OBC quota scrapped for Karnataka Muslims; Lingayats, Vokkaligas in focus: What the new changes mean

No new reports or studies were cited for the change in the OBC status of Muslims. Chief Minister Bommai and Union Home Minister Amit Shah only said there is no provision in the Constitution for reservations for religious minorities.

No new reports or studies were cited for the change in the OBC status of Muslims. Chief Minister Bommai and Union Home Minister Amit Shah only said there is no provision in the Constitution for reservations for religious minorities.

Also, on March 24, the cabinet decided to fix quotas within the quota for SCs, a political hot potato that BJP, Congress, and JDS governments have dropped since 2012. The decision to implement internal reservations for SCs was taken based on recommendations of a cabinet sub-committee that examined the issue.

The decisions came days before the Election Commission announced (on March 29) the schedule for Assembly elections in the state. Earlier, in October 2022, the government had increased the quota for SCs and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in government jobs and education by 2% and 4% respectively.

The changes in quotas are seen as part of the BJP’s efforts to increase its reach in the state where it has never won the majority of 113 seats in the 224-member House on its own.

The BJP’s best performance was in 2008 when it won 110 seats, followed by 104 in 2018. It was forced to reach out to Independents in 2008, and to engineer defections from the Congress and JDS in 2008 and 2018 to secure a majority.

No party has won consecutive mandates in Karnataka since the 1980s. The BJP faces strong anti-incumbency going into the elections scheduled for May 10.

BJP’s social engineering

On the eve of Valmiki Jayanti, the birth anniversary of Maharishi Valmiki, an icon of the ST Valmiki Nayak community, which is celebrated on October 9, the government accepted the recommendations of the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee — set up by the Congress-JDS government in 2018 — to increase SC and ST quotas.

The Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or posts in the services under the state) Bill, 2022, subsequently raised the SC quota from 15% to 17%, and the ST quota from 3% to 7%.

The government has asked the Centre to include the changes in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution to prevent their overturning by the courts, since the combined 6% SC-ST quota enhancement takes the total reservations in Karnataka to 56% (OBCs 32%, SCs 17%, STs 7%), well above the 50% ceiling fixed by the Supreme Court in Indira Sawhney (1992).

Five and a half months later, on March 24, 2023, the cabinet decided to stop recognising Muslims as a socially and educationally backward class, and divided their 4% OBC quota equally among Lingayats and Vokkaligas, socially dominant communities whose support the BJP wants in the coming elections.

Muslims can now claim reservation only under the 10% quota for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) created by The Constitution (103rd Amendment) Act, which came into force in January 2019. Only poor (as defined by eligibility criteria) Muslims are eligible for the EWS quota — which was the case earlier too (Category II B in the chart); however, each prospective poor Muslim beneficiary will now compete with not just other poor Muslims, but also the poor from all the so-called “upper” castes, including Jains, Brahmins, Vaishyas, etc.

A group of seven extremely backward Muslim subcastes, who were part of Category I (not II B) in the earlier quota regime, remain there, and will continue to enjoy the 4% quota in that category.

Incidentally, the Bommai cabinet had initially sought to increase the Lingayat and Vokkaliga quotas by taking 6% from the 10% EWS quota, but dropped the idea because the EWS quota is meant only for communities that are not classified as socially backward — and because the Vokkaligas and Lingayats have been demanding that they should be recognised as most backward classes.

Also on March 24, the cabinet rejected the recommendations of the Justice A J Sadashiva Commission on internal SC reservations, and came up with its own formula for quotas within the quota.

The Sadashiva Commission had recommended 6% for the most backward SC ‘Left’ group, 5% for the backward SC ‘Right’, 3% for the SC ‘Touchable’ group (Lambani, Bhovis, Korachas, Kormas), and 1% for others.

The cabinet — after the increase of the SC quota from 15% to 17% in October 2022 — provided 6% for the SC ‘Left’, 5.5% for the SC ‘Right’, 4.5% for the ‘Touchables’, and 1% for others.

The Muslim quota issue

To justify the withdrawal of the OBC quota for Muslims (Category II B), the BJP has cited a 2010 judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, which struck down reservations for Muslims under the OBC quota as unconstitutional. It has argued that there was no empirical data to back the decision of the H D Deve Gowda government to include Muslims in the OBC category in 1994.

The opposition Congress and JDS have criticised the withdrawal of the quota as a cynical move dictated by the BJP’s communal politics. State Congress chief D K Shivakumar has also said that the Lingayats and Vokkaligas did not ask that their quotas should be enlarged by “robbing minorities”.

Experts have pointed out that a number of commissions appointed by the governments of Karnataka and the erstwhile Mysore region — the Miller Commission (1918), Nagan Gowda Commission (1961), Havanur Commission (1975), Venkataswamy Commission (1983), and Chinnappa Reddy Commission (1990) — recommended that Muslims should be classified as a backward community on the basis of their social and educational backwardness.

Based on the Chinnappa Reddy report, the Congress government of M Veerappa Moily and later, the Janata Dal government moved in 1994-95 to classify Muslims as Category II B among OBCs. A 6% quota was initially recommended, but it was reduced to 4% to comply with the 50% ceiling.

The Bommai government’s decision to change the quotas for Muslims, Vokkaligas, and Lingayatas is based on the interim report of the Backward Classes Commission headed by former MLA Jayprakash Hegde. While the Commission has claimed it has not recommended the removal of the OBC Category II B quota for Muslims, according to the Chief Minister, the second part of the interim report says that the 10% EWS quota, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court, can be used to “accommodate new demands” from “various backward classes for increased reservation”. “The Commission is of the view that some backward castes can be given the left-over quotas from the EWS quota,” Bommai has said.

Electoral calculations

Wooing smaller backward groups, SCs, and STs, along with muscular Hindutva and welfarism, has helped the BJP turn the anti-incumbency tide in states like UP and Gujarat. By tweaking the quota pie in Karnataka, the BJP hopes to score points with the Lingayats, Vokkaligas, SC ‘Left’, and STs, which could be key to winning a clear majority.

The powerful Lingayats are believed to be going off the BJP on account of the perceived shabby treatment of community strongman and former CM B S Yediyurappa. And the Vokkaligas have been firmly backing the JDS for several years.

The BJP has been able to garner support among STs like the Valmiki Nayaks, and the SC ‘Left’ constituency comprising castes like the Madigas in recent years, as a result of overtures including the October 2022 decision to increase SC-ST quotas by 6%.

In the past, the BJP has sought to reach out to various castes and communities in Karnataka through local leaders like Yediyurappa. It has now adopted a strategy of directly approaching religious leaders of key caste groups, and hopes to leverage the new quotas in this project.

However, the tinkering with the SC quota has triggered some protests. The Banjaras — who, along with the Bhovis, Korachas, and Kormas have got 4.5% of the 17% SC quota — are upset that their share is smaller than that of the SC ‘Left’ (6%) and SC ‘Right’ (5.5%) groups.