Caste surveys done, and undone: 107 yrs on, a story repeats in Karnataka

The KSCBC report was presented to the Congress government in February last year and unveiled earlier this month. It put the BC numbers in Karnataka at 69.6% of the population, with Lingayats and Vokkaligas making up 26% together, and Muslims 12.56%.

Former Karnataka chief minister and Union minister H D Kumaraswamy, a Vokkaliga leader, has called the survey a “hate census”. “Not only the data of the Vokkaliga community, the numbers of Veerashaiva Lingayats and some other communities have also shocked me,” the JD(S) leader said.

Karnataka BJP president B Y Vijayendra, a Lingayat, has accused Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, who is a Kuruba backward class leader, of using the survey to “divide and rule”.

Congress leaders have also expressed concern. Vokkaliga leaders held a meeting under the leadership of Deputy CM D K Shivakumar, who has called the survey’s findings “unscientific”. Shamanur Shivashankarappa, 91, who heads the Veerashaiva Lingayat Mahasabha, has asked the Congress government to reject the report.

The resistance to caste surveys by aggrieved communities is not a new phenomenon in Karnataka, since the first survey of BCs was conducted in 1918 in the Mysore/Karnataka region by then Chief Justice of Mysore State, Lesley Miller, at the behest of Maharaja of Mysore Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar.

The Miller Committee, 1918

The five-member committee headed by Miller identified all communities other than the Brahmins and Anglo-Indians as backward – including Muslims for the first time in the category. It recommended 75% reservation, as well as scholarships and relaxation of age limits for them in public service appointments.

Among those who opposed the report was renowned civil engineer ‘Sir’ M Visvesvaraya, who quit the government over the omission of Brahmins.

The KSCBC’s 2024 report makes a mention of the Miller panel, saying: “The Maharaja of Mysore implemented reservations for the first time in the Mysore state in 1921 on the basis of a July 19, 1919, report given by the Miller commission.”

At the time of formation of the state of Mysore in 1956 – through the post-Independence reorganisation of states – a new BC list was created for the region. But this was abolished by the Mysore High Court in 1959.

R Naganagouda Commission, 1960

After the High Court order, the Congress government in the state constituted the Dr R Naganagouda Commission in 1960, which submitted its report in May 1961.

The Naganagouda commission recommended the classification of BCs and reservations to them in education and jobs, as per literacy. It also recommended an income limit.

The BCs were hence categorized into backward and Most Backward Classes (MBCs). The Lingayats, given their literacy levels and the percentage of jobs they held in the government, were classified as a forward community.

Accordingly, the Naganagouda commission recommended 50% reservations in technical, educational institutions, and 45% in government jobs, for BCs, apart from 18% for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

The Congress government did not accept the recommendations of the committee and allowed only 30% reservation for BCs. In 1962, buckling under pressure from the Lingayats, the government included them among BCs too and raised the overall OBC reservations from 30% to 50%.

This order was challenged in the Supreme Court and resulted in the landmark Balaji vs State of Mysore verdict in 1963, in which the Court ruled that caste alone cannot be a criterion for reservations.

L G Havanur Commission, or First Karnataka Backward Classes Commission, 1975

The Havanur Commission was appointed by the first non-Vokkaliga and non-Lingayat CM of Mysore/Karnataka, Devaraj Urs, who continues to be regarded as a champion of backward classes.

The commission was tasked with identifying the social and educational backwardness of communities on the basis of factors like economic, housing, and occupation, for providing reservations.

In its 1997 report, the Havanur commission 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 also omitted Lingayats from BCs.

At the same time, the commission suggested that since Muslims were poorly represented in state jobs, there could be separate reservations for them as a religious minority group – compared to the social backwardness category among Hindus.

The commission further recommended that omitted communities like Lingayats and Brahmins be considered a special group for reservations on the basis of income and occupation.

The commission estimated the BCs to be 42-45% of the population and recommended overall reservation of 32% (for three backward categories, at the rate of 16%, 10% and 6% respectively).

On February 22, 1977, the Congress government of Devaraj Urs accepted the recommendations. However, some amendments were made to include Muslims, and Christians who had converted from SCs among BCs, providing them a 4% quota.

The government also increased the total OBC reservation to 40% instead of the recommended 32%. Reservation benefits were restricted to families with incomes up to ₹8,000 in backward classes, and up to ₹4,800 among special groups cutting across forward classes.

The move again saw protests by omitted groups like the Lingayats, and the government order for reservations based on the Havanur report was challenged in the Karnataka High Court in 1978, by as many as 252 litigants.

The court upheld a portion of the reservations implemented on the basis of the first KSCBC report in April 1979, including the creation of three categories, the special group, and the inclusion of Muslims and SC converts to Christianity.

The litigation reached the Supreme Court (K C Vasanth Kumar vs State of Karnataka), and the Karnataka government, under new Congress CM R Gundu Rao, gave an undertaking in November 1982 that it would appoint a new commission to address the issue of BC reservations.

T Venkataswamy Commission, or Second Karnataka Backward Classes Commission, 1983

In 1983, the Ramakrishna Hegde-led Janata Party government – the first non-Congress government in Karnataka, formed with outside support of the BJP – appointed the Venkataswamy commission to review the existing reservation policy.

The commission conducted a statewide Social, Educational and Economic Survey in 1984 and presented its recommendations in March 1986.

