New Delhi: Brahmins may constitute only 3 percent of Telangana’s population but the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is going all out to woo them.
The Brahmin Sadan inaugurated by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) last week — located on the outskirts of Hyderabad and equipped with a library of Hindu scriptures, a marriage hall, and accommodation for seers — is the latest such initiative.
Last month, the Telangana CM announced that the financial assistance given to priests of various temples under the Dhoopa Deepa Naivedyam programme would be increased to Rs 10,000/month from Rs 6,000.
He also announced an increase in the honorarium for Vedic priests, to Rs 5,000 from Rs 2,500 per month.
While inaugurating the Brahmin Sadan, he made some other announcements for the community — turning a one-time grant of Rs 2 lakh to Vedic schools to an annual grant, and fees reimbursement for impoverished Brahmin students studying in IITs and IIMs.
The KCR government contributes Rs 100 crore annually to the Telangana Brahmin Samkshema Parishad (TBSP), or the Brahmin welfare department, established in 2017 for “the welfare and development of the weaker and marginalised sections of Brahmin community” through “financial, intellectual and physical resources”.
The BRS denies this is an exercise in appeasement politics, saying a survey after the creation of the state had identified 90 percent of Brahmins as living below the poverty line.
Meanwhile, the BJP dismisses the outreach as a gimmick ahead of the state’s assembly elections later this year.
Political experts say the initiatives are part of the BRS’ plan to counter the BJP’s campaign of terming the party and its chief, KCR, “anti-Hindu”.
A negligible force in the state before, the BJP has gained a foothold in Telangana.
In 2022, Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar said that KCR was discriminating against Hindus by not “paying any kind of honorarium to priests, and not giving permissions for construction of temples”. The BJP leader had asked why the CM was “not interested in paying Rs 6,000 a month to priests as he was giving the same to the imams of masjids”.
However, KCR is often seen embracing his Hindu identity publicly.
During the inauguration of his national office in Delhi in December last year, KCR performed a special pooja and yagyam at the venue. He also performs the annual Chandi Yagyam.
In the 2018 elections, according to caste-based exit polls, the Lambadas (ST), Brahmins, Muslims and Munnur Kapus supported the BRS (then the Telangana Rashtra Samithi), while BC and Reddy votes got equally divided between the BRS and the Congress.
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‘Not appeasement’
On its website, the TBSP has detailed various schemes for the benefit of financially weaker Brahmins and priests.
These include providing assistance to unemployed Brahmin youths to appear for competitive exams, take coaching etc, and to encourage ‘Veda pathashala (Veda schools)’, and offer financial aid to them.
An honorarium for Veda Shastra pandits is another initiative.
A scheme called the Vivekananda Overseas Education seeks to facilitate foreign education for Brahmin students who face financial constraints.
The Sri Ramanuja Scheme promises fees reimbursement to Brahmin students belonging to BPL category, and the Brahmin Entrepreneurship Scheme of Telangana (BEST) provides financial assistance to young entrepreneurs of the community.
On its website, it is said that the idea of the TBSP emanated from KCR’s vision that “various sections in society need to be happy”.
Speaking to ThePrint, Devi Prasad, a Brahmin leader of the BRS, echoed this.
After the formation of Telangana in 2014, he said, a survey conducted by the government “brought many issues to our notice… particularly that 90 percent of the Brahmins in the state are living below poverty line (BPL)”.
“After consideration of the report, the government decided to pay attention to their interests as well,” he added.
“It has happened for the first time that those who are working in Telangana’s temples have become regularised and are being paid like state government employees,” he said. “More than 20,000 temple priests have benefitted.”
The BJP, however, described the initiatives as “half-hearted appeasement tactics”.
Telangana BJP leader K. Laxman, a member of the Rajya Sabha, said KCR was distributing public money to “inaugurate bhawans but he actually had not done much for Brahmins”.
“He is trying to play the caste card by allocating this money because this is an election year. If he actually cared about Brahmins, he should have implemented the 10 percent EWS quota in the state immediately [it was implemented 2 years after the Centre introduced it in 2019]. He also promised money for the Bhadrachalam temple but he did not fulfil it,” he added.
“Why should the government have any say in endowment money? Many temples are left like that, priests do not get even minimum salaries,” he said.
The BRS insisted it is not a part of any appeasement politics. “Brahmins are not even 4 percent of voters. The Sadan was not inaugurated just looking at elections,” said Prasad. “Its foundation was laid in 2015 itself. Similarly, other schemes have been going on since the parishad was made in 2017.”
Behind BRS Brahmin outreach
Professor K. Nageshwar, former member of the Telangana Legislative Council and a professor at Osmania University, said the BRS’ Brahmin outreach could be meant to counter the BJP’s allegations of the party being “anti-Hindu”.
“That the BJP often attacks KCR and the party as anti-Hindu could also have been a motivating factor to prove the Hindu credentials,” he said.
“This is what other Opposition parties and their leaders, including Akhilesh Yadav, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi, have also done. The BJP’s main attack on KCR is that he is hobnobbing with the AIMIM, but he is also a big believer and devout Hindu,” he added.
The other aspect of this, he said, “is that KCR is doing these things for every caste”.
“Earlier politics used to be about mobilising larger majoritarian groups, but now as it has become increasingly complicated, political parties want to bring all castes in their support, even if they are numerically small,” he added. “Each caste matters in competitive politics.”
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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