Bengaluru & New Delhi: When the Congress named B.N. Chandrappa one of its working presidents in Karnataka Monday, it made the strongest pitch yet in its outreach to communities classified as Scheduled Caste (SC)-Left in the runup to the assembly election next month.
Chandrappa, a former MP, is a member of the Madiga community, who are considered SC-Left in Karnataka — a grouping that’s generally seen to side with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The concept of ‘left’ and ‘right-hand’ castes goes back to mediaeval times and was once prevalent in much of South India. In Karnataka, experts say those who are now considered ‘left’ were historically among the most oppressed, compared to others (now ‘right’) who had somewhat greater privileges .
The divide has continued into modern times, with the ‘right-hand’ castes securing greater representation in government jobs, according to experts. It has also found echoes in politics, with the ‘right-hand’ castes traditionally backing the Congress and the BJP attempting to woo the ‘left-hand’ castes.
It came to the fore once more last month after Karnataka’s BJP government announced internal reservation quotas — a long-standing demand — for different SC groups. The new scheme doesn’t just divide SCs into ‘left’ and ‘right’; it also includes two more categories for those who aren’t in either group: ‘touchables’ and ‘others’.
The government’s move has sparked protests from sections including the ‘touchable’ Banjaras, as well as smaller groups who are now left with a very small slice of the pie; a large number of castes will now have to compete for the 1 per cent ‘others’ quota.
Speaking to ThePrint, Chandrappa emphasised the broader significance of his appointment.
“In SC-Left, which is the bigger community, there was some unhappiness that there was not enough representation (in the Congress). My appointment also gives them prominence,” he said.
Chandrappa joins other SC and Scheduled Tribe (ST) leaders from Karnataka in the senior ranks of the Congress. While national president Mallikarjun Kharge is from the Holeya community (SC-Right), former Union minister K.H. Muniyappa is from the Madiga community (SC-Left). One of Chandrappa’s fellow working presidents in the state unit, Satish Jarkiholi, is from the Valmiki community, classified as ST in Karnataka.
The BJP, meanwhile, has allocated “around eight seats” to SC-Right candidates and and “around nine” to SC-Left candidates in its list for the assembly polls, released Wednesday, BJP SC Morcha state president Chalavadi Narayanaswamy told ThePrint. There appears to be more of a focus on the ‘touchables’ in the SC list, who have got 15 seats.
According to the 2011 census, SCs make up 17.5 per cent of Karnataka’s population, while STs account for 6.95 per cent. Of the state’s 224 assembly constituencies, 36 are reserved for SCs and 15 for STs.
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History of the divisions
Scholars are divided on the origins of the left-right classification. Some like Burton Stein have attributed it to a distinction between groups associated with agriculture (‘right’) and commercial or artisan groups (‘left’), but others such as historian Y. Subbarayalu have traced it to divisions in the mediaeval Chola army; the phenomenon was also prevalent in Tamil Nadu.
D.G. Sagar, an activist with the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti, which fights for the rights of oppressed groups, characterises it as a distinction between those who traditionally worked the land and those involved in other trades.
“Those who became ‘left’ are people who were involved in leather work, cobblers among others,” he said. Referring to the Holeyas, a ‘right-hand’ caste, he added, “Around Belagavi, Holeyas were considered people with knowledge of the land.”
In 2005, the then Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) government in Karnataka had appointed a commission led by retired high court judge A.J. Sadashiva to inquire into the equitable distribution of reservation benefits among SCs. This came following complaints that some groups were cornering most of the benefits of reservations.
The commission submitted its findings to the D.V. Sadananda Gowda-led BJP government in 2012. According to a statement it released to the press, the commission had carried out a survey of 96.6 lakh SC people, assessing their socio-economic situation.
On the basis of this survey, the commission reportedly recommended that the 101 castes on the SC list be divided into ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘touchables’ and ‘others’, with separate quotas for each.
The term ‘touchables’ here refers to historically disadvantaged communities — the major groups being Banjaras, Bhovis, Korachas and Koramas — who were included alongside ‘untouchables’ in the depressed classes list of the erstwhile state of Mysore, and later incorporated into the SC list.
According to reports, the survey found that, the ‘left’ communities account for about 33.47 per cent of the SC population, ‘right’ communities for 32 per cent, ‘touchables’ for 23.64 per cent and ‘others’ for 4.65 per cent. (Many survey respondents reportedly refused to answer, so these don’t add up to 100 per cent). It estimated that there were about 25 ‘right-hand’ communities and 20 ‘left-hand’ ones.
