It is hardly surprising that the Siddaramaiah government junked the Karnataka Social and Economic Survey 2015, popularly called the caste census, under pressure from Lingayats and Vokkaligas. The two caste groups have objected in different ways to every such survey since the 1960s, and no government since the 1980s has been able to withstand the pressure.
But the biggest victory that Lingayats and Vokkaligas have achieved in this whole saga is the junking of the data captured by the social and educational survey. The information collected by the survey could potentially build social, educational, and economic profiles of each caste group enumerated. For instance, one could know how many households from a particular caste group own land or have family members working in the private sector.
Political observers, scholars and various activist groups are demanding that the government make the data public.
Claims of the caste groups
Karnataka’s Social and Economic Survey 2015 carried out by the Kantharaj Commission has run into trouble since the findings were first leaked in April 2016. Powerful caste associations such as the Akhila Bharata Veerashaiva Mahasabha, the Karnataka Rajya Vokkaligara Sangha and the Akhila Karnataka Brahmin Mahasabha have dubiously claimed that the survey was “unscientific.”
TNM spoke to Kenchappa Gowda, President of the Karnataka Rajya Vokkaligara Sangha, regarding his association’s claims about the survey being “unscientific” and about “under-counting” of some communities.
Asked how a survey that had covered 94% of the state’s population could be unscientific, Kenchappa said, “It is definitely unscientific. I spoke to my friends and relatives, and they all said that no one had come to their house. No community should lose out. That’s why the numbers are important.”
Congress MLA Shamanur Shivashankarappa, who is also the head of the Veerashaiva Mahasabha, had also made similar remarks.
When it was pointed out that the 2015 exercise was a survey and not a census and that the Havanur Commission itself had only covered 1% of the state’s population as a sample, Kenchappa said, “So what are you saying? This is a survey and not a census? That this was supposed to measure social backwardness and not the population? All I’m saying is that some people will lose out. So all people should be counted.”
To a question on the critique that Vokkaligas and Lingayats were both overly represented in the Assembly and Parliament proportionate to their numbers, which was also borne out by the Chinnappa Reddy Commission, Kenchappa said, “It’s not like that.”
When TNM pointed out that the 2015 survey was a survey meant to measure backwardness through indicators such as who owned how much land, and that backwardness of communities would be known if the survey report was made public, Kenchappa said, “So then don’t count rich people. Why count everybody? There are so many Vokkaligas who are poor, who have nothing. Just talk to poor people.”
Academic and professor at Azim Premji University, A Narayana told TNM that the government too was to blame for the confusion around the survey.
“This data was going to be used for political purposes, not academics. The government should have had answers for all the questions that would have been raised (but they don’t),” Narayana said.
He said that the government’s ineptitude was evident right from the beginning. Sections 9 (1) and 9(2) of the Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission Act 1995, which itself is a product of the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Indra Sawhney judgement of 1992, mandates that the state government undertake a socio-educational survey every 10 years to revise the lists of backward communities, Narayana said.
“No government carried out the survey since 1995 when this law came into effect. It’s only now that we know that this is not a caste census but a survey mandated by law,” Narayana said, referring to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s press conference on June 12 during which he officially junked the 2015 survey and said that the government would re-do it as it was 10 years old.
Narayana also said that the government itself had used the terms “caste census” and “caste survey” interchangeably. “Having used the term ‘caste census’ for 10 years, if you suddenly switch to calling it a survey, people will not understand. If the government had presented it as a survey from the beginning, today, it would have been a survey with 95% coverage, which is superb. It’s unheard of.”
Media and caste
Newspapers such as Prajavani and Vartha Bharathi have carried opinion pieces on the survey, critiquing the government’s stand and that of caste groups. Vartha Bharathi carried several opinion pieces by Lingappa. Some newspapers also published small news stories on press conferences called by backward caste groups or the odd seminar organised by academics and activists demanding that the data be made public.
But the media in Karnataka largely stuck to repeating the claims of caste associations of Brahmins, Lingayats and Vokkaligas, amplifying the narrative that the survey was unscientific because their castes had been “under-counted”.
Former senior journalist, who was also Siddaramaiah’s media advisor during his previous term as CM, Dinesh Amin Mattu told TNM that the media’s failure in asking crucial questions, not just of the government, but also of the powerful caste groups, was hardly surprising.
“Who is in the media? How many journalists in the media are Dalits? Except for a handful of Dalits who are journalists in Prajavani, most journalists in the state are from influential castes.”
Dinesh also pointed to the media ownership in the state. “All the major Kannada newspapers are owned by Brahmins. The only exceptions are Prajavani, Vartha Bharathi and Vijayavani. But even at Prajavani, the editor is always a Brahmin, and Vijayavani is owned by Vijay Sankeshwar, a Lingayat.” Vartha Bharati is owned by a trust and is the only major newspaper in the state which has a Muslim management.
Instead of questioning the ludicrousness of the government’s rejection of the survey on the grounds that it was 10 years old, Dinesh said the media endlessly harped on about how the Congress high command had influenced the government’s decision.
Dinesh said that the data must be made public. “The data may be 10 years old, and while a person’s economic status might improve in that time, their caste will not change. As far as I know, no editorial has called on the government to make the data public. Public money has been spent on this survey, and the public does not have access to this data. How is this acceptable?”
What exactly is in the survey?
The biggest victim of this whole saga is the data of the survey itself. While the data of all the previous commissions was in the public domain, the 2015 data is buried somewhere in a government department.
According to sources, the data has been digitised and is in a searchable format, although under lock and key. Except for the report, which mentions the caste populations and recommendations, no one has accessed the data that runs into over 40 volumes.
“The survey was not meant to be a headcount of castes. Reservations were never meant for poverty alleviation; they are meant to reduce social inequality. These groups did not allow the data to be made public because if their numbers are known, that knowledge will challenge their political legitimacy and lower their prestige. People will start asking questions about how many tickets they get during elections,” KN Lingappa, author four books on reservation and a former member of the Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission, told TNM.
The Kantharaj survey has been criticised because it does not contain secondary data, such as the caste-wise break-up of people employed in government and public institutions and people who have benefited from government schemes. However, it does contain a wealth of information across social and educational indicators that could be useful for both public discourse and academic research.
Hypothetically, it would be possible to know from the data how many individuals from, say, the Uppara community of salt-makers or the semi-nomadic Hakki Pakki tribe held jobs in the private sector, government sector, or civil services, owned a business, or were self-employed.
It would also be possible to know how many people from any caste were still carrying out their caste occupations; how many households had a family member appointed as an office-bearer of government boards and corporations, cooperative societies, or NGOs, how many households owned agricultural land and how much and which other moveable and immoveable assets they owned.
The 55 questions in Karnataka’s survey largely mirror those in Telangana’s Social and Economic survey. The Telangana government, too, has only made the caste headcount public.
Two important questions in the Telangana survey, which the Karnataka one has not asked, could provide quantifiable data on the subtler aspects of how caste operates today.
The question about whether a person is allowed to enter places of worship that others have access to would help provide data on adherence to caste rules. A question on how many people in a household have had an inter-caste marriage would help understand the extent to which people have disregarded caste rules.
A long history of opposition
Lingappa told TNM that Lingayats and Vokkaligas had been opposing such surveys since the 1960s for different reasons and with varying degrees of success. “Back then, the battle was on the streets. Today, it has taken the form of a political conspiracy to scuttle it and ask for another survey.”
Narayana pointed out another difference. “In the past, the opposition (to previous backward classes commissions reports) was over being left out of the reservation lists or demanding a higher quantum of reservation. But this time, that question has not even come up.”
Karnataka was one of the earliest states to implement reservation under the erstwhile Mysuru kingdom under the Wodeyars. In 1918, the Mysuru state under Nalwadi Krishnarajendra Wodeyar set up a committee headed by Mysore district judge Leslie C Miller to look into affirmative action policies. The Miller Committee submitted its report a year later in 1919. During this time, Dewan Sir M Visvesvaraya, a Brahmin, quit, as he was against reservations.
The Miller committee report was implemented in 1921 when the ruler Krishnaraja Wodeyar’s brother-in-law, Chandrakanth Urs, became the Dewan. The Miller Committee gave 75% reservation to backward classes, including Lingayats and Vokkaligas. The only groups that were left out were Brahmins and Anglo-Indians, Lingappa said.
This reservation policy was in force until 1956, when the Mysore state was formed, incorporating areas from the Hyderabad-Karnataka, Bombay-Karnataka, the Madras Presidency, and the Mysuru and Coorg kingdoms.
Over the next 16 years, attempts by the Karnataka government to reintroduce affirmative action policies for backward classes were challenged in the courts. In 1960, the Dr R Naganagouda Committee was tasked with drawing up a reservation policy. In its report submitted a year later, the Committee considered Vokkaligas as backward.
“However, Lingayats were not included in the reservation list because the Committee considered them forward both in terms of literacy levels and percentage of jobs held in government. But the then-government did not care,” Lingappa said. The report was submitted when BD Jatti, a Lingayat, was the CM.
The Naganagouda Committee created two categories for reservation. Out of 68% of total reservations, 50% was for the two categories of backward classes, 15% for the Scheduled Castes and 3% for the Scheduled Tribes.
The committee’s recommendations were rejected by the Supreme Court in 1962 in the MR Balaji vs State of Mysore case. Twenty-three people had approached the courts claiming they had applied to various colleges for admission and were not able to secure a seat because of reservations. They challenged the criteria to measure backwardness and said that the extent of reservation was excessive.
The SC set aside the government’s order giving two reasons. The court ruled that the creation of two categories was tantamount to internal reservation and hence, unconstitutional. Two, it said that reservations should be below 50%.
“This, in effect, allowed for the continued dominance of Brahmins, Lingayats and Vokkaligas, while the political power of the latter two continued to grow,” historian Janaki Nair wrote in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in October 1986.
Another round of protests followed when the LG Havanur Commission set up by D Devaraj Urs in 1972, submitted its report in August 1975. Lingayats were not included as backward.
“There was a furore. Mallaradhya, the head of the Veerashaiva Mahasabha, campaigned against it and took out processions across the state. Bheemanna Khandre, a Lingayat and the current forest Minister Eshwar Khandre’s father, burned a copy of the report in the Assembly. But Devaraj Urs did not care. He did not budge, and the report was implemented in February 1977,” Lingappa said.
However, the Urs government issued orders going beyond the recommendations of the Havanur Commission. It included Muslims and Dalits who converted to Christianity as backward classes and created reservations for a special group with an income cap as the sole criterion.
These orders were challenged in the Karnataka High Court in the Somashekarappa and others vs State of Karnataka case and were struck down partially in 1979. The HC upheld the division of backward classes into three categories, the creation of a special group and the inclusion of SC converts to Christianity. However, it struck down the inclusion of certain communities which had been included without any basis.
Between 1977 and 1986, OBC reservations largely followed the Havanur Commission’s recommendations.
Meanwhile, the HC ruling was challenged in the Supreme Court in the KC Vasant Kumar case. While the SC was hearing the case, the Karnataka government headed by Gundu Rao gave an undertaking to the SC in November 1982 saying that it would appoint another commission to look into reservations.
This eventually led to the setting up of T Venkataswamy Commission in 1983 which submitted its report in March 1986. During this time, Gundu Rao went out of power, and Ramakrishna Hegde of the Janata Party became the CM.
The Venkataswamy Commission undertook a massive socio-economic and education survey, covering 61 lakh households—about 91% of the state’s 3.6 crore population. It excluded 35 castes—including Vokkaligas and Lingayats —from the list of 207 communities that were categorised as backward, saying that they had enough representation in government and were not backward either socially or educationally. It also recommended a reduction in the overall quantum of reservation for backward classes from 50% to 27%.
“The Vokkaliga reaction to being left out was immediate. An agitation with large student support began demanding rejection of the report’s recommendations. Taking the reservation issue onto the streets marked a clear departure from earlier legal-constitutional appeals against various government orders,” Janaki wrote.
The Ramakrishna Hegde government’s rather soft handling of the agitation, mainly in the Hassan and Mandya districts, where the Vokkaligas were dominant, encouraged the Lingayats, who had until then confined themselves to constitutional means, to begin their own stir against both the Havanur and the Venkataswamy Commission recommendations, she wrote.
“There was a massive backlash from both Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Ramakrishna Hegde could not withstand the pressure. He rejected the report,” Lingappa said.
Instead, the Ramakrishna Hegde government introduced five categories of reservation (A, B, C, D, E) in 1986 for all castes except Brahmins and a handful of other castes. This policy continued until 1994.
Meanwhile, the state government set up the one-man O Chinnappa Reddy Commission in 1988. It used the data gathered by the Venkataswamy Commission and submitted its report in April 1990. This report too excluded Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Data gathered by the Chinnappa Reddy Commission showed that Lingayats, Vokkaligas and Brahmins had representation in politics and government jobs that went far beyond their numerical strength.
The Chinnappa Reddy report was tabled in the Assembly when Veerendra Patil was CM. P Radhakrishnan wrote in a paper for the EPW in August 1990, that Veerendra Patil had repeatedly announced his government’s commitment to implement the report. However, “... if the stirrings in some of the excluded communities, like the numerically strong Lingayats and Vokkaligas, the two major vote banks of Karnataka, and the less numerous (castes)… and their demands for rejection of the report are any indication, this commitment is a ‘doublespeak’, for buying time for stalling a ticklish issue.”
When the report was submitted, the Vokkaligas took to the streets, Lingappa said. “HD Deve Gowda, the Adichunchanagiri Math seer and actor Ambareesh were all part of the agitation, and they mobilised one lakh people in Cubbon Park for a protest against the report,” he said.
Finally, when M Veerappa Moily became CM, he issued an order on September 17, 1994, which divided the backward classes into five categories — Category 1, 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B — which are the categories in use today.
While the Chinnappa Reddy Commission only recommended two categories, 1 and 2, the Moily government added Vokkaligas and Lingayats in categories 3A and 3B respectively, and split category 2 into 2A and 2B. The caste classification under different categories was done almost completely in accordance with the Chinnappa Reddy Commission’s recommendations.
“It was a political decision. There was no legal basis for categories 3A and 3B, but such decisions do not become illegal until someone challenges them in court, and no one did,” Lingappa said.
