Bengaluru: For over a week now, a group of Dalits representing Karnataka’s 59 most vulnerable micro communities has been doing the rounds of the Congress head office in Delhi, seeking an audience with Rahul Gandhi after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah turned down their requests to provide them with any internal reservations or other safeguards.
The mostly nomadic groups are pinning their hopes on the Congress brass to get justice and protection as the Siddaramaiah government’s new internal reservation formula for Scheduled Castes (SC), they say, leaves them further marginalised.
“In around 22 caste groups, not even one person has ever gone to school, while in another 17, no one has gone beyond 5th grade. Siddaramaiah, who speaks about social justice and projects himself as the champion of backward classes, said he cannot help us at all,” Basavaraj Narayankar, a member of this group in Delhi, told ThePrint.
On Wednesday, they met civil servant-turned-politician Shashikanth Senthil, hoping that the Congress MP from Tamil Nadu could help pass on the message to Rahul.
At least three people from this group said that Siddaramaiah denied any help to these communities and stated that his Cabinet was not backing him on the issue.
In August, the Siddaramaiah Cabinet approved an internal reservation matrix based on the Justice Nagamohan Das Commission report. This matrix deviates from previous recommendations, as well as the matrix put forth by the previous Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government.
Under the formula, of the total 17 percent reservation for SCs, groups identified by the commission as SC-Right and SC-Left have been given an increased allocation of 6 percent each, and Category C, referred to as ‘touchables’, has been given 5 percent.
These 59 micro groups have been clubbed within Category C, along with big groups like Banjara, Lambani, Kormi and Kurcha, who are among the most politically represented and influential groups. This clustering, they say, leaves the micro-communities with little chance of overcoming their social, economic, educational, and political backwardness.
These groups are asking the government to raise the internal reservation to 18 percent for all SCs, as that would give these groups at least 1 percent to be shared among them.
While the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress has championed social justice and advocated for a nationwide caste census, the Holeya-led SC-Right group and the SC-Left Madiga group—to which party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Karnataka food minister K.H. Muniyappa belong, respectively—have secured a larger share of internal reservations, limiting Siddaramaiah’s ability to accommodate these micro-communities.
“These communities are among the most vulnerable and they have got a raw deal in this entire process. They are asking that 0.5 percent from each of the three categories be taken out and given to them,” C.S. Dwarkanath, chairman of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee’s (KPCC’s) social justice department, told ThePrint.
“The government could have just raised the SC population from 17 percent to 18 percent and allocated the additional to them at least,” the former head of the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes added.
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‘Raw deal’
According to the 2011 Census, SCs make up 17.5 per cent of Karnataka’s population, while Scheduled Tribes (STs) account for 6.95 percent. Of the state’s 224 assembly constituencies, 36 are reserved for SCs and 15 for STs.
The Holeya-led SC-Right and Madiga-led SC-Left communities are among the most influential and politically represented within the SC categories.
Among the microcommunities, the Mala Hannai community has just eight people and the Kepmari six, according to data from the Nagamohan Das Commission report, making them extremely vulnerable and without any protection.
“The word social justice should not come out of Siddaramaiah’s mouth. He claims to be with these extremely oppressed classes… These are communities who are considered untouchables by the untouchables. He took away everything from these communities for the sake of politics,” a Congress leader complained.
According to reports, the survey of SCs found that the ‘Left’ communities account for about 33.47 percent of the SC population, ‘Right’ communities 32 percent, ‘Touchables’ 23.64 percent and ‘Others’ 4.65 percent. Many survey respondents reportedly refused to answer. It estimated that there were about 25 ‘Right-hand’ communities and 20 ‘Left-hand’ ones.
The concept of ‘Left’ and ‘Right-hand’ castes goes back to medieval 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.
According to the Nagamohan Das panel report, all these 59 communities have a total population of just over 5.22 lakh. However, there is not a single political representative from these communities, even in a Grama Panchayat, let alone at the state level, Basavaraj says.
These communities held a demonstration in Bengaluru on 3 September and another in Delhi last week. Siddaramaiah met with the community representatives in Bengaluru on 4 September.
Multiple people in the party and other political leaders who spoke to ThePrint said that the CM has been trying to fight many fires within his Cabinet, including with the ongoing caste census, drying up coffers, pressure to be replaced and other problems, with no time for a scattered group of communities with no social or political capital.
‘Don’t steal from our plates’
The Siddaramaiah-led Congress government is conducting its socio-economic and educational survey for a second time in a decade.
The caste census has exposed the faultlines within his own government, with ministers from the Veerashaiva and Lingayat factions fighting among themselves.
Other dominant groups like the land-owning agrarian Vokkaligas, too, have expressed their reservations over the exercise. The BJP and its ally the Janata Dal (Secular) have opposed the exercise and called it an exercise to divide society for political gains.
Leaders like Tejasvi Surya have asked that the Brahmin community which he belongs to, boycott the survey since it is “voluntary”.
Making matters worse for Siddaramaiah is his decision to try and include the Kurubas, a shepherding community from which he hails, into the Scheduled Tribes (ST) fold.
“I know Siddaramaiah did not do this, but Basavaraj Bommai recommended Kurubas to be included in ST. We do not want to be selfish, but please do not steal from our plates (reservation),” V.S. Ugrappa, a senior Congress leader and close aide of Siddaramaiah, said at the Valmiki Jayanthi celebrations in Raichur Tuesday while the CM was on stage with him.
“We will not reach into your plates. I am not the one who did foot marches and protests to include Kurubas in ST. This was done by (former BJP leader K.S.) Eshwarappa,” Siddaramaiah responded to Ugrappa.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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