Girish Kuber

2 months ago | indianexpress.com | Girish Kuber

Why was Raj Thackeray’s recent agitation, in which he called on his party workers to slap those in the state who refuse to speak Marathi, a complete non-starter? Why did it barely resonate with the Marathi manoos? Besides highlighting Raj’s brand of politics, this latest misadventure also raises a larger important question: Is this the end of the sons-of-the-soil proposition in Maharashtra?

Mar 9, 2025 | indianexpress.com | Girish Kuber

Heavy ships don’t rock much. The analogy, if applied to Maharashtra’s three-party Mahayuti government, doesn’t quite work. Almost four months since coming to power, the strongest-ever ruling combine in the state — with a strength of 235 in the 288-member assembly — is anything but steady. As the Devendra Fadnavis government presents its first budget today, on March 10, it is lost on no one that the challenge to the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP alliance is not from the Opposition but from within.

Dec 23, 2024 | indianexpress.com | Girish Kuber

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” laments Marcellus in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Many a Maharashtrian will echo the sentiment. The inordinate and inexplicable delay at every step of government formation is not the only sign of administrative and political decay the state has been witnessing over the years. True that it took almost a month for chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to allocate portfolios even after the landslide victory in state assembly elections held on November 20.

Nov 22, 2024 | indianexpress.com | Girish Kuber

Equally, the incumbent government neutralised the Opposition’s caste factor — the second C — by reverse polarisation, a la the Haryana model. In Maharashtra, the Marathas — the most politically powerful group — was up in arms against the BJP, the failure of the saffron alliance in bringing in the Marathas under the reserved category being the primary reason. The new-age Maratha protagonist Manoj Jarange-Patil had successfully mobilised Marathas by branding the saffron alliance as “Brahminical”.

Oct 26, 2024 | indianexpress.com | Girish Kuber

Behind Maharashtra’s image as the richest and most progressive state lies a complex web of social groups, some of which are perennially at loggerheads. It is necessary to understand that everyone domiciled in this state could be Marathi but not necessarily a Maratha. Every Maratha is Maharashtrian but the reverse may not be true. Marathas, over 32 per cent of the state’s population, are its most dominant caste group, followed by OBCs at around 27 per cent.