.

It is critical to reflect what is behind the current Maratha agitation. There is a section of the powerful Maratha caste(s), from the NCP or even the BJP who are trying to appropriate the current agitation for their own narrow, political benefits. But the root of this agitation goes far beyond that. There is economic backwardness. There is no societal respect and in the fancy super speciality courses there is no admission for the Marathas.

There have been no answers from the political establishment to the real life questions raised by Marathas.

The ghastly rape at Kopardi was the trigger. Even today, the state is not taking the case seriously: statements of the parents have not been recorded, there is no seriousness visible. But this trigger has now set off debates and demands – long pending – on the economic and cultural marginalisation of the Marathas.
 
Farmer Suicides, Landless Labourers Wows 
Two lakh farmer suicides have been from among the Maratha caste. Twenty per cent of the Marathas, all in Maharashtra are landless labourers. The inability to pay loans for children’s education, a daughter’s marriage cause humiliation and have led to suicides. If there is a sudden sickness or accident in the family, there is no surplus saving for treatment. It is this hopelessness that has led to the suicides

Shetkari Apaghat Vima Yojana 2014 has done more damage than good. Deviously, or at least inexplicably, the payment for ‘accident’ deaths under the scheme is 2 lakhs and for ‘suicide’ it’s only 1 lakh! There is therefore an incentive to show deaths as accident not suicide! The suicide happens, after consumption of poison (vish prashan) and the victim is taken to a private hospital: either deliberately or otherwise the death is regarded as ‘taking poison by mistake.’ This has caused a drastic reduction in deaths by suicide (a poltical issue for the government) and led to a greater ‘accidental’ deaths so that more money can be claimed!
 
Education Loans
The Super Speciality Institutions have both glamour, image and name, like the IIMs, IITs and these institutions are generally dominated by Brahmins or Marwaris – the moneyed classes who have huge resources. This is a crucial source of angst for Maratha youth: access to higher education. Is this possible without a quota when fees are so high, sometimes as much as Rs 2 lakhs a year.

(In the IITs and IIMs, there are reservations of 15, 7 and 27 per cent for the Schedules Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs respectively. Marathas do not fall under any category. Fees for the general and OBCs category are Rs 76,000 on an average per semester and with two semesters a year, the fee is about Rs. 1.5 lakh.)

Ninety per cent of Marathas earn Rs 50 per day. Fifty-sixty per cent of Marathas are daily wage earners. How will they compete and access higher education. Marathas are your Sugarcane workers, workers who access MGNREGA, domestic workers, small holdings landowners, rickshaw pullers/drivers, thelewalas (small daily business workers on carts).

Video Courtesy: Maharashtra1 TV

Marathas Do Not Qualify for Below Poverty Line (BPL) Cards
Despite this economic situation, and despite the fact that 60 per cent of those actually under the poverty line are Marathas (and as I said earlier 50-60 per cent being daily wage earners earning Rs 50 a day) being a ‘forward backward caste’, not an OBC, Marathas are not entitled to being included in the yellow card BPL list. That is another concrete demand since 1997 that has not  been met: for Marathas to be included in the yellow BPL card category. Though 60 per cent of those actually under the poverty line are Marathas we do not have access to this economic benefit.[1]
 
Rest of the Thirty Per Cent
Thirty per cent of Marathas have two, three acres of land, a shop, (typically this will be a stationary or kirana/grocery shop), one family member will be a teacher: the income for the whole family will be Rs 30,000 income. Though educated they have no special training or skills cannot be entrepreneurs, have no access to capital nor bank loans as they have nothing to mortgage. Hence for several family members there is no means of livelihood.

There are vasts numbers of Maratha youths who are educated but not employed hence non-marriageable.
 
Hence Marathas had made the demand that for applicants to the public services (MPSC and UPSC ), the age-limit should be increased over thirty years and this has recently, just, been accepted. This however is not an answer. Typically Marathas have a rationing agency, they are thekedars on the Pune, Mumbai, Nashik highway bit their economic condition is in a crisis.
 
