From India's largest newsroom, I'm Arun George, and this is the Times of India podcast. The central government has announced A caste census will be conducted whenever the next census is carried out. Two things remain unclear. When will the census be conducted and how the caste of over 1 billion Indians will be counted?
Over the past decade, there have been multiple calls for a caste census together, how much backward caste have progressed and to even reconsider the reservations that exist for government jobs and educational institutes. While multiple states like Bihar and Telangana have conducted caste censuses whose findings have been released, Karnataka has perhaps been at the forefront of conducting surveys
based on caste. In today's episode, were talking with political columnist and analyst Sugata Srinivasa Raju about the controversy in the state over its own caste data and the political difficulties that come with having this data. Sugata started by talking about why Karnataka has been at the forefront of counting caste of its residence and how it started. Karnataka was at the forefront
of backward class reservations. Its not just the 1970s when the Havnur Commission was set up by the Devarajaras government.
It goes back to 1919. The Mysore Maharaja was the one who first set up a kind of Commission, it was called the Leslie Miller Commission, Justice Leslie Miller Commission. So that was done because in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, there was the Justice Party thing that was going up saying that the backward classes have been oppressed and they have not been given their due in
government jobs. And that rhetoric was catching up. And the Mysore Maharaja was came from a very small community, you know, I mean a small aristocratic community. And if he had to retain control over his state, he had to demographically accommodate the majority communities and show a lot of justice having been done, basically. So when they did that survey in 1919, the biggest objection came from the Diwan of this state, that is Sir M Vishveshwariya. He was a Brahmin.
He sort of put out what is a meritocratic argument that we often listen to today. So he resigned in protest in fact. But the Maharaja still went ahead. The Midler Commission data was astounding in many ways because the dominant communities in the state did not seem to have proper representation in the governance or in government jobs. There was a disproportionate kind of control of the Brahmins
over administration. And you'll be surprised, after the Brahmins, it was the Muslims who had a greater say in the administration of the state or the governance of the state and Muslims. It is again historical reasons. Tipu and either Hyder Ali and others had ruled this state. So the bureaucracy was full of them.
And then the Brahmins anywhere had cultural capital but the Okaligas and the Lingayats who dominated the region, first the Okaligas and then the Lingayats. Because you should remember in 1919 until 1956, the state had not been integrated. The state had not been unified as a linguistic state. So the old princely Mysore state, the erstwhile princely Mysore state, where the Okaligas were in domination, that domination did not reflect in the government or in jobs or in
control. So this Miller Commission paved way for that accommodation, I would say. And Lingayats also realized that they were not given adequate representation because their population size was being completely ignored. And then these two communities, this is the historical dominance of the two communities. So the two communities start getting activated and they start
organizing themselves. Sugata says that the big caste data that emerged in the state post independence was the LG Havanur Commission, which was the first Backward Classes Commission in Karnataka. The Commission met over 3,00,000 people in the state and assess their economic and educational
progress. The committee's recommendations included reservations in state government jobs and even knowing students caste so that the state could ensure that children from lower caste made progress into higher educational institutes. Sugata pointed out that the Havnur Commission's report actually inspired a lot of the big Mandal Commission's work.
The Mandal Commissions report in the late 1970s was the basis for the existing reservation policies for Schedule Caste tribes and other backward caste in government jobs and educational institutes. Sugata says that while there was a social aspect to the Havanur Commissions creation, there was a deeply political aspect to it as well. And it's interesting as to why it happened to the 70s.
It's because Devra Jaras was from a again, a small aristocratic community called the Arasu community, which was a community that sort of supported the aristocratic interests of the Maharaja of Mysore. And he was in a minority and he needed one dominant community to be on his side to retain power. And the dominant communities would always sort of arm twist. So he decided to integrate all the backwards in the state,
right? So he knew that was an assorted population and he could bring them together and continue to be in power. And he's been to this day, he's the longest serving chief minister. So in the 1970s, he does a magical kind of reservation process in Karnataka, which later becomes a template for the rest of India. Karnataka in 1995 set up a Backward Classes Commission that would not just enumerate the backward classes in the state but also indicate their socio
economic progress. The report that is at the centre of the controversy in Karnataka presently was conducted by this Commission. While the survey was conducted all the way back in 2015. Sugata says there's been a steady leak of data about the findings of the survey. Except there's a problem. And here's Sugata explaining why the data released so far has been so controversial.
Why this has become problematic is more than focusing on the socio economic advancement and trying to inform the population of Karnataka as to who stands where when it comes to socio economic advancement. This is a partial release of numbers of independent castes, dominant caste when even a religious community like the Muslims, the minority communities. So it just puts out a number there and it does not tell you who stands where.
