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The king who introduced quota 100 years ago

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI July 27. Maharashtra on Friday celebrated the centenary of reservation, first introduced in the Kolhapur princedom by the then ruler Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj as a forward looking, enabling feature of his rule. Events recalling this far-sighted policy were held across the State.

Shahu Maharaj — a descendant of Chhatrapati Shivaji, whose 128th birth anniversary was also celebrated on Friday — gave primacy to education, encouraged girls to go to school and ensured quotas for the weaker sections.

Shahu Maharaj's policies had a strong social reform content.

In those days, when Brahmins were at the forefront of everything — education to jobs in administration — he set up quotas of 50 per cent for the backward classes.

To him, anyone who was not a Brahmin, Parsi and two other communities, which had social and economic ascendancy, was a backward.

In 1894, Shahu — born Yashwant in a Maratha family and adopted into the royal family — found that in his administration, there were 60 Brahmins and only 11 non-Brahmins.

Amongst his personal staff, 47 were Brahmins and others, only seven.

Of a total population of nine lakhs in his kingdom, Brahmins numbered only 26,000 and yet, 79 per cent of them were literate when others were barely lettered.

So, he launched on a policy of affirmative discrimination and set a quota of 50 per cent jobs for others.

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