Opinion Express View: Return of quota debate may change the tone of election campaign in Karnataka

The caste cauldron in Karnataka is heating up with the Basavaraj Bommai government rejigging quotas ahead of assembly elections. In October, it increased the quota for SCs from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and STs from 5 per cent to 7 per cent. Last Friday, it did away with the 4 per cent quota for Muslims and announced that it would be shared between the powerful Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities, which until now enjoyed four per cent and five per cent sub quotas within the OBC segment. Last week, the government also decided to recommend internal reservation within the SC quota. These moves have upset the equilibrium and may potentially bring to the fore resentments and aspirations that were lying dormant so far. The protests by the Banjara community on Monday against the proposal for subcategories within the SC segment is a sign of the undoing of calculations of political parties.

The focus on caste and reservation also marks a shift in the tactics of the Karnataka BJP. Ever since it formed the government in 2019 after toppling the Congress-JD(S) by engineering defections, the BJP leadership has kept the communal pot boiling in the state. It has raised polarising issues like hijab, conversions and Tipu Sultan’s legacy. This was seen as a tactic to build a Hindu vote bank amid contestations between different caste groups. Until recently, politics in Karnataka had centred around caste, particularly the claims of Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities, which successfully negotiated the profits of office with the Congress and other parties. In the 1970s, Devaraj Urs stitched together a coalition of OBCs, SCs, STs and minorities, referred to as AHINDA, to end the political dominance of the Lingayats and Vokkaligas. While the Lingayats and Vokkaligas today back the BJP and JD(S) in large numbers, the Dalit segment is divided mostly between the Congress and BJP. With reservation transforming society, all castes compete with each other to increase their respective representation in bureaucracy, services and politics. The AHINDA combination that lost traction, first with the rise of the Janata Party in the 1980s, and the BJP in the 2000s, returned to the centrestage when Siddaramaiah became the face of the Congress in Karnataka. The BJP now hopes to crack the AHINDA formula by tinkering with quotas and pitting castes against one another in the race for reservation. Similar interventions, especially within the OBC and SC/ST segments, have yielded electoral dividends for the BJP in UP and Gujarat in the past.

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The repeal of the 4 per cent quota for Muslims — though the most backward among Muslims can continue to access reservations under the OBC quota — may not stand judicial scrutiny. But the increase in reservation for SCs, STs, Vokkaligas and Lingayats is likely to benefit the BJP. If the Banjara protests change the tone of the election campaign, it may help the BJP to shift attention from allegations of misgovernance, and cases of corruption. But it may also lower the pitch on more polarising agendas.