But you don't know who is performing how when it comes to socio economic advancement, whether they are backward or whether they are forward. That is all that matters in this whole thing. But except for that, everything else is being spoken about. This is one set of the complication Arun. But the other set, and which is even more dubious in its record, is now the existing chairman of the Commission and other politicians, including Congress. Politicians have been saying two things.
One is the data is old, it is 10 years old. You have to do a new thing. That is one part of the story. The second is even more dangerous and has been overlooked, which is that these people, the Commission itself is saying the original report is missing, which means you have no access to original data that has been collected. Sugata says there's one issue that comes with any enumeration
of caste. But with this data in Karnataka, there's an additional problem, which is that the original data of the survey officially seems to be missing if. You want to get a certain advantage out of government larges. You may identify yourself for something as a different sub caste. If you belong to a certain sub caste which you know will not get you as much benefits as the other sub caste. Nobody stops you from identifying yourself there.
You can't go and check the genealogy of the person. The second thing is there is a certain problem in Karnataka historically, which is when the Lingayatism came into play, that is in the 12th century, it was an amalgamation of caste. It was a coming together of caste to actually do away with a
caste order. So now finally something has happened over the centuries, which is you came together to be a caste less order, but now you try to remember what your original caste was and claimed reservation on the basis of that for political reasons. You say you're a Lingayat, but when you need reservation, you put yourself somewhere else. So how does one know that what data you have, even if it has
been collected meticulously? The Kantraj Commission has not collected data meticulously is what what is coming out now. And there is no original report, you know, I mean the raw data, nobody seems to know where it is. The current commissions chairman himself is saying that. So there is enough basis to suspect the authenticity of the whole process. Even if you assume everything is correct, how do you know that truth has been elicited when you
enumerated the person? The second thing is, as castes became conscious of their identities, for instance, the caste of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the Kuruba community, now the Kuruba community and the Okaliga community for the longest period in history have been overlapping communities. After the 1980s or 85, because there was a new consciousness that this was a separate thing, they started calling themselves Kuruba.
If you go to certain areas of the state, some people may still be under this confusion whether they're part of Kaliga, part Kuruba. So you you can't draw a line and say like you do in the general census, saying that no, this fellow does not have a motorbike, this fellow has a fridge, this fellows houses thatch to. You can't make a draw line in a caste census.
You know, you pointed out this 10 year delay in things and that they should be a fresh survey, but then what explains the government looking at that survey and saying, you know, that's what we are going to go by right now. Rather than conduct a fresh census, which really would tie in with say what the Congress partys campaign has been across to almost 2 elections now, which is that we will do a fresh census, we'll find out exactly what it is and reservations will
be adjusted accordingly. Instead, if there's so much of A cloud over this 10 year old data, why is the government holding on to it then? How are you going to determine whether this person belongs to this caste or this sub? Caste is the major issue. So 10 year delay that we are speaking about is the least of the problems because you know, I mean 10 year delay, OK, I will go ahead and do a fresh survey, but will you be in any better position is the question.
So earlier it was a novelty. So you accepted whatever data was being thrown at you. You if somebody said you're 12%, you're 12%, somebody said you're 14%, you're 14%. That's exactly what was happening with Okaliga Zelinka. It's they said, somebody said we are 18%, somebody said no, no, no, that's a very conservative estimate. We were 22%. So now they're particularly upset because their demographic strength has been underplayed.
So and what will happen you asked if the government does a new survey, new survey or old survey the as long as the political capital is with these two communities and the S ES schedule cast because of their numbers. Any government trying to sort of allocate power or rework on this thing will lose this whole thing. They lose power. Essentially. It's a power game. It's not a socio economic educational game anymore. It's a political game and that
has to be understood. Besides all of this, there is another very new urban and modern problem which is of migration. Now there is so much of migration that takes place. So there is this. This whole thing has been such a reductionist thing. They have reduced it into creating new tribal identities or trying to capitalize on tribal and ethnic and caste identities instead of making it look like a scientific exercise.
So Rahul Gandhi, if he is trying to advocate caste senses, he has to also give us a methodological solution to the caste census. He is talking, you know, in very broad terms without understanding the complications that it is going to create. And I'll tell you there are twofold complications. 1 is he'll he'll lose his government here if all Lingayat MLAs and all Okaliga MLAs decide to sit out of the government because of because the Congress party has done this, that the government
is going to fall. And the second thing is the possibility of their coming back to power is also remote. Its because the resources are with these two communities. So if you're looking at electoral gains, then its not that all the backward classes will come together and vote for a certain political party because there is a new problem
there. All the backward classes may have been put under a list and they may all be eligible for reservation but there is only one or two or three communities there in that 100 list which dominates and cannibalizes all the quota and Siddaramaiahs community, the Kuruba community, Bangarappa, the former chief minister, his community that is the Ediger community, these are two dominant communities which has which have cannibalized quota in that section.
