Turning back clock 100 years: Bommai govt’s bid to scrap 4% Muslim quota touches off firestorm

The BJP government’s decision taken weeks before the state Assembly elections has drawn fire from various quarters, including the Opposition and experts, which have called it “unscientific”, “communally motivated”, or “election gimmick” that will not stand the test of law, even as Bommai has justified it on the ground that “there is no provision in any state of reservations for religious minorities”.

The quota for Muslims in Karnataka in government jobs and education on the basis of the community’s social and educational backwardness, is generally perceived to have been introduced in 1994 by the former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda when he was the chief minister. However, the then Deve Gowda-led Janata Dal government’s move in this regard through the creation of the “2B” category for Muslims was part of a historical process that began in 1918 during the rule of the then Mysore princely state and continued till the current period where Muslims have been identified through scientific inquiries by multiple state commissions as being “socially backward”.

“Muslims have not been categorised as a backward class on the basis of their religion but on the basis of backwardness. The decision taken by the government is very unscientific and without any basis to identify whether large sections of Muslims have moved out of backwardness. It is an eyewash and ideologically motivated,” said Prof S Japhet, former vice-chancellor of the Bengaluru Central University and author of a 2015 study on “Socio-Economic Conditions of Religious Minorities in Karnataka: A Study Towards Their Inclusive Development”.

Since the pre-Independence era Muslims have been categorised as a backward community in Karnataka by multiple state commissions set up to identify such communities and suggest measures to remove social obstacles to their progress.

“Beginning from the Miller panel in 1918 to the O Chinnappa Reddy commission in the 1990s, they have all identified Muslims as being socially backward in one way or the other. The classification of Muslims in the 2B category of backward classes happened in 1994 on the basis of the historical findings,” Prof Japhet said.

A 2019 paper on the state policies for the minorities’ development in Karnataka by Azhar Khan C A, a research scholar at the Indian Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bengaluru, states that “Karnataka is one of the first states to implement an affirmative action policy, way back during the period of the old princely state of Mysore. The implementation is attributed to the early non-Brahmin or anti-Brahmin movements led by OBCs”.

The ISEC research paper says: “It was Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, the then Maharaja of Mysore, who constituted the Miller Committee (1918) and sought a fact-based report on adequate representation for communities in public services. The committee recommended reservations, scholarships, and the relaxation of age limits for backward classes in public service appointments. Moreover, Muslims too were considered as backward classes.”

After Independence, in 1961, the R Nagan Gowda Committee, also known as the Mysore Backward Classes Commission, noted the presence of castes among minorities and recommended “that Muslims be placed under the backward classes list and also identified more than ten castes within Muslims as most backward,” the ISEC paper notes.

A government order to implement this committee’s report failed the test of law following contention by dominant caste groups, which led to fresh plans being devised on the drawing board for uplifting the socially backward groups.

The first Karnataka Backward Classes Commission or the L G Havanur Commission, set up in 1975 by backward classes leader and then CM Devaraj Urs, stated that backwardness due to caste is unique to Hindus and that “Christians and Muslims need not be considered as backward classes for reservation”. The commission however said that Muslims were poorly represented in state jobs, suggesting separate reservations for the community as a religious minority group and not on the basis of any social backwardness as provided for the backward castes among Hindus.

Devaraj Urs however provided quota to Muslims under other backward classes in 1977. The move resulted in conflicting claims made by dominant communities like Lingayats, following which a new commission was set up.

The second Karnataka Backward Classes Commission or the T Venkataswamy Commission, which was constituted in 1983 by the Ramakrishna Hegde government submitted a report in 1986 that stressed on economic criteria for backwardness and also “continuation of reservation for Muslims”. The dominant castes such as Vokkaligas and Lingayats objected to being left out of the quota ambit, which led to this report being sent to the cold storage.

Subsequently, the third Karnataka Backward Classes Commission or the O Chinappa Reddy panel was constituted in 1988, which gave its report in 1990 to the then Congress government, recommending the exclusion of the creamy layer from backward class quota while maintaining the classification of Muslims among the backward classes.