The High Powered Marathas
Only 5-7% of the Marathas are or have reached the higher/upper middle class. Two to three per cent of these are in power or very close to political power. Suddenly even for this section, the government policies of the present government are found to be a running interference: there is undue government influence in the cooperative sugar factories sector. Even that section is therefore disgruntled.
 
Agitation Pushed Government on Maratha Quota
Till this agitation gained ground, the Maharashtra government (under the Bharatiya Janata Party-BJP) had not moved against the stay order disallowing quota/reservations for the Marathas. There is a huge churning, need for affirmative action. But there is also confusion: what should be the constitutional provision? Should this be from the OBCs, Other OBCS, should it follow an economic criteria? This is what we are busy working out right now under the leadership of persons like Justice B G Kolse Patil and P B Sawant. Ninety per cent of the momentum for this agitation comes from there.
 
Agrarian Distress
The issue of mininum support price for farmers, loans for farmers, making agriculture a productive act: this is at the core of the present agitation. The Annasaheb Patil Arthik Vikas Mahamandal established 10-15 years back was not given capital. Why? There is a deliberate attempt to undermine and not allow the economic status of Marathas to be uplifted.
 
Casteist Influences
There were attempts, by sections, dominated by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other political outfits to narrow the broader demands of the Maratha youth agitating by trying to pit us against Dalits, against others. But that has not been and will not be the focus. Our focus is economic rights within the paradigms of a caste system that has left us behind in many ways – economic and cultural. Divisive forces won’t succeed, we will not let them succeed. Our demands are within the spheres of education and economic development, agriculture and others. We wish to take others along and not pit ourselves against them.
 
(As told to Teesta Setalvad) 

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श्री गडकरी ने कहा, “कुछ नेताओं ने सरकार में रहते हुए जातियों की भलाई के लिए कुछ नहीं किया, और अब सत्ता से हटने पर उन्हें जाति याद आ रही है।"

मराठा आरक्षण आंदोलन में महाराष्ट्र में भाजपा नेतृत्व की सरकार बुरी तरह से घिरी हुई है, लेकिन श्री गडकरी ने इसकी अनदेखी करते हुए कहा कि भाजपा का रवैया एकदम स्पष्ट है, और वह गरीबों का उत्थान चाहती है ताकि किसी को आरक्षण की ज़रूरत न रहे।

एनसीपी नेता शरद पवार मराठा आंदोलन को लेकर राज्य सरकार की आलोचना कर चुके हैं। उन्होंने कहा है कि मराठा आंदोलन सरकार के खिलाफ असंतोष का नतीजा है।

राज्य में 32 फीसदी आबादी वाला मराठा अपने लिए आरक्षण की मांग कर रहा है, साथ ही अनुसचित जाति जनजाति अत्याचार निरोधक अधिनियम की समीक्षा की मांग भी कर रहा है। देवेंद्र फड़नवीस सरकार इस मामले में कोई फैसला नहीं कर पा रही है। भाजपा नेताओं ने आरोप लगाया है कि एनसीपी मराठा आंदोलन को भड़का रही है। राज्य कार्यसमिति की बैठक में श्री गडकरी ने यह भी कहा कि केंद्र सरकार ने पंडित दीनदयाल उपाध्याय के जन्मशती वर्ष, 2016 को निर्धन कल्याण वर्ष के रूप में मनाने का ऐलान किया है क्योंकि गरीबों की कोई जाति नहीं होती।

हालाँकि राज्य कार्यसमिति में भाजपा ने आरक्षण मुक्त देश के लिए प्रतिबद्धता जताई लेकिन उसने मराठा आरक्षण की मांग का भी समर्थन किया और इस बारे में औपचारिक प्रस्ताव भी पारित किया है।

The post गरीब की कोई जाति नहीं होती-मराठा आरक्षण पर बोले गडकरी appeared first on SabrangIndia.

कोई तो है, जो अपने हिस्से से ज्यादा खा रहा है.

वह कौन है?
 

आरक्षण की सीमा 50% से बढ़नी चाहिए. मराठों को आबादी के अनुपात में नौकरियों में हिस्सा मिलना चाहिए. संविधान संशोधन के जरिए यह हो सकता है. तमिलनाडु में 69% रिजर्वेशन के लिए नरसिंह राव सरकार ने संविधान संशोधन कराया था.

