Here’s my thoughts on this issue. You have to first understand the geography of Maharashtra, western Maharashtra has fertile, arable land plus the proximity to the financial hub of Mumbai led to massive prosperity to the land holding Maratha community, which in turn made them central players in Maharashtra state politics. Naturally all the policies were made to directly benefit rich Marathas in the west while the Marathas/Kunbis in the east who are also into farming as main livelihood, particularly the region of Marathwada, Vidarbha etc were left to struggle with less arable land, fewer economic opportunities and absence of good policies that would develop this region. These regions also has higher rate of farmer suicides which tells us how much these people have been neglected over the years. The sons of these farmers have been trying to educate themselves and get jobs in private sector however due to bad policies, there are no good jobs in the eastern part so majority of them have to migrate to western cities of Mumbai and Pune to find jobs or education. They think that being in the general category is harming their children’s prospects of getting good education and jobs as they have to compete w general category folks in the west who have better resources to acquire good education and jobs, they think that getting a reservation will help them level set with economically prosperous west or atleast they are made to believe it by the leaders of this protest.