Karnataka: The die is caste, and the game begins

The move did not create the political traction the Congress was hoping for and the party bit the dust in the 2018 polls, with the effort to play the Lingayat religion card now considered a political mistake.

In the run-up to the 2023 Assembly polls, the BJP government headed by Basavaraj Bommai finds itself navigating the same minefield, hoping the caste card will help it counter charges that it has failed on the development and administration front.

However, the BJP appears to have rushed in without thinking through the legal implications, managing to only create confusion and, in turn, facing demands for more quotas from across the caste spectrum in Karnataka.

In October 2022, when the Bommai government announced 6% increase in reservations for SCs and STs, it was regarded as a “political masterstroke”. It was also seen as setting the ground for a possible increase in quotas for various communities — especially the Lingayats — since the move anyway breached the 50% quota ceiling imposed