प्रचंड बहुमत पर बैठी बीजेपी सरकार मराठों के हित में यह क्यों नहीं कर सकती?

करना सिर्फ यह है कि मराठों के रिजर्वेशन का एक्ट महाराष्ट्र विधानसभा से पास करके संसद के पास भेज देना है.

सुप्रीम कोर्ट भी इसे मंजूरी देने को बाध्य है. क्योंकि तमिलनाडु के एक्ट को वह मंजूर कर चुका है.

THE CONSTITUTION (SEVENTY-SIXTH AMENDMENT) ACT, 1994
[31st August, 1994.]

An Act further to amend the Constitution of India.
BE it enacted by Parliament in the Forty-fifth Year of the Republic of
India as follows:-

1. Short title.-This Act may be called the Constitution
(Seventy-sixth Amendment) Act, 1994.

2. Amendment of the Ninth Schedule.-In the Ninth Schedule to the
Constitution, after entry 257 and before the Explanation, the
following entry shall be inserted, namely:-

“257A. The Tamil Nadu Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institution and
of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Act, 1993
(Tamil Nadu Act 45 of 1994)
 

The post मराठों का नौकरियों में हिस्सा कौन खा रहा है? – Dilip Mandal appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Yesterday I performed a social duty. I watched Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat [English: Wild]. Every once in a while, I miss an important film. No one quite holds you up to it. But since Sairat’s release, everybody around me has been asking, “Did you watch Sairatyet?” The tone implies that watching this film is a duty. I performed it yesterday.

I watched it at a suburban multiplex. The theatre was half-empty, and there wasn’t a crowd enjoying the tunes from the film’s hit soundtrack. So I could watch the film properly. There were a few non-Marathi speakers in the audience. The Marathi speakers were responding well, unwittingly commending its script with giggles, snickering, smiles and nudges, all at the right time. Some left the theatre with tears. A lot has been written about this movie on the social media, particularly its ending, to the point that the shock element has been blunted. But as the end of the movie approached I felt like that man who sees his imminent end. In the film Madras Cafe, just before the blast, the bomb-clad terrorist is dressed up in her final attire. The director mutes all sound. On display is a cruel ceremony, a bride being dressed up to leave home forever. Sairat’s ending stirs up a similar emotion. I wasn’t taken aback by the ending, unlike the early watchers; but it did suffocate me.

With all its flaws and its merits, I liked the movie. The flaws exceeded the merits though. At first I was perplexed about why it would be the biggest ever blockbuster in the history of Marathi cinema. After all, an overstretched plot and a dispersed focus are major artistic impediments that ail this film. In this day and age of diminishing attention spans, a feature’s three-hour length should worry its makers. Yet the viewers watched it, enjoyed it and experienced it fully. This is nothing short of a miracle. But it cannot be dismissed as a mere marketing miracle. Nor can the brand value of a director drive such a feat. When a regional film breaks all collection records and grows across length and breadth, its popularity spreading wild, the reasons for its success and its implications become crucial. The implications of Sairat‘s success need a thorough examination, and from a variety of angles. The secret to Sairat’s success, I believe, lies not within the artefact, but without. I contend that we cannot find answers within the scope of the craft. In fact, what we will find through such a limited investigation would be deceptive. On the other hand, looking at what the success reveals, about the changing tastes and sensibilities of a huge section of society, is critical.

Of course Sairat has several noteworthy features. One of them is the absence of a contrived, scripted dialogue. It stands out as realistic and spontaneous. It is chitter-chatter, ambiguous and in its very nature, bahujan. Bahujan – that militant demonym coined by the visionary 19th-century social revolutionary Jotirao Phule to denote the vast majority of the Indian population that Manu’s caste order relegated as inferior to the “twice-born”. The language Sairat’s characters speak demolishes the grammar of the standardised dialect. Sentence structures militate against strict logic. Equally remarkable are its character sketches, particularly those of the male protagonist’s two friends — Pradeep a.k.a “Langdya” [Tanaji Galgunde] and Salim a.k.a. “Sallya” [Arbaz Shaikh]. The limping, bowlegged Pradeep is a superb character. Tanaji Galgunde, who plays Pradeep, is outstanding. In a number of scenes “Langdya” is conspicuously juxtaposed on the screen by various men with assorted physical deformities.

