Manoj Jarange, the leader of the most recent Maratha reservation campaign, came from a farming family and dabbled in politics before taking up issues affecting his group and Maharashtrian farmers.
When he started his indefinite hunger strike in support of Maratha quota in a village in adjoining Jalna district on August 29, it largely went unnoticed, but everything changed on September 1 when violence broke out when local authorities tried to move him to hospital.
The subsequent series of events presented a significant challenge for the three-party government led by Eknath Shinde, which has been in power for 14 months. An enraged opposition is now angling for the resignation of deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is in charge of the home portfolio, over police action against Jarange's supporters and pro-Maratha quota protesters.
Police baton charged and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse a violent mob in Antarwali Sarathi village in Jalna district last Friday after protesters refused to let authorities shift Jarange to hospital. Several persons, including 40 police personnel, were injured and more than 15 state transport buses set ablaze in the violence. The protest and subsequent police action catapulted the lanky activist, aged around 40, into prominence and forced the Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP (Ajit Pawar group) government to once again start talking about reservation for Marathas in education and jobs, an emotive issue which is now caught in legal tangle.
He finished his studies there in the village. After living in Matori for a while, he relocated to Shahgad in the Jalna district's Ambad tehsil, where he worked in a hotel. While working for the Congress party, he became district president of the Youth Congress around year 2000. However, due to ideological differences over some political issues, he left the Congress and started working for a Maratha community organization. He then formed an organization named 'Shivba Sanghatana' around 2011, said Prof Chandrakant Bharat, co-ordinator of the Maratha Kranti Morcha (MKM), one of the outfits that has been agitating for quota for the community.
In 2013, Jarange began agitating for the release of water from the Jayakwadi dam for the cultivators in the Jalna area, according to Bharat. Jarange also took up concerns pertaining to farmers. According to the MKM functionary, he participated in the pro-quota marches that were held in 2016 all over the state and drove Maratha community members from Marathwada in central Maharashtra to Mumbai to present their requests to the Fadnavis-led BJP administration at the time. According to Bharat, Jarange's struggle in the Jalna district's Sashti Pimpalgaon lasted for approximately 90 days. Manoj Jarange's relative Anil Maharaj Jarange stated that the activist fled his hamlet of Matori between 2005 and 2006.