Caste, Reservation, Tribes, Women & Urbanisation in Maharashtra — MPSC GS Paper I and GS Paper II

Weightage: GS Paper I asks Indian society, diversity, women, poverty and urbanisation, and GS Paper II asks social justice and vulnerable sections. MPSC expects Maharashtra examples in both. The national frame comes from the UPSC CSE society chapters aliased into this hub. Several topics here are before the courts, so state them as facts and processes, not as positions.

1. The social composition

Census 2011 gives the religious composition:

The Buddhist community grew from Dr Ambedkar's conversion at Nagpur in 1956, which is why Maharashtra holds most of India's Buddhists.

Language. About seven in ten people speak Marathi as their mother tongue, and it is the official language under the Maharashtra Official Languages Act, 1964. A 2020 law made Marathi compulsory in all schools in the state. Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and many Adivasi languages are also spoken.

Scheduled Castes were 11.8 per cent and Scheduled Tribes 9.4 per cent of the population in 2011.

2. The reservation structure

Maharashtra's reservation in state services and education went above the 50 per cent guideline of the Supreme Court's Indra Sawhney judgment (1992) well before the Maratha question arose.

Beyond this, the central EWS quota of 10 per cent applies, and the SEBC quota for Marathas under the 2024 Act adds a further 10 per cent, subject to the pending litigation.

The VJNT categories are distinctive. They cover denotified tribes (Vimukta Jati), once branded "criminal tribes" under colonial law, and nomadic tribes such as the Dhangars, Banjaras and Vanjaris. Their separate categories show how the state tried to recognise groups that did not fit the SC, ST or OBC lists.

3. The Maratha reservation question

The Marathas are a large, historically landholding community, spread from prosperous sugar-belt families to small, indebted farmers. A state commission's 2024 survey put them at about 28 per cent of the population. The demand for reservation grew with agrarian distress and the pressure on farm incomes.

The sequence:

A parallel demand asks that Marathas with historical records of being Kunbi, an agricultural caste listed as OBC, be issued Kunbi certificates. Government orders to this end in 2024-25, including one based on the old Hyderabad State records for Marathwada, were welcomed by the agitation's leaders and opposed by OBC groups who feared dilution of their quota.

Other demands include the Dhangars' claim to Scheduled Tribe status, based on the listing of "Dhangad" in the ST order, and demands by other communities for recategorisation.

Worked example 3.1 (a 15-mark answer, ~250 words). "Discuss the constitutional issues raised by the Maratha reservation question."

Model answer. The question turns on four constitutional issues.

The 50 per cent ceiling. Indra Sawhney (1992) held that reservation should not normally exceed half, save in extraordinary circumstances. In 2021 the Supreme Court found that the 2018 law showed no such circumstance and struck it down.

Who identifies backward classes. After the 102nd Amendment, the Court read the power to identify socially and educationally backward classes as resting with the Centre. The 105th Amendment of 2021 restored it to the states.

The evidence of backwardness. Quotas must rest on quantifiable data about social and educational backwardness and inadequate representation. The Gaikwad and Shukre Commissions each produced such data, and its adequacy is what the courts examine.

Horizontal effects. Recategorising Marathas as Kunbi through certificates affects the OBC pool, which raises questions of fairness among backward communities.

The 2024 Act, granting 10 per cent, is before the Bombay High Court, and admissions and appointments under it are subject to its outcome.

The durable solution lies beyond quotas: farm incomes, education and non-farm jobs for the rural poor of every community, together with transparent data from a caste-inclusive census.

4. Adivasi communities

Maharashtra's Scheduled Tribes number about 1.05 crore. The largest groups are the Bhil and the Gond, followed by the Koli Mahadev, Warli, Kokna and Thakur. They live mainly in two belts: the Sahyadri and Satpuda in the north-west (Palghar, Nashik, Nandurbar, Dhule) and the forests of eastern Vidarbha (Gadchiroli, Chandrapur, Gondia).

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs): Maharashtra has three, the Katkari (Kathodi), the Kolam and the Madia Gond.

Their issues are the ones MPSC asks:

• Malnutrition and child deaths, especially in Melghat (Amravati) and Nandurbar, a recurring subject of court cases and inquiries.
• Forest rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. Gadchiroli villages such as Mendha-Lekha became models of community forest rights and Gram Sabha management of forest produce.
• Displacement by dams, mines and highways, and the balance between development and rights in Gadchiroli.

