“We suffer most from the weight of what we refuse to name.” In Karnataka, that weight is caste. Until recently, it was both ubiquitous and invisible. The state’s recent caste survey—now on the cusp of being released—challenges this duality, demanding that the architecture of silence give way to an architecture of accountability.
This is not merely about numbers. It is about the weight of what we do not count—and how that unspoken arithmetic has long structured who gets to govern, who gets counted, and who gets left behind.
In 1928, a Ganesha idol’s removal sparked a communal firestorm in Bangalore. But beneath the flames lay a deeper resentment—one kindled by a report that dared to suggest caste-based reservations for the underrepresented. Nearly a century later, Karnataka finds itself at another threshold, its political weather stirred once again by a document that makes caste visible.
In the summer of 1928, Bangalore erupted. What started as a schoolboy protest over the removal of a Ganesha idol in Sultanpet turned into communal riots that shattered the city’s imagined calm. Yet, as the Visvesvaraya Committee concluded, this wasn’t just about idols or processions. It was a fire lit by deeper resentment—particularly over the Miller Committee's recommendations to reserve government jobs for non-Brahmins. Back then, as now, a bureaucratic report became the flashpoint for debates over representation, justice, and power.
Fast forward to 2025, Karnataka once again finds itself at a crossroads. The release of its caste survey has cracked open illusions that have long held sway in the public imagination: the idea of Hindu homogeneity, the myth of meritocracy, and the convenient silence around structural inequality. While some political actors warn against the potential “division” this data could cause, others see in it a historic opportunity—a reckoning not with identity politics, but with decades of invisibilised injustice.
From Ganesha to gaps in data
The Ganesha Galabhe of 1928 is often remembered as a communal riot. But to view it only through that lens would be to miss the forest for the flames. At its core was a crisis of representation. Dominant caste anxieties over losing bureaucratic power found expression in street-level communalism. A policy that intended to uplift the majority was recast as minority appeasement.
This, too, is the story of the present caste survey.
The latest data reveals that over 85% of Karnataka’s population comprises Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Dominant castes, long presumed to be the “natural” stewards of leadership, are revealed to be numerical minorities. Unsurprisingly, the backlash was immediate.
Critics questioned the missing headcounts, reliability/validity of data, methodology, the politics, the timing—everything but the central question: Why should truth, when inconvenient, be deferred?
Who’s afraid of the truth?
Opponents of the caste survey argue by raising skepticism over the methodology of the study. Yet, there was no such hesitation when the EWS quota was introduced—without a shred of caste-disaggregated economic data. This selective scrutiny reveals more than a double standard. It exposes a fear that data might dethrone the dominance of a few, making space for the many.
As Upendra Baxi reminds us, the real challenge lies not in whether we count caste, but how we count justly. Enumeration is not merely a technical act—it is a political decision about whose realities are acknowledged and whose are erased. The caste survey, then, is not a rupture from constitutional ideals, but a return to them.
Satish Deshpande and Mary E John echo this in their landmark essay: not counting caste has never meant transcending it. It has only meant denying the lives shaped by it. The silence has not unified—it has invisibilised.
AHINDA and the ethics of governance
For Karnataka’s Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the caste survey is not just a policy issue—it is an existential one. His political identity has long been rooted in the AHINDA coalition (Alpasankhyataru, Hindulidavaru, and Dalitaru—Minorities, Backward Classes, and Dalits). In many ways, the survey vindicates this vision. It provides empirical weight to a political philosophy that dared to dream beyond dominant caste consensus.
Yet the data will only matter if it shapes decisions.
If your politics determines my social justice, then let me determine your politics.
This must be Siddaramaiah’s moment of reckoning. He must state clearly, without equivocation, that AHINDA is not a past slogan—it is the sustainable future of Karnataka. That social justice cannot be bartered for political expediency. That the caste survey is not merely a record, but a roadmap. And that no matter how loud the backlash, the quiet suffering of the majority can no longer be policy collateral.
Breaking the cycle: From conflict to transformation
Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence—the idea that we live the same life, over and over, unless we change its course—feels eerily apt in Karnataka. From the 1928 riots to the 2025 caste survey backlash, the state has played this script before: A moment of reform, a surge of reaction, and then, silence. But conflict transformation theory offers an alternative.
John Paul Lederach and Johan Galtung argue that peace is not just the absence of violence but the presence of justice. Karnataka’s caste survey, then, can be seen as an act of transformation. It shifts focus from communal tokenism to structural equity. It offers us a chance to break the loop—not with slogans, but with systems.
We must teach 1928 not as a communal blip, but as a case study in administrative failure and identity-based denial. We must use the survey to reimagine policy not as patchwork, but as systemic redesign. Urban planning must include caste impact assessments. Educational curriculums must reflect caste histories. Development boards must be data-backed, not sentiment-driven.
An appeal to Siddaramaiah
Mr Siddaramaiah, history will not wait. If the Miller Report taught us anything, it is that representation without consensus leads to rupture. But silence is not a consensus. It is abdication.
You must say it clearly: “AHINDA is not negotiable. The caste survey is our constitutional compass. If your politics determines my justice, then I have the right to determine the politics. Karnataka’s sustainability depends not on appeasing the few, but on empowering the many.”
Let the caste survey not become another buried report, like the ones that followed 1928. Let it become the cornerstone of a new Karnataka—one that affirms dignity not just in law, but in life.
Because when we choose to see each other clearly, when we count what matters, we do not divide—we democratise.
And that, above all, is the promise of the republic.
Dr Pradeep Ramavath J is an Associate Professor at TISS Guwahati and Chair of the Centre for Livelihoods and Social Entrepreneurship. His research focuses on caste-based development corporations, the politics of enumeration, and subaltern epistemologies. Writing in Kannada and English, he bridges academic rigor with field insights, centering marginalised voices in policy, pedagogy, and social justice discourses.
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References
Baxi, U. (2010). Caste survey and constitutional justice. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(37), 25–29. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/25742065
Committee of Enquiry. (1929). Report of the Bangalore Disturbances Enquiry Committee. Bangalore: Government of Mysore. [Historical source referenced in article].
Deshpande, S., & John, M. E. (2010). The politics of not counting caste. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(25), 39–42. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/40736666
Nair, J. (2005). The promise of the metropolis: Bangalore's twentieth century. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. [Cited for historical analysis of the 1928 Bangalore riots].