Demand for reservation category change: Talks with govt fails, Dhangar community continues indefinite hunger strike for sixth day

Mumbai: In the run up to the state assembly elections, the demand by the Dhangar (shepherds) community for category change in reservation is gaining momentum, posing a big challenge for the Eknath Shinde government. A group of individuals from the community are on an indefinite hunger strike for the past six days in Pandharpur, Solapur. Their strike will continue on Sunday, the seventh day of the agitation as their talks with the state government failed. A two-member ministerial delegation, that met the protestors on Saturday afternoon, failed to convince them to withdraw from the hunger strike. To resolve the issue, chief minister Eknath Shinde will hold a meeting with representatives of the protestors on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Amol Devkate, a sarpanch from Alegaon village, Madha tehsil consumed poison to press the demand for the Dhangar reservation. He was immediately taken to a government hospital in Akluj for treatment. Devkate had come to support the hunger strike along with many others but took the extreme step. He is said to be out of danger now.
Six individuals from the Maratha community — Deepak Borate, Yogesh Dharam, Vijay Tamnar, Mauli Harnawal, Ganesh Keskar, and Yashwant Gayke have started an indefinite hunger strike in Pandharpur from September 9. They are pressing for their decades of demand to give them reservation under the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category.
At present, the community is part of the Nomadic Tribes (NT) category under which they are getting reservation benefits in government jobs and education up to 3.5%. Inclusion in the ST category will increase their reservation quota to 7%.
On Friday, Borate’s health worsened but he refused to take medical treatment, a day after which a ministerial delegation of higher and technical education minister Chandrakant Patil and minister of state for home Shambhuraj Desai reached the site and requested the protestors to withdraw their agitation. When they refused to call off the hunger strike, Patil and Desai assured an urgent meeting with the chief minister in Mumbai on Sunday. “CM asked us to meet you all and request to call off the hunger strike as the government is positive over the demand,” Desai said while addressing a crowd that had gathered in support of the protestors.
Exactly a year ago, another Dhangar activist Suresh Bandgar held a 21-day hunger strike for the demand at Chaundi in Ahmednagar. He withdrew the agitation after the chief minister in a meeting assured to constitute a commission headed by a retired judge to study their demand.
On November 20, the state government declared setting up a study group for giving reservation benefits to the Dhangar community under Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. The nine-member study group was tasked to study the laws and methods invoked by three states — Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Telangana — to provide reservation to the community under ST category.
Traditionally shepherds, the Dhangar community in Maharashtra consider themselves as ‘Dhangads’ who get reservation under ST category in many other states and have been demanding their inclusion in the ST category for the last many years.
The central government has refused to recognize Dhangar as Dhangad. The community can get their demand fulfilled if the state government makes a recommendation to the Centre in this regard.
Before the state assembly elections in 2014, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was the state BJP chief, promised the community to provide reservations in the first cabinet meeting once the BJP-led government was formed. After becoming the chief minister he instead appointed the Tata Institute of Social Studies (TISS) to study the backwardness of the community and if Dhangars are the same as ‘Dhangads’. A year later TISS submitted its report reportedly saying that the two communities have no similarity.
On March 2, 2019, the state government handed over the TISS report to the then-state Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni for advice and further action.