Who Is Manoj Jarange? A Maratha Reservation Activist Or Sharad Pawar's Man Outside The NCP?

The demand for reservation to Marathas in Maharashtra, is an old one.

Over the past four decades, the community comprising nearly 30 per cent of the state’s population has voiced its demand for reservation in government jobs and higher education through various means such as protest marches, road-blocks and fast unto death.

Protest marches launched back in 1980’s when the demand for reservation was first made and those launched later in 2015-18, which saw lakhs of Maratha caste men and women step out on streets, have largely been peaceful.

However, the renewed season of protests is of a different nature.

Unlike the previous protests of 2015-18, which apart from being peaceful were virtually leaderless, not only have the recent protests taken a violent turn, but they now also have a chief agitator- a 43 year old man named Manoj Jarange.

Such is Jarange’s influence over his caste men, especially in the Marathwada region of the state- the epicentre of protests, that a large number of Maratha youth swear by him and are ready to carry out his orders instantly.

While the Ekanth Shinde-led state government has attempted to placate the Maratha community by making a provision of a separate 10 per cent reservation for the community, there are no signs of Jarange and his followers backing off.

With Jarange rejecting the separate reservation, reiterating his demand that Marathas be included in the Other Backward Class (OBC) category and continuing to deliver provocative speeches, the state government on 27 February ordered constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe his role in the violent incidents that have taken place during the course of agitation since September 2023.

Who is Manoj Jarange?

Similar to many young and middle-aged men in Marathwada, Maharashtra’s most impoverished region, Jarange grew up in a Maratha family which sustained itself on agriculture.

Born in 1982 in a village named Matori in the Beed District, Jarange studied up till grade 10th in the village’s Zilla Parishad School. As claimed by him in an interview given to a Marathi news channel, Jarange enrolled himself for a degree course after passing his pre-university grade 12th in Georai. However, he never attended college and instead started helping his father on the family farm.

Despite discontinuing formal education, Jarange is said to have continued reading literature on Maratha icons like Chhatrapati Shivaji. As per reports, owing to his flair for public speaking and pulling punches at opponents through effective use of colloquial language, Jarange garnered many supporters after he launched Shivba Sanghatna in 2011.

Initially starting out as an agitator voicing farmer issues, Jarange is said to have veered towards upholding the Maratha cause after the 2016 Kopardi incident. The incident involving the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl from the Maratha community in the village in Ahmednagar District sparked off a series of protests demanding justice for the victim and reservation for the Maratha community.

Jarange is said to have sold 1.5 acres of his share of the family farm and bought two second-hand cars for the use of his organisation. From 2017, he is said to have organised several low-key protests demanding Maratha reservations. However, it was only after the Antarwali-Sarati Police Lathi-Charge Incident in September 2023 that Jarange came under the spotlight.

Antarwali-Sarati Incident and Subsequent Violent Protests

While many Maratha caste outfits have been organising various kinds of protests to voice their demands since the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena (Shinde) government came to power in 2022, it was Manoj Jarange's site protest at Antarwali-Sarati village in Jalna District that was attracting many eyeballs.

Having realised that any kind of separate reservation awarded to Marathas would be again struck down by the Supreme Court (as it happened in May 2021) owing to the social backwardness of the community not provable, Jarange launched a fast-unto-death protest in the village in September demanding Marathas be included in the OBC category.

In his reasoning, Jarange claimed that the caste name Kunbi, which has been a part of the OBC list, is nothing but another name for the Maratha caste that was in the unreserved category.

After starting a fast unto death at the protest site in the mid-August, Jarange's health deteriorated rapidly by the end of the month. To prevent any subsequent fallout, the state government sent a team of doctors to check on him. However, Jarange's followers restrained doctors from putting him on saline support.

On 1 September 2023, the state government sent a delegation assisted by a large police force to seek Jarange's cooperation in medically treating him. However, a violent clash erupted between Jarange's followers and police personnel after the latter attempted to take away Jarange to the nearest hospital. While the protestors claimed that it was the police who charged at them first, the latter claimed that they had been compelled to lathi-charge after protestors hit them with sharp stones.