On the basis of the Chinappa Reddy panel report the Congress government in 1994 under the then CM Veerappa Moily created a new category “2” for reservations for Muslims, which was later continued by Deve Gowda when he took over as the CM by the 1994-end.

“It is to be specially noted that all the committees and commissions appointed by the government of Karnataka have explicitly considered minorities to classify them as backward communities. They have documented the desolate social, economic, and political conditions of minorities over a long period,” the 2019 ISEC paper states.

According to Deve Gowda, the Janata Dal (Secular) founder, one of the reasons he decided to allot reservation to Muslims was a piece of data provided by the then state police chief that less than 0.1 per cent of the state’s police constables were Muslims. “Are they not people of this country, I wondered,” the ex-PM said in 2018 while explaining his 1994 decision to give 4 per cent reservation in government jobs and education to Muslims.

The Bommai government’s decision now to nullify this decision drew angry reaction from Deve Gowda’s son and top JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy. “The BJP government is intent on doing politics on every issue. They have played out a dangerous game in the name of reservations in the course of a Cabinet meeting. They have ventured to do something that is impossible. After flying kites for three years of its tenure, the BJP government in Karnataka has resorted to gimmicks before polls,” he charged.

“The 4 percent reservations given by former Prime Minister H D Devegowda to Muslims, under the 2B category for backward classes, is now called economic backwardness. The hope of reservations of the community is destroyed. This is nothing but evil,” the ex-CM said, in a series of social media posts.

Kumaraswamy also charged that the BJP was laying the groundwork for “burial of social justice” in Karnataka known for being at the “top rank in the entire country for social justice”.

The senior Congress leader and ex-CM Siddaramaiah alleged that the Bommai government’s move was driven by the BJP’s “politics of religious division”. “The earlier reservation for Muslims in category 2B should be continued. It is inhumane and unconstitutional for those who come to power after taking oaths on the Constitution to discriminate on the basis of religion,” he said.

The Muslim community makes up 12 per cent population of Karnataka. CM Bommai claimed that the reservation for the most backward of castes among Muslims will be retained.

“Dr Ambedkar had argued during the constitutional debates that the reservations are for castes, and since we do not want to abandon the community (Muslims) completely and also to save it from being affected by legal challenges we have taken a proactive decision,” Bommai said, underlining that his government has only changed the community’s 4 per cent reservation as a religious minority to the 10 per cent pool of the EWS category.

“In Andhra Pradesh, there was a provision that gave reservations to minorities but it has been struck down by the high court,” Bommai said, adding that the reservation for Muslims had not been legally contested in Karnataka.

“There are economic conditions for religious minorities too. When they (Muslims) go to the EWS category also they will have the economic criteria. They will be going from the 4 per cent category to the 10 per cent category without a change of conditions,” Bommai said.

“We want to shift the religious minorities from 2B to the EWS quota and release the 4 per cent religious minority quota to Vokkaligas and Lingayats in the 2C and 2D categories. Vokkaligas who had 4 per cent will now get 6 per cent and Lingayats with 5 per cent will get 7 per cent,” Bommai said. “In category 1 (for backward castes) there are many sub-castes of minorities like Pinjara, Nadaf, Chhaparband and they are economically poor and so we will not disturb the quotas and only 2B is changed.”

Congress spokesperson Ramesh Babu, an advocate, argued that since the backward class quotas for Muslims in the state have been in existence for nearly thirty years it is a “settled law and cannot be changed at this juncture without a scientific basis and in the absence of any fresh report of the State Backward Classes Commission”.

The Bommai government moved to change reservations on the basis of an interim report of the existing Backward Classes Commission headed by ex-MLA Jayprakash Hegde. However, the panel’s interim report has reportedly not alluded to any change in the 2B quota, even as it indicated that a final report on the backwardness of different castes and communities will not be submitted before the Assembly polls’ announcement expected next week.

The Bommai government is incidentally yet to notify the 10 per cent EWS quota that was formulated by the BJP government at the Centre. The March 24 Cabinet decision will lead to notifications for changes in the quota regime, Bommai said.