So if two of them are cannibalizing or three of them are cannibalizing, the rest of them, that is say 98 or 99 or 95 of them may just not want to be on the side that these people are. So these are the complications which I think Rahul Gandhi fails to understand or has not cared to understand and he just keeps pushing for this kind of a caste survey, which is going to be a major problem for his own party.
He is also aligned with Mandal parties, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janatha Dal RJDJDU, you know, I mean in the past. So these caste based parties, Mandal parties which in the which are in the regional areas where the Congress has a tie up with them, will never want their basis of existence to be taken away. If you try to start playing the caste game like them, what will be the incentive for them to align with you? They'll say he's heating up our
space, so let's keep him out. The outrage seems to be primarily among the vocal Leaguers and the Veera Shiva Linga. It's over the findings because they're completely outraged that their numbers, they say, are lower than what they believe it is. Why does being a lower number in a very statistical sense matter if the reservation is not being changed or it doesn't affect them? Yeah, that's a very interesting question. Its political game is about perception. Its not about actual numerical
strength. So it will allow you to bargain for more constituencies to contest from it. It creates a kind of perception in the in the voting blocks. There are a lot of a lot of signaling that happens if you're a dominant community. It could be a feudal signaling or it could be something else. So the moment you create that domination narrative like the BJP does with religion, you know, so that kind of a narrative is actually what propels political power, what creates that kind of control.
And it's all about control. I mean they may be complaining about this for political reasons. There is a further complication which is not. It is not that as it is being made out at the national level that only the Okaligas and Lingayats are upset. Now even within the Lingayats for the last three to four years, there is a different movement that is happening which is the Pancham Salis or 110th of the Lingayats are apparently Pancham Salis, the sub caste and they have never been empowered.
The Banajigas, the trading community or the Sadhar Lingayats who are smaller in number or the Jangamas who are the priestly class, they have dominated that community despite being smaller in lumber. It is like saying that the Brahmins have dominated the administrative system or the governance system although being just minuscule of the population because they had educational capital and cultural capital and
social capital. So similarly in a state situation, a similar thing has happened where a small subgroup within the Lingayats have used the Lingayat umbrella to capture power and that sub caste has grown. So the Panchamchasalis are challenging the entire Lingayat kind of formulation and similarly you are seeing that happening within the schedule castes.
See schedule castes are the number one community in the state of Karnataka according to whatever numbers and it's it's it's their enumeration is done far more, you know, accurately because of again, there was a constitutional mandate to do that. But even under them, the Mardigas who are supposedly 60% or 65% of 70%, you know, depends on whatever there is a new survey on for to determine what the subcasts are within the scheduled castes.
So the Mardigas are claiming that see we are dominant but we have never enjoyed political power like the others. So which is Kharge comes from a relatively less dominant scheduled caste community and KH Munyappa is compatriot. A Dalit compatriot in the Congress party comes from a more dominant sub caste. But KH Munyappa has not enjoyed as much power as Kharge, so they're all very upset.
They are now. They did a padiyatra recently and there is a new Commission called Justice Naghmohan Das Committee which is actually trying to look at what is the number of the different sub castes within the scheduled castes. The commissions report also says that look, the Maldigas are deserving may be of higher reservations or rather really any subcategory within a category deserves higher reservations.
Like they've in fact endorsed the creation of a most backward caste sort of thing where which is in line with what the Supreme Court said, you know, to create reservations for less dominant sub caste. So wouldn't the commissions reports then be in some ways benefiting socio economic categories rather than. Yeah, you. Should remember what we are discussing is the backward classes survey. We are its, its its put out by the backward classes, permanent backward classes Commission.
It has got nothing to do with the survey of scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes. That's a separate thing. So they may have made a generalized statement, but they are not speaking on data. This looks exclusively at backward casts and backward classes and the suggestions that have been made are for them. They have no mandate to get into
the schedule casting. Therefore, that has now come to the fore where the Mardigas are saying that you give us this reservated of padiyatra and stuff like that, which I mentioned and that's why there is another committee which is looking into it. Interestingly, the political point to be made here is during this entire churning of 10 years or 15 years when all this has been happening, it's always been Siddaramaiah at the helm. He has always dodged the caste
survey thing first. First term, it was ready. Now why did he wait until the Kantraj Commission report went missing? It was submitted to him in 2015. He never did anything. He was in power till 2018. Then now he says, oh, the report is lost that the Commission is saying that. So I think one of the opposition leaders said it is in his house recently. So he has to dig it out from his own residence. He is not been sincere as far as this is concerned because he
knows the complication. He knows the first person who would be affected by this will be him. He's lose, he'll lose power. He has now suddenly let out a few things so that he retains power because there is competition to his chair from DK Shivakumar. So that is the political side of it. So he's not he's not saying that here is the entire report. Please look at it and let's do it when I am committed to the backward classes, which has given me power.
