By – Waseem Raza Khan (Chief Editor)
For the past few days, Manoj Jarange Patil, a skinny but stubborn social activist and advocate for Maratha reservation, had been relentlessly pressuring the Maharashtra government to include the Maratha community in the OBC category by proving their Kunbi caste status. Last year as well, Jarange Patil had staged a major protest to get his demands met by the government. It’s a different matter what political motives were at play in that movement, but at the time, the Eknath Shinde “bow and arrow” government had appeased Jarange by promising reservation. During this time, many organizations and political parties, and even those Marathas who consider themselves high caste, had tried their best to oppose Manoj Jarange and weaken his demands.
However, a few days ago, Jarange Patil once again created a huge problem for the current “triple-engine” government of the BJP, Shiv Sena, and Ajit Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party. He announced that he would protest with all his might this time. He startled the government by declaring that he had obtained the evidence the government had requested to prove that Marathas are of the Kunbi caste. He demanded that the Marathas be included in the OBC category according to the government gazette created in 1918 by Nawab Usman Ali Asaf Jah VII, the last ruler of the Hyderabad Nizam dynasty, which had categorized the Maratha community as the lower Kunbi caste. With this demand, he cornered the Maharashtra government. The number of his supporters grew so large that the city administration even asked the court to have Jarange removed from Mumbai. But the government was in a dilemma: forcefully removing or using power against thousands of people was not only a threat to the administration but also appeared to be shaking the government’s own foundation. Finally, the government had to surrender to Jarange and promised to pass a new order based on the Hyderabad Gazette, after which Manoj Jarange ended his three-day hunger strike.
Playing political games, the current BJP government of the country has made every possible effort to prove to the pro-saffron public that the Mughal emperors, and especially Aurangzeb (may Allah have mercy on him), were the worst enemies and ruthless rulers of the Maratha empire. For many months, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar spent crores of rupees to defame Aurangzeb in the media. Whether on TV or in films, the anti-Mughal BJP government put in all its effort and money to malign Aurangzeb. However, after all this investment, the Maharashtra government had to bow before a law created by the seventh generation of Aurangzeb’s ordinary courtier, Mir Qamar-ud-din Khan Siddiqi (Asaf Jah I). In its hostility toward Aurangzeb, the saffron-hued Maharashtra government never would have imagined that it would have to take recourse to a gazette created by the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was born from the seventh generation of a courtier of the very same emperor whose grave they dared to break and whose disrespect they were capable of. In this situation, it can be said that, if not directly then indirectly, Aurangzeb, even after leaving this world centuries ago, forced his enemies to surrender.
The credit for this success goes entirely to the indefatigable Manoj Jarange, who not only made the ungrateful opponents of the Mughals and Aurangzeb Alamgir bow before him but also proved to them that the Nizam Asaf Jah VII is enough for them, and if they try to reach Alamgir, their saffron cloaks will be taken off. It can be said that the Maharashtra BJP government not only yielded to Manoj Jarange but also lost to Aurangzeb, who had left the world centuries ago.
