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Brahmins, Vokkaligas, and Lingayats – the three communities that have been opposing the caste survey claiming that it is ‘unscientific’ – are among the most socially advanced communities, leaked portions of Karnataka’s Social and Education Survey show. The survey, commissioned by the previous Siddaramaiah government in 2015, measured overall backwardness in terms of social, educational and livelihood indicators.
Caste associations of Brahmins, Vokkaligas, and Lingayats have been consistently opposing the survey on various grounds, their biggest grouse being that the survey had under-counted their communities. However, the caste survey was aimed at measuring social backwardness and not populations of individual castes or sub-castes.
Leaked portions of the survey, which TNM accessed, suggest that Brahmins, Vokkaligas, and Lingayats are among the state’s most socially advanced communities. These findings are broadly in line with the findings of the O Chinnappa Reddy Commission, which submitted its report in April 1990.
The leaked portion of the survey is only a partial list of the scores of 23 “main castes” that are among the numerically larger caste groups. The document shows that five communities are the least socially backward, starting with Brahmins, followed by Christians, Vokkaligas, Neygis, and Lingayat-Veerashaivas. Muslims are seventh.
The survey measures and assigns scores for social, educational, and livelihood backwardness and an overall score after taking these into account. Communities are given scores out of 100 for social backwardness, out of 68 for educational backwardness, and out of 32 for livelihood, which add up to a total score of 200. The higher the score, the greater the backwardness.
The various communities scored between 12 and 147 out of 200 on overall backwardness, with the mid-point being 90. Those with a score higher than 90 were categorised as Most Backward, 50-89 as More Backward, and those with a score of 20-49 as Backward. Communities with a score of below 20 were considered as General.
Brahmins, who comprise 2.62% of the state’s population according to the survey, have the lowest score on overall backwardness at 11.29. This is the only community on the list of 23 that has a score below 20. On social and educational backwardness, the community scores 1.12 and 1.19 respectively, and on livelihood backwardness, 8.98.
Lingayats, who constitute 11.09% of the state’s people, have an overall score of 41.58, while Vokkaligas form 10.31% of the state’s population and score 42.6.
The survey relied on older reports by previous backward classes commissions of the state and Union governments, as well as High Court and Supreme Court rulings to arrive at a conceptual framework on understanding social backwardness.
“The Commission has developed indicators based on social and educational factors to measure development and inequality because social factors are the root cause of poverty, deprivation, and inequality of opportunities,” the survey says.
It measured social backwardness through a range of indicators including the number of people from a particular caste group who still carry out caste-based occupations and whether these were considered ‘polluting’ or ‘unclean’; the number of people from a community who live in urban slums or forest areas; type of housing (homelessness, huts, kutcha house, semi-katcha house); type of work (men and women in the unorganised sector); age of marriage for women and men; type of fuel used for cooking (firewood/charcoal/kerosene); type of toilet (open defecation/public toilets); lighting (kerosene/oil lamp), etc.
In terms of education, Bunts are the least backward, followed by Brahmins, Christians, and Jains. Lingayat-Veerashaivas come in at the eighth position, and Vokkaligas at ninth.
In terms of livelihood backwardness, Jains are the least backward, followed by Lingayat-Veerashaivas, Devangas, Vokkaligas, and Bunts. Brahmins are sixth.
However, in terms of overall backwardness, the five communities that are among the Most Backward according to the survey's findings are the Uppara community (salt-makers, tank-diggers, brick-layers, construction workers) with a score of 134.88; followed by Bestha (fishing community) with 129.45; Kuruba (shepherds) with 123.5; Agasa (washermen) with 120.76; and Kumbara (potters) with 111.09. The Savita (Nayinda) (barbers and pipers) and Yadavas (Gollas) are two other communities that have scored more than 90.
The communities that have scored between 50 and 89, and fall under the category of More Backward according to the survey include Muslims, Marathas (agriculturists and soldiers), Tigalas (gardeners), Ganigas (oil pressers), Idigas (toddy-tappers), Devadigas (temple servants, temple musicians), Vishwakarmas, and Kshatriyas.
The 1990 Commission’s findings
The 1990 O Chinnappa Reddy Commission looked into employment in government jobs, access to higher education, and political representation to assess the relative backwardness or advancedness of a community.
It found that Lingayats, Vokkaligas, and Brahmins – in that order – had the highest access to government jobs across categories relative to their population. Each of these communities had more access to group A and B jobs than 22 other castes – including Muslims – combined.
Brahmins had the most disproportionately high access to group A and B jobs. Their population was 3.5% of the state’s population in 1988, but they held 19.5% of the most prestigious, highest-paying government jobs. Similarly, Brahmins held 13.8% group C jobs and 5.1% of group D jobs.
The gap between the population of Lingayats and Vokkaligas and the proportion of government jobs they held was not as wide as that of Brahmins.
Lingayats were 15.3% of the state’s population and held 20.6% of group A and B jobs, 18% of Group C jobs, and 12.1% of group D jobs.
Vokkaligas were 10.8% of the population and held 14.4% of group A and B jobs, 11.8% of group C jobs and 13.8% of group D jobs.
Other groups with high access to government jobs included Christians, Bunts, Balijas, Jains, and Devangas, but on much smaller scales than Brahmins, Vokkaligas, and Lingayats.
Similar patterns were found with regard to access to higher education. Although Brahmins were 3.5% of the population, 21.5% of people from the community had access to higher education. No other community had access that was this disproportionately higher than their population.
Similarly, about 15.7% Lingayats, 11.6% Vokkaligas, and 2.3% Christians had access to higher education.
Muslims, Bedas, Idigas, Viswakarmas, and Gollas were among the communities that had low access to higher education and group A and B jobs. Similarly, communities such as Kurubas, Besthas, Upparas, Agasa, Tigala, and others had very low access to both government jobs and higher education.
If Brahmins dominated government jobs and higher education, Lingayats and Vokkaligas were over-represented in electoral democracy. With the exception of a few socially and numerically strong communities, most caste groups did not have a single elected representative either in the Parliament, state legislature, or the zilla panchayat.
