ONLY EKNATH

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde may have turned a corner politically, and a significant one.

- Dhaval Kulkarni

He still has in front of him the delicate task of walking a tightrope between the politically influential Marathas and the increasingly resurgent Other Backward Classes (OBC). But what he has already accomplished is no small thing. His deft management has turned in his favour a potentially volatile situation: the statewide agitation for a Maratha quota. His skillful handling not only pacified the turf-with activist Manoj Jarange-Patil withdrawing his protest in November it has enhanced his own stature in the process. This could well help him position himself as a prominent leader of the Marathas, especially the economically disadvantaged sections within who feel left out of the privileged circles of power inhabited by their own caste elite.

Jarange-Patil's agitation had struck at the inherent complexity that marks the Marathas as a community. Though sharing social origins with the Kunbis (peasants or tillers), they had attained a more elevated status owing to the martial life-eventually going up to royalty-before and during the centuries of the Maratha empire. This caste border, at once differentiating as well as porous, is reflected in the current status, where the Kunbis are classified as OBCs but Marathas are not. Jarange-Patil wants that changed and all Marathas to be accorded OBC status via their past Kunbi ties. This demand for across-the-board classification is opposed by existing OBCs, including Kunbi groups. Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, who belongs to the Ajit Pawar-led faction of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), is leading the counter-mobilisation of the OBCs.