On November 11, in an election rally in Telangana organised by the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to look into the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes (SCs) to identify and aid the most marginalised among them. The Madigas have voiced concerns that despite being the most populous of all SC communities in the state, their share of representation is occupied by another SC community, the Malas. This move by the Bharaiya Janata Party (BJP) is seen as an effort to bring the Madiga community — which outnumbers the Malas in 16 of Telangana’s 33 districts — to its side. In 2009, a similar effort by the M Karunanidhi-led Tamil Nadu government resulted in a 3 per cent special sub-quota for Arunthathiyars within 18 per cent of the SC quota. In 2020, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice Arun Mishra also allowed the Arunthathiyar sub-quota as an interim measure.
In Andhra Pradesh, the Madiga community has long demanded internal reservation, historically supporting parties that favoured this cause. Conversely, their demands have been opposed by the Malas, a historically empowered group among Andhra Pradesh’s SCs, enjoying most of the benefits linked with reservations.
Given the significant numerical presence of the Madigas, political parties have consistently endeavoured to court them. In 1996, the Andhra Pradesh government constituted the Justice Ramachandra Raju Committee which recommended internal reservation in the SC community. While the Madigas originally supported the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) — the first party to promise internal reservation for them — they supported the Indian National Congress (INC) for a short while during the 2004 elections, as the TDP could not stay true to its promise.
With the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the Mala-Madiga conflict carried forward into Telangana politics in a slightly different form. Relying on the 2011 Census, the MRPS maintains that the SC population of Telangana stands at 54,32,680, with 32,22,642 Madigas and 15,27,143 Malas. While the Reddy-dominated INC has historically favoured the Malas, with the formation of Telangana, the Velama-dominated Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) made overtures to the Malas. Over time, the Malas discarded the INC for the TRS.
Similarly, in Karnataka, the aspirations of Madigas come into conflict with those of the Holeyas, another SC community. Fulfilling the Madigas’ demands could reduce benefits for the Holeyas, who have predominantly benefited from reservations. The Madigas, historically linked to so-called “polluting” occupations like leatherwork, have opposing interests to Holeyas, who are mainly involved in agricultural labour. Consequently, parties promise to implement the Justice Sadashiva Commission Report of 2012 during every election. This report, acknowledging the history of untouchability and lack of representation, suggested a 6 per cent reservation for Madigas within the 15 per cent SC quota, considering them the most marginalised among SC communities.
In E V Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh in 2004, the SC invalidated the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2000, which introduced a provision for the sub-division of the SCs into four groups. The rationale behind the decision stemmed from Article 341 of the Constitution, which states that the President shall release the list of SC groups in any given state, in consultation with the governor of the state. This implies that the state governments do not have the power to draw up the SC list within their state, in any form, under the mandate of the Indian Constitution. This judgment, for the past two decades, has served as the legal roadblock to political aspirations of parties in multiple states, especially in southern India, and has prevented the Madigas from being considered for sub-reservations — not just in the Telugu-speaking states, but in the neighbouring state of Karnataka as well.
However, in August 2020, in State of Punjab v Davinder Singh, the Supreme Court considered the question of internal reservation for two groups within the SC community of Punjab, that is, Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs. The Court went into the question of whether a state government can sub-classify or sub-categorise SCs in the state to ensure equitable division of reservations and greater representation of the weaker sections within the SCs. In order to answer the question of the permissibility of internal reservation within SCs, the Court has referred the E V Chinnaiah ruling to a larger bench for review. This may lead to the prior verdict being reversed, following which, the political bounty of sub-reservations within the SCs would be wide open for political parties to encash.
Recently, the Rohini Commission, which had been constituted to study the inequitable distribution of reservation benefits within the OBC category, submitted its report. The analysis conducted by the Commission showed that 97 per cent of all jobs and education seats have gone to 25 per cent of the OBC castes, and 24.95 per cent of these jobs and seats have gone to just 10 OBC communities. As many as 983 OBC communities, that is, 37 per cent of the total, were found to have zero representation in jobs and educational institutions, and 994 OBC sub-castes had a representation of only 2.68 per cent in recruitment and admissions. As a result of the findings, the Commission has drawn up a proposal to divide the total 2,633 OBC castes in the Central List into four subcategories. According to the proposal, the categories numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 would split 27 per cent of the OBC quota reservation into 2,6,9 and 10 per cent, respectively.
Albeit the legal position with respect to sub-reservations within the OBCs and SCs is different, insofar as the same is permissible within the OBCs, the truth is that similar disproportionate apportionment of reservation benefits exists within the SC category as well, across a catena of castes, in multiple states. This imbalance in reaping the benefits of affirmative action is not limited to the Madigas alone and extends to other caste groups like the Mangs, Chambers and Dhors in Maharashtra and the Arunthathiyars in Tamil Nadu, all of whom claim to be farther down the social ladder compared to other historically “untouchable” castes in their states.
Given that sub-reservation is horizontal in nature and would not add to the quantum of vertical reservation that already exists in the state, attempts at providing sub-reservation should not come under the scanner of the judiciary, as long as it is backed by empirical evidence to prove multidimensional backwardness.
Fuller is Assistant Professor of Law and Nanda and Singh are researchers at RGNUL, Patiala, Punjab
