The Maharashtra revenue department will from Tuesday, October 31, begin issuing Kunbi certificates to the Maratha community members with valid documents.
The move by chief minister Eknath Shinde is aimed to pacify the Maratha community following violent reservation protests.
The government also promised a curative petition for the restoration of the quota granted to the Marathas in 2018 before the Supreme Court quashed it, fresh empirical data to prove the community’s backwardness for its eligibility for the reservation and resumption of dialogue with activist Manoj Jarange-Patil, who is leading the protests.
The measures were announced after Shinde held an urgent meeting of the Cabinet Sub-committee on the Maratha reservation.
Who are Kunbis?
According to Britannica, Kunbis are descendants of settlers who arrived from the north about the beginning of the 1st century CE.
A 2016 report by Times of India quoted Kunbi leader and then deputy mayor of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Avinash Lad, as saying that Kunbis are landless farm labourers and small farmers who have been traditionally exploited by the Maratha land owners.
The Kunbi community in Konkan and Vidarbha has suffered under the dominant Maratha community, Lad added. The state government in 2001 included Kunbi Maratha and Maratha Kunbi in the list of castes eligible for OBC status.
Maratha leaders, however, insist that Kunbi and Marathas are one community. “Marathas are called Kunbis in Konkan and parts of Vidarbha. There is no difference between Marathas and Kunbis. Some Marathas called themselves Kshatriya and are finding it difficult to prove that they are Kunbis or farmers. There is historical proof that Marathas and Kunibs are one caste,” community leader Pravin Gaikwad was quoted in the 2016 report.
The violent reservation protests, however, has forced the Shinde government to issue certificates to the descendants of those recorded as part of the Kunbi sub-caste during the pre-independence Nizam era to enable them to get quota under the Other Backward Class (OBC) category as part of interim measures.
Maratha Quota Stir: Top Points
• Eknath Shinde said that the Justice Shinde committee appointed by the state, in its interim report, found 11,530 documents with the Kunbi records after scanning 17.2 million records from the Nizam era in central Maharashtra.
• According to a TOI report, the Shinde committee, led by retired judge Sandeep Shinde, was set up on September 7 to decide the procedure for giving Kunbi certificates for Marathas with Nizam-era proof in Marathwada. However, activist Manoj Jarange-Patil who has resumed his indefinite hunger strike wants blanket Kunbi certificates for all Marathas, not just for those with documentary proof that their families had been Kunbis in the Nizam era.
• The Maharashtra public transport utility on Monday suspended bus facility from Pune, Nashik to Marathwada region. A report in Hindustan Times quoted officials as saying that hundreds of state transport (ST) buses from Pune to Jalna, Beed, and Latur remained suspended in response to an appeal made by the police administration.
• Amid the protests, Maharashtra lawmaker Prakash Solanke’s home in Beed district was vandalised and set on fire on Monday morning. The protests were triggered by alleged comments against a hunger strike by Manoj Jarange-Patil from October 25. Protesters also threw stones and damaged a vehicle parked outside Solanke’s home.
• The temple town of Shirdi observed a day-long bandh called by Maratha demonstrators demanding reservation for the community. Though the bandh evoked mixed response, many devotees who landed for darshan at Shri Saibaba Samadhi Temple of Saibaba were severely inconvenienced, HT stated.
• Maratha protesters also blocked the Dhule-Solapur highway on Monday for more than five hours, leading to long queue of vehicles.
