Economist Adam Smith used the concept of an invisible hand to explain his economic and moral theories. For the past several decades, there is another ‘invisible hand’, which is said to be at work in Maharashtra’s politics, with several political and social phenomena being attributed to it — that of Sharad Pawar.
To call the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president and former union minister an enigma would be an understatement. Speaking in hushed tones of reverence, his party leaders often acknowledge that Pawar’s moves and statements often have an undercurrent that is tough to decipher, something that becomes evident only after a period of time.
Even as his most hard-bitten critics would admit, Pawar Sr is a 24x7 politician. Indeed, his initiation into politics began in 1940 as a three-day old infant, who was cradled by his mother Sharadabai as she attended a meeting of the Pune district local board.
In several interviews given by him, Pawar’s reverence for his mother, Sharadabai, a gutsy woman, who broke conventional norms of patriarchal orthodoxy, by joining politics and becoming a member of the local board (as the Zilla Parishads were then called), is obvious.
Hence, when a seasoned politician like Pawar ups the ante on an issue like the investigation into the Elgar Parishad cases in Pune and the violence against Dalit protestors in Bhima-Koregaon, it begets a question about the reasons for the same.
On December 31, 2017, allegedly inflammatory speeches were given at the ‘Elgar Parishad’ at Shaniwarwada in Pune. The conclave commemorated the battle of Bhima-Koregaon on January 1, 1818, where a small detachment of the British army, comprising mostly of Dalits, held off a larger force loyal to the Brahmin Peshwa Bajirao-II. The Peshwa rule, which was rife with instances of caste injustice and Brahmanical orthodoxy, subsequently made way for that of the East India Company.
In 1927, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar visited the victory memorial, which is an obelisk erected to commemorate the victory and also stressed on his community, the Mahars, who were part of the East India Company’s troops, being a martial race.
A day after the Parishad, there was violence against Dalits, who thronged the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial located in Pune district in lakhs to pay their respects.
Later, the Pune police arrested and booked activists aligned to the Left and civil society, who were accused of waging war against the state and being involved in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, Prakash Ambedkar, who is Dr Ambedkar's grandson, and Pawar, blamed Hindu right-wing elements for the attacks on Dalits.
Recently, Pawar attacked the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ regime under Uddhav Thackeray for transferring the probe to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and also lashed out at senior officials of the Pune police for their line of investigation.
Home minister Anil Deshmukh, who belongs to Pawar’s NCP, said chief minister Uddhav Thackeray “overruled” him on the matter. However, Thackeray has curiously denied his complicity and said the Centre had directly taken over the investigations.
Thackeray has said that the NIA would only probe the Elgar Parishad case, while Bhima-Koregaon is under the remit of the state police. Pawar has also spoken of setting up a parallel Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate these cases.
After the Bhima-Koregaon violence, Prakash Ambedkar had held a day-long ‘bandh’ (shutdown) in Maharashtra on January 3, 2018, in protest. Prakash and some NCP functionaries blamed two Hindutva leaders —Milind Ekbote of the Samasta Hindu Aghadi and Sambhajirao Bhide ‘Guruji’ of Shiva Prathisthan Hindustan for the Bhima-Koregaon violence. Both, Ekbote and Bhide have their roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).
The bandh call served as a safety valve for the simmering anger among Dalits and helped build up Prakash as a pan-Maharashtra leader of Dalits and smaller OBCs.
Subsequently, Prakash re-moulded his Bharatiya Republican Paksha-Bahujan Mahasangh (BRP-BMS) into the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA). In the 2019 assembly elections, Prakash contested in an alliance with the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and riding on the support of a large sections of Dalits, who were seething with anger because of the attacks, and the other backwards, secured 41 lakh votes.
While the AIMIM got its first MP elected from Maharashtra, the combine was blamed for the defeat of the Congress and NCP in eight seats. However, while the alliance fell apart in the subsequent assembly elections, the VBA drew a blank.
Despite the NCP winning 54 seats in the state assembly, it is largely seen as a party of the dominant feudal Maratha-Kunbi community. The Marathas (Kshatriyas) and Kunbis (peasants) are the dominant communities in Maharashtra, and are estimated to form around a third of the state’s population.
The VBA’s subsequent meltdown and the NCP’s internal politics may have necessitated the need for Pawar to reach out to an auxiliary constituency of Dalits and other backwards. Nature abhors a vacuum and the NCP may be eager to capture this space. Despite their substantial numbers and socio-political clout, the militant Buddhist Dalits (erstwhile Mahars who converted to Buddhism with Dr Ambedkar), are upset over their present political status.
The Buddhist-Dalit dominated Republican Party of India (RPI) lies splintered into oblivion and former firebrand Ramdas Athavale is now firmly entrenched in the BJP camp as a union minister of state. This, coupled with the VBA’s decline, can help the NCP make inroads into this constituency. The Buddhist-Dalits are estimated to form around 8% of Maharashtra’s population, and are the largest Dalit social grouping.
Similarly, Prakash, who had formed his own pattern of social engineering in Akola district, which he represented twice in the Lok Sabha, had also attracted to his VBA sections of OBC communities like Dhangars and Malis, who have substantial numbers. One reason for the VBA's stellar performance during the Lok Sabha elections was the front encompassing in its fold smaller OBCs like the Vadars, who have little mainstream political representation.
The NCP may also be targeting these social sections.
In 2016, the Maratha community launched silent Maratha Kranti morchas to press for their demands like quotas for the community in jobs and education (Kunbis, who may or may not practise endogamy with Marathas are already in the OBC category) and preventing the misuse of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
The community organised around 60 such protests in Maharashtra and neighboring states. However, these morchas, which were said to be fuelled behind-the-scenes by elements in the NCP, led to the OBCs, who compete with Marathas for control of local power structures, unifying behind the BJP, which had appointed a Brahmin Devendra Fadnavis as the chief minister.
This outreach by Pawar may also reduce some of the lingering bitterness between Marathas and OBCs.
(The author is a Mumbai-based journalist and author of ‘The Cousins Thackeray: Uddhav, Raj and the Shadow of their Senas’. Views are personal).
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