The pervasiveness of such symbols of disabilities of ordinary, poor people and their helplessness is prominently on display. The movie also moves increasingly from fantasy to reality. But even the fairytale romance of its two lovers is in the firm grip of the reality of rural life. The nakedness of caste in rural life is not hidden. When the Patil’s brat slaps his dalit teacher in the classroom, his Maratha father’s reaction betrays a certain pride and admiration. Later in the film, this same teacher has the following advice for the male protagonist: “Didn’t you sleep with the Patil’s daughter? Well, now leave her. This is what they do anyway.”

Such clear, caste-ridden references are, perhaps, gratifying to the audience. The film thus strikes a closer resemblance to the romantic lives of young women and men who live in the shadows of deprivation. It caresses that sense of romanticism and heroism in their lives. To date, quite a few “hero-heroines” on screen have appealed to the youth. This is different. The Parshyas, the Archies, the Sallus, the Langdyas are present in the audience and they are seeing themselves on the screen. Their environment is just as violent, heartless, deprived. It is here, in this very environment, that they seek reassurance. Sairat provides it, by picturing both their fantasies and their reality. But it also unpacks a picture of the future. The everyday lives of young men and women are presented for us in the form of a three-hour capsule.

The film is laden with bahujan culture. It resonates with the majority which can hear itself in it. It has its own aesthetics. This might seem false, fabricated and flat to the elite, or to those trained in elite understanding of Art. This film also does not have a definitive or well-formed shape. It flows organically. But it does have its own pace and its own nature.

The bajuhan youth that comes to watch this film have entered every small and big cinema theatre across the state. They have danced to its musical numbers. We can now go to a fancy urban theatre and dance, standing on its seats. There are none of those high-born types there anymore. The crowd resembles us now. Never mind the flip-flops, we shall dance full-on. This is a unique confidence that this movie has conferred upon the young. This picture shows their face and speaks their tongue. This inadvertent realisation has driven them wild. It is factors like these that operate covertly behind the success of Sairat. Its success has less to do with its art per se, and more to do with the social-scientific factors within and without.

What Sairat’s massive achievements mean, though, is that henceforth the responsibilities of, and exceptions from bahujan art, have augmented. It is clear now that the neat compartmentalised plots of older films might have been convenient; but beyond sanitising reality, they achieved little. People will now expect frank and explicit depiction of caste realities. It is no longer just an artistic element; it will be a demand, a need. This reality, unfortunately, is very complex. Films can no longer resort to the lazy, hackneyed and over-simplified equation of caste reality with the “Villainy of the Patil”. Khwada and Sairat might have offended a small section of Marathas, but such caste pride will also be of little use. Just as criticism of Brahmins has to be borne and tolerated by a progressive and sensible section of Brahmins, the Marathas too shall have to deal with criticism. There is no alternative. They will have to engage with it, attenuate their snobbery, and reform themselves towards a common progressive future. At the same time, other castes cannot assume the status of the oppressed. There are oppressors in those castes too. There are oppressors in all castes. Each caste looks down on those below it in the hierarchy. Particularly when it comes to matrimonial alliances, caste-conscious human beings metamorphose into ravenous beasts. Honour killings happen within every caste and there are innumerable examples of these from Maharashtra. Patriarchy afflicts every caste – the most oppressed castes included.

The woman of the “lowest caste” is thus the most oppressed human being. Bahujan artists who aim to confront reality will have to bravely face the layered complexities of caste oppression. The members of any caste, high or low, motivated by pride and identity will not think twice before trying to gag the voice of a work ostensibly critical of them. But the bahujan artist will have to take on, and struggle against, this kind of censorship. Sairat has not taken on this challenge. But it has cleared the way for future projects of this type. It is easy to expose the other who oppresses you. It is far more difficult to show – or even watch – how you oppress your kind. But that is the key to invoke humanity.

Translated from Marathi by Siddharth Adelkar from a review first published in the Maharashtra Times

Courtesy: indianculturalforum.in

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