This survey is considered one of the most comprehensive socio-economic and educational surveys of backward communities in Karnataka, and is comparable to the 2015 survey, which yielded the 2024 report of the KSCBC. Both the surveys were door-to-door, while others were sample surveys.

The commission used 17 socio-economic, educational and employment parameters to identify BCs, and identified as socially backward all communities which scored low on nine or more indicators. Below state average performance of children in the 1985 class 10 exams was also taken as a parameter.

The Venkataswamy commission cut the number of BCs in Karnataka from around 200 to 35, and the quantum of reservations from 50% to 27%. It recommended classification of BCs into Group-A and Group-B for the purpose of reservations.

The findings of the Venkataswamy commission did not go down well with the Lingayats and Vokkaligas as well as communities like the Brahmins, Vysyas, Balijas, Devangas, Nehgis, Ganigas, and Marathas, which were excluded from the BC list.

In the light of protests, especially by the Vokkaligas, the Hegde government dumped the report, claiming “failure” by the commission to follow Supreme Court guidelines and use of “wrong methodologies”.

Subsequently, the state government issued an interim order allotting 50% reservations for BCs, after adding the Lingayats and Vokkaligas to them. The BCs were divided into five sections, covering as many as 220 groups.

Justice O Chinnappa Reddy Commission or Third Karnataka Backward Classes Commission, 1988

In March 1988, the Hegde government set up the Justice Reddy Commission to determine BCs. By the time it submitted its report in April 1990, the Janata Party had given way to the Congress in power, with Veerendra Patil the CM.

Tabled in the Assembly in June 1990, the Reddy report classified BCs into three categories and recommended 38% reservation for them, with their total population including MBCs, estimated at 41%.

The commission recommended 5% quota for Category 1 (the most backward), 28% for Category 2 (the backwards) and 5% for Category 3 (poor labourers). Like the Venkataswamy commission, the Reddy panel used Class 10 performance of students as a parameter to classify backwardness.

The commission noted that while the BCs constituted 41% of the population, their representation was just 22% in the Assembly. In contrast, it said, the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, with a combined strength of 26% of the population, held 46% of the seats in the Assembly.

Even as its recommendations were pending with the Patil government, came the Supreme Court judgment in the Indra Sawhney case in 1992, capping total quota at 50%.

In April 1994, a Congress government headed by Veerappa Moily classified BCs into four categories using the findings of the Reddy Commission and gave them 50% reservation. This order categorised the Lingayats, Vokkaligas, Marathas, Bunts, Muslims and Christians as backward, while one of the categories was determined based on occupation.

Another order was issued in July 1994 increasing the BC quota to 57%, with six categories.

However, in line with the Supreme Court order in the Indra Sawhney case, reservations for BCs in Karnataka was pruned in September 1994 to 32%.

This remains the total reservations for OBCs in Karnataka since then.

Permanent Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, 1994

This commission was first headed by Justice Kudur Narayan Rai, who did not submit any report to the government. Then, between 1997 and 2000, the panel was led by Prof Ravi Varma Kumar, an eminent lawyer. He submitted a special report in 2000 adding a few groups to the BC list, and recommending changes in the classification and the creamy layer policy.

In 2007, the state government named Dr C S Dwarkanath as the head of the commission, and he submitted a special report to the Karnataka government three years later.

H Kantharaj Commission, or Karnataka Backward Classes Commission Report, 2024

In 2015, a Congress government led by Siddaramaiah set up the Kantharaj commission to conduct a socio-economic survey spanning the entire society. The Congress soon went out of power and the BJP government that replaced it put the commission’s report on the backburner.

With caste census becoming one of the Congress’s pet issues in the recent past, Siddaramaiah, on returning as CM, sought to revive the report. In February 2024, based on the survey, a report was submitted to him, which said around 94% of the population had been covered.

The report estimated the BC population in Karnataka to be 69.6%, 38 percentage points more than existing estimates, and recommended increasing reservations for them from the current 32% to 51%, after deleting the creamy layer whose numbers were estimated at 19% of the BCs.

It also sought the creation of a new sub category among the MBCs in the state to accommodate communities who are currently categorised in the OBC IIA category – like Siddaramaiah’s own Kuruba community, and Dalit converts to Christianity.

The biggest increase in quota of 7 percentage points – from 15% to 22% — is to be for the current II A category (with the creation of a new category called IB). Muslims are to get 4 percentage points more under II B, while there would be a 3 percentage point increase each for the Vokkaligas and Lingayats in III A and B. An increase of 2% has been sought for the MBCs falling in IA.

Karnataka reservations at present

* Total reservations: 60% (including 10% EWS quota)

* Total reservations for backward classes: 32%

Most Backward Classes: 4%; Other Backward Classes: 15%; Muslims: 4%; Vokkaligas: 4%; Lingayats: 5%

* Reservations for SCs: 15%

* Reservations for STs: 3%

Recommendations of the 2024 report based on a 2015 SEEC survey

* Total reservations: 79% (including EWS)

* Total reservations for backward classes: 51%

Most Backward Classes, in Category 1A: 6%; Most Backward Classes as per old Category II A: 12%; Muslims: 8%; Vokkaligas: 7%; Lingayats: 8%

* Reservations for SCs: 15%

* Reservations for STs: 3%