Thousands in Mumbai march for quota in government jobs, education
Thousands of protesters have marched through the streets of India's port city of Mumbai, demanding quotas in government jobs and education.
About 200,000 demonstrators took to the streets of India's financial capital on Wednesday to push for their demands for reserved quotas in government jobs and college places for students.
The marchers covered a distance of more than five kilometers silently in the capital of the state of Maharashtra. There were no speeches or slogans.
Protesters also disrupted traffic across India’s largest city. They jammed suburban trains.
Some Mumbai-based food delivery firms suspended operation for the day, as did schools in the affected area.
More than 10,000 policemen were deployed to prevent any incident of violence.
The majority of protesters were from the Maratha community, which accounts for nearly 35 percent of Maharashtra state's 123 million people.
Young people and senior citizens of Maratha, who waved saffron flags in protest, urged higher prices for farm produce and loan waivers for poor farmers.
One protester, Pradip Munde, a farmer from Osmanabad, a town more than 400 kilometers southeast of Mumbai, said, "Farming is no longer profitable and jobs are not available."
"Reservation can ensure us better education and jobs," Munde said.
Rising unemployment rate and falling farm incomes are driving farming communities across India to redouble calls for reservations in jobs and education.
Two-thirds of India's population of 1.3 billion depend on farming for a living.
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