No, he's not saying that. They're leaked something today. Then they say that is missing tomorrow. And now the there was a cabinet meeting held exclusively to discuss this less than a week ago. They postponed it to May. They said we will make corrections. What corrections will you make to data? Will you go back and, you know, write whatever you want? What is the process of correction that you're talking about?
And why is it that someone like a Veerapa Moili who tried to implement the Chinnapa Reddy Commission, why is he saying
that the data is old? So they're creating more confusion for this thing to be postponed because they know whenever a chief minister has touched this, including Moili Moily tried to do these things in 94 and the and the results in 94 December was that the Congress got the lowest number of seats in history because Deve Gowda had mobilized the entire dominant communities to vote against the Congress party.
And rest is history. Deve Gowda became chief minister, then Prime Minister and all of that. Its a Hornets Hornets nest as they would say. You're throwing a stone at a beehive and you don't know what is going to come back and sting you. You know in. Terms of at least religious data, when you look at it, it doesn't seem to hint at this sort of explosion of Muslim population, which is something the BJP has constantly spoken of and and its not just in
Karnataka, its nationally. But does this finding then effectively say that? Well, that's not a cause for worry. In this survey, they are dumb. They're saying this. They're not saying that their number has gone up. They are telling you this is their number. The rate of growth of Muslims has come down in India. That is a acknowledged fact. But they're saying that this is their real number here in Karnataka, but they're also identifying sabkas under that.
There may be some people who have benefited from the government schemes much more than somebody else. There is no commentary being made on the growth in their number, but it has a political implication. I think you hinted it correctly because the moment you say Muslims are the second most dominant community in this state, a Congress chief minister whose chair is shaking terribly is making way for a kind of polarized narrative to be set by
the BJP. So Siddaramaiah is not helping the Congress. Siddaramaiah's philosophy seems to be after me, the deluge. I have been chief minister for a longer period, for a long period of time. So if I let this thing in about Muslims that the BJP will exploit that. And if the BJP begins to exploit the religious, and now after Pahelgam, it's even more, you know, dominant kind of a narrative that's going to get
played. And if that is going to be exploited, his rival will never be chief minister. It will take him, I think, a decade or two to sort of come back to think. So he may be actually playing a very nasty political game. We don't know. I'm making this is my political reading. I want to be very clear on that. So finally, should rather than do you see any change in the reservation π based on this, in this governments term? Or really, how do you see this
going forward? So I will caviate it by saying that we don't have data. I have not seen data. I have not seen a socio economic data at all. So I do, I really don't know. So I will not put my money on something and say that we have data. So let's go ahead and do this. No, I think it's a very difficult call to make. I find it very difficult to say that if this process will go on or not is a very difficult thing to say because they're playing political games around.
They're not actually interested in the welfare, socio economic, educational welfare of the marginalized communities. They're all playing political games. They're looking at constituencies, they're looking at power games. So if that is the basic motive and intent, then how can you sort of do anything sincerely so. Def. Karnataka is definitely not going to be providing a model for the Congress to say that look, we've done it here, look how it worked. No, far from that.
I think it will explode. There's already something happening and I think there will be some kind of an explosion because it's going to be chaotic, anarchic and we don't know how. The dominant communities, if they sort of there is a standoffish attitude and they all decide to leave the government. Don't forget there is a mutt system.
There is a seminary network in Karnataka for the Lingayas and that seminary network, the Matas, that network has been replicated by all castes, backwards, scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, everybody. The caste mobilization thing can actually affect. If somebody says I am a victim of this whole process, then they can all. If the mutts decide that the Lingayat MLAs and ministers should come out of the Congress thing, what will you do?
If the colleagues decide something similar, what will you do? Or if they all come together and decide to throw out the existing Chief minister and his cabal, what will you do? So these are loud political questions that we need to ask. Today's episode was produced by Jayraj Singh and Sahil Gupta. For a daily spotlight on people, ideas and stories that matter, subscribe to us. We're available on the Times of India website, Spotify, Apple, Amazon, or wherever else you get your podcast.
For any new steps of feedback, mail me at arun.george@timesgroup.com.