Is Maratha Demand for Reservation Tenable?: Evidence from India Human Development Survey

Abstract

Year 2016 witnessed massive agitations by ‘dominant’ castes such as Marathas in Maharashtra, Jats in Haryana and Patidars in Gujarat demanding reservation in education and government jobs. Though several commentaries have attempted to identify factors contributing to such demands, there has been lack of evidence on what exactly is current status of these communities relative to the rest of the caste groups in respective states. This paper fills that gap by presenting descriptive findings on economic and educational status of Marathas in Maharashtra by utilising India Human Development Survey. The paper finds that on an average, Maratha households have higher incomes and lower poverty relative to the others with the exception of Brahman households. They are also over-represented in government and public sector jobs and in white collar or professional occupations when compared with their share in the sample. Hence, demand for inclusion of Marathas among ‘Other Backward Classes’ is untenable. But at the same time, a large section of Marathas are in the two bottom income quintiles and engaged in occupations that are not well-paying. Further, a substantial proportion of them are in rural areas and in some instances, rural-urban dimension turns out to be more important than the caste dimension. Thus, caste alone is unlikely to capture various ways in which households are deprived. How does one move beyond caste and incorporate other dimension leading to deprivation is an important policy question that needs urgent attention.