Subsequently, Jarange demanded immediate suspension of all senior police officials of Jalna and asked the government to charge them with attempt to murder. While the state government stood firmly by the police, considering several constables had suffered serious injuries, mobs of youth said to have been Jarange's followers reacted violently.

OBC leader and Cabinet Minister Chhagan Bhujbal had then demanded the arrest of Manoj Jarange on the charges of incitement to violence. However, the state government is said to have refrained from taking any action against him fearing a backlash from the Maratha community in the upcoming elections.

Recent Provocation

Apart from regularly lambasting the state government, threatening OBC leaders like Bhujbal and rejecting the recently awarded separate 10 per cent reservation for Marathas, Jarange has now personally targetted Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

In a gathering at the protest site in Antarwali Sarati on 25 February, Jarange used several expletives against Fadnavis while holding him responsible for Marathas not having been included in the OBC list.

Despite being aware that his speech was being broadcast live on all major news channels, Jarange threatened to 'make life miserable for Fadnavis.' Alternately, he also launched a tirade against Fadnavis's caste and said that the latter's 'baamni kaava' (a slur used against Brahmins in rural Maharashtra) won't work against Marathas.

As a result of this provocation, an elected Gram Panchayat leader belonging to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-Sharad Pawar) later went on to threaten in a viral Instagram reel that "if we (Jarange's followers) resolved to exterminate Brahmins throughout the state, it shall be done within three minutes."

Although Jarange later back-tracked on his statement against the community and expressed regret for using expletives against the deputy chief minister, the speaker of the legislative assembly instructed the state government to constitute an SIT to probe Jarange's role in instances of violence in the recent past.

Allegations of financial fraud and an NCP connection

While Manoj Jarange continues to protest by recurrently fasting and occasionally asking his Maratha followers to conduct roadblocks across the state, more than three of his former close associates from the protest have come out publicly against him.

Ajay Baraskar, a kirtankaar from the Waarkari tradition and Jarange's former associate, has claimed that he is 'not a genuine person.' Baraskar has alleged that Jarange was indulging in self-aggrandisement by playing on the emotions of his Maratha followers.

"Moreover, he knew very well that government was going to give separate reservations beforehand as he used to discreetly meet several senior bureaucrats in hotels and bungalows of his associates," he said.

Baraskar has also claimed that Jarange had borrowed large amounts of money from many people and that a financial fraud was registered against him under IPC 420.

Sangeeta Wankhede, another former associate of Jarange, has claimed that Jarange was organising Maratha protests on the behest of the NCP leader Sharad Pawar.

"We have seen that Jarange who claimed to have been equidistant from all politicians, would talk to Sharad Pawar on his cellphone. Jarange claiming to take all protest-related decisions based on people's choices was all a sham. Him being in touch with Sharad Pawar proves that it is Pawar and not Jarange who has been the mastermind behind this protest," she said.

Wankhede has also alleged that several meetings for intensifying the protest were held in a sugar factory belonging to NCP (Sharad Pawar) leader and former cabinet minister Rajesh Tope.

Baburao Walekar, a long-time associate of Jarange who hails from the same village as the latter, claimed that Jarange was responsible for getting innocent Maratha youth jailed.

"He provoked several young Maratha men to leave their jobs and carry out his orders to attack those booked in the 2016 Kopardi case. This led to those boys getting jailed while Jarange started strutting about as a hero across villages," he said.

On Jarange's political connection with NCP, he said, "That Jarange is associated with NCP is true. He had even asked me and my friends to come and assist him in campaigning for NCP candidates in 2014. Even if you look at his speeches closely, he has never spoken out against Sharad Pawar, despite the latter having opposed Maratha reservation in the past."

Interestingly, while consensus seems to be building up on Jarange's NCP connection, a video of a conversation between Congress leader Nana Patole and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has gone viral.

In this video shot outside the steps of the Vidhan Bhawan, Nana Patole asks, 'How did he (Jarange) cross the limit this time despite him being your follower?' To this Shinde is seen replying as 'So what? I supported him only as long as he was honest with the cause of the community. Once someone crosses the limit, I don't spare them.'

This has led to speculations that both - Pawar and Shinde, had used Jarange to keep Fadnavis' influence over state politics in check.