Health innovation. SEARCH, founded in Gadchiroli in 1986 by Dr Abhay and Dr Rani Bang, developed home-based newborn care by trained village women, which cut infant deaths and became a model for the national programme.

5. Women

Indicators. The sex ratio was 929 in 2011, but the child sex ratio fell to 894 from 913 in 2001, a warning of sex-selective practices that the state has fought with the PCPNDT Act and campaigns.

Policy. Maharashtra's State Policy for Women (1994) was the first in India, and the state has revised it since. It reserved half of local body seats for women in 2011.

Self-help groups. The Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM), set up in 1975, became the state's nodal agency for women's self-help groups, and the state rural livelihoods mission, Umed, extended the model.

Migrant women workers. Every season lakhs of sugarcane cutters, many from Beed and other Marathwada districts, migrate as couples to western Maharashtra and Karnataka. Reports in 2019 of high rates of hysterectomy among women cane cutters led to a state inquiry, and questions of their health, children's schooling and wages recur in the Mains.

6. Urbanisation and migration

Maharashtra was 45.2 per cent urban in 2011, among the most urbanised large states. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region is one of the world's largest urban agglomerations, and Pune, Nagpur, Nashik and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar are growing fast.

Slums. Census 2011 recorded about 1.18 crore people in slums in Maharashtra, the most of any state. Dharavi, in central Mumbai, is among Asia's largest informal settlements and a centre of small-scale manufacturing, leather work and recycling. Its redevelopment has long been planned and was awarded to a private developer in the 2020s.

Migration brings workers into Mumbai and Pune from across Maharashtra and India. It has fuelled growth and also recurring political debate over jobs for locals. Answers should present both sides with evidence.

Worked example 6.1 (a 10-mark answer, ~150 words). "Discuss the challenges of urbanisation in Maharashtra."

Model answer. Maharashtra was 45 per cent urban in 2011, and its cities drive its economy, but growth has outrun planning.

Housing: the state had the largest slum population in India, about 1.18 crore in 2011, with Dharavi among Asia's largest informal settlements.

Infrastructure: water, sewerage and transport lag behind demand, and Mumbai's 2005 floods showed the cost of blocked drains and lost wetlands.

Environment: loss of mangroves and hills to construction, and poor air quality.

Governance: municipal bodies depend on the state for funds and powers, and long gaps in elections weakened accountability.

The answer lies in rental and in-situ slum housing, metro and suburban rail, protected wetlands and mangroves, and empowered municipal bodies with their own revenue.

Common traps MPSC sets here

• Treating 50 per cent as Maharashtra's reservation total before 2018. The state's structure already totalled 52 per cent.
• Stating the 2024 Maratha quota as settled. It is before the Bombay High Court, and admissions and appointments are subject to the outcome.
• Mixing up the 102nd and 105th Amendments. The 102nd created the National Commission for Backward Classes; the 105th restored the states' power to identify backward classes.
• Naming the wrong PVTGs. Maharashtra's are the Katkari, Kolam and Madia Gond.
• Quoting only the overall sex ratio. The fall in the child sex ratio (913 to 894) is the more telling figure.

Memory aids

• "13-7-19-2-11 = 52": SC, ST, OBC, SBC and VJNT shares.
• "18 Gaikwad, 21 struck, 24 Shukre": the Maratha quota sequence.
• "KKM": Katkari, Kolam, Madia Gond.
• "929 but 894": overall and child sex ratio, 2011.

Summary

Maharashtra is about four-fifths Hindu, with the largest Buddhist population of any state and Marathi as the language of about seven in ten people. Its reservation structure totals 52 per cent, including separate VJNT categories, and the Maratha question has moved from the 2018 Act, struck down in 2021, to the 2024 Act, now before the High Court, alongside the Kunbi certificate demand.

Adivasi communities in the north-west and eastern Vidarbha face malnutrition, forest-rights and displacement issues. Women's policy, reservation in local bodies and self-help groups are strengths, while the child sex ratio and migrant women's conditions are concerns. Rapid urbanisation has produced India's largest slum population.

Exam protocol

• State contested questions as facts, dates and legal status, without taking a side.
• Give every social indicator with its year and source.
• End social-justice answers with measures that reach the poor of every community.