The commission reportedly recommended a 6 per cent quota for the ‘right’ communities, 5 per cent for ‘left’, 3 per cent for ‘touchables’ and 1 per cent for ‘others’. However, these recommendations were never implemented.
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Bommai govt’s internal reservation move
While the Sadashiva Commission report was never tabled in the assembly, the Basavaraj Bommai-led government in Karnataka set up a five-member cabinet subcommittee on internal reservations in December last year. Then, on 23 March this year, the government announced its internal reservation policy, with the cabinet adopting a resolution to recommend these changes to the Union government.
In the new reservation breakup, there’s a 5.5 per cent quota for SC-Right, 6 per cent for SC-Left, 4.5 per cent for ‘touchables’, and 1 per cent for ‘others’. However, the government hasn’t provided a list of which communities will come under which category now.
This move has met with fierce opposition. Groups from the ‘touchable’ Banjara and Bhovi castes — who according to analysts were some of the biggest beneficiaries of reservation for SCs — are now protesting against being limited to a quota of 4.5 per cent. On 27 March, Banjara protesters laid siege to BJP leader and former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s home in Shikaripura.
“There was 15 per cent reservation for SCs (increased to 17 per cent via an ordinance last year) but there is no provision for internal reservation in the law or the Constitution. It is illegal. It has failed in Andhra Pradesh. Now for more votes, the BJP is backstabbing a community that has helped them grow in Karnataka,” Raghavendra Naik, a Congress worker from the Banjara community, told The Print.
The Alemari Budakattugala Mahasabha (ABM) — a body representing some of the smallest and most backward communities among the SCs — is also questioning the government’s move on internal reservation.
C.S. Dwarkanath, a former chairman of the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes and honorary president of ABM, said, “They (government) have not calculated the proportion of the population. There were communities that were considered Holeya-equivalent and Madiga-equivalent. Now they have all been removed and put separately (as ‘others’). With 89 communities, this is a significant number, and only 1 per cent has been earmarked for them. There is no scientific basis, no background or any ethnographic study for this.”
Speaking to ThePrint, A. Narayanaswamy — a Dalit BJP leader from Karnataka who is the Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment — said that only the Union government could add or remove communities from the SC/ST list, but that states had the freedom and right to demand internal reservations.
He added that Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, and Andhra Pradesh had all sought to implement internal reservations, but that the matter was stuck in their respective high courts.
“The reason for its stalling in high courts is that when Dr B.R. Ambedkar drafted the constitution, he said that these Scheduled Castes were homogenous — and based on this, judgments have been given that there is no need for internal reservation,” Narayanaswamy told ThePrint. The minister also referred to a 2020 Supreme Court judgment that held that states could introduce quotas within quotas for SCs and STs.
He added that only Tamil Nadu has implemented internal reservations but that it has done so without the approval of the Government of India or the Supreme Court. This move in Tamil Nadu was only for educational and economic reasons and not political, he further said.
“The state government has all the right and freedom to pass such an order. Whether or not to approve this is left to the Union government,” he said.
BJP’s Dalit outreach
In the summer of 2018, Union home minister Amit Shah carried out a whirlwind tour of several mathas or monasteries in Karnataka’s Chitradurga ahead of the assembly election. He also visited Basavamurthy Madara Chennaiah Swami, the head of the Madara Guru Peetha — a matha associated with the Madiga (‘left’) community.
The video of Shah’s visit went viral on social media groups among the community’s youth. And at around the same time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to the monastery head in a speech at Davanagere, to rapturous applause.
According to one person aware of the developments, then chief minister Siddaramaiah had passed the Madara Guru Peetha four times while in office but did not once stop to pay his respects, while BJP leaders had ‘flown down from Delhi’ to visit— something members of the community viewed as a badge of honour.
The BJP’s Dalit outreach in Karnataka has also included the promotion of leaders from the community. In September 2019, Narayanaswamy —the Chitradurga MP and now a Union minister — was allegedly denied entry into Gollarahatti village in Pavagada taluk of Tumakuru because he was a Dalit.
But will such outreach and the new reservation policy pay off for the party in the fast-approaching assembly election?
“There is a lack of confidence in the BJP but there are attempts being made to reach out to them,” said one office bearer of the BJP’s SC morcha in Karnataka, requesting anonymity.
“Even we know this (internal reservation) will not be implemented but announced only for the elections,” he added.
Source: The Print
