Cracks within the Congress government under chief minister, Siddaramaiah, have widened ,post the submission of the contentious caste survey report by the Karnataka Backward Classes Commission last week .
Instead of heaving a sigh of relief at receiving the report, albeit seven years after its completion, the chief minister finds himself walking on thin ice. Largely because ministers from the influential Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities, as also their seers, have come out strongly against it; even calling for a fresh survey.
Conversely, others from the backward sections of society and minorities ,on their part, are calling for the acceptance,rather implementation, of the recommendations made in the survey. Predictably, the chief minister finds himself sandwiched between the opposing views.
Significantly, the report was commissioned by Siddaramaiah in 2015 during his first tenure as CM. Even though the survey was completed under the aegis of the then chairman, H Kantharaju, in 2018, it was not submitted to the government.
At that time Siddaramaiah had sought to stay clear of the report following the growing belief that it indicated a sharp downtrend in the population of the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, hitherto considered as the dominant communities, in terms of population . This was in contrast to the comparatively less number of OBC,SC,ST and the minority sections. Importantly, subsequent governments did not pursue the matter.
Post Congress party’s electoral success in the assembly polls of 2023 and Siddaramaiah’s return as chief minister, suddenly the caste demography assumed importance. Especially, as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi , kept asserting that states under his party’s rule would be conducting caste surveys to determine the status of the OBCs and other sections.
This development came as the spark that Siddaramaiah needed as he himself hails from the Kuruba or shepherd community, a backward class in the state. He seized the opportunity, provided by Rahul Gandhi , to revive the report that was gathering dust in the Backward Classes Commission. Consequently, he urged the commission’s immediate chief, Jayprakash Hegde ,to update and submit it to the government soon.
Now that the government has received the report, it will be placed before the cabinet, even as the Lingayats and Vokkaligas ,have become vociferous. They continue to push Siddaramaiah administration to reject it forthwith.
The common refrain of the communities is that the survey was conducted in an unscientific manner because in many cases the teams concerned did not even bother to visit sections of their members.
Besides, as prominent Lingayat ministers claimed, many from their community had given their sub castes to the survey teams, instead of calling themselves Veerashaiva Lingayats.
Notably, weeks before the report was submitted the Lingayats and Vokkaligas had begun mounting pressure on the government. Siddaramaiah,on his part, had countered that the critics’ claims did not mean much as none of them had read the report because it had not been made public!.
The influential communities, apparently knew what they were talking about considering that it would be naive to assume that the contents of the report would have been inaccessible to them and those in the successive governments. In fact , even when the survey was completed in 2018, the dominant communities had made their fears known, just as the OBCs and other sections reiterated the need for accepting its findings.
The immediate apprehension of the two main castes is that once the controversial report is accepted, their” political hegemony would come under the scanner. In fact, the fear is that once the caste census report is accepted, “their population would be shown as being reduced substantially, ”to quote an expert.
Not surprisingly, senior Congressman and president of the Akhila Bharata Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha, Shamanur Shivashankarappa,for example, has now warned that the community was prepared to conduct its own survey, if only to set the perspective right. Against the expected population of two crores, the survey indicated the community’s number at 65 lakhs, he claimed.
Likewise , the Vokkaligas argue that their population appears to be pegged at 60 lakhs in the survey whereas it could exceed 1.5 crores. Besides, as the caste census was conducted over eight years ago ,it did not reflect the current status. Prominent Vokkaliga seer, Nirmalanandanatha Swami, too expressed his displeasure over the report, terming it as “deeply flawed and unscientific.
As a matter of fact, weeks before the government asked Hegde to submit the survey’s findings , the Vokkaligara Sangha had sent a petition to the CM against accepting the “disputed caste report.” Much to Siddaramaiah’s shock ,it was also signed by deputy chief minister, D.K. Shivakumar, a prominent member of that community.
Shivakumar , unabashedly, defended his stance arguing that while he stood by his party line on the census, the need to have a scientific approach could not be ignored.
Other leading members of the Vokkaliga community who signed the memorandum included former chief minister, S.M. Krishna, former Prime Minister, Deve Gowda, his son and former CM ,H. D .Kumaraswamy. This was in addition to Sadanand Gowda, another former CM,among others.
This was also the opportunity for the MLAs and ministers from the backward classes, Dalits and Muslims too to seek the immediate implementation of the caste census. Coincidentally, as the CM himself reiterated at a Kuruba gathering earlier that if the OBCs organised themselves to seek their rights, it could not be termed as caste politics.
The beleaguered Siddaramaiah ,however, is now finding it difficult to strike a balance on what has become a debatable and sensitive issue ; even as the opposition BJP bides its time to exploit the situation.eom
By Tyagaraj Sharma From Bengaluru
(The content of this article reflects the views of writers and contributors, not necessarily those of the publisher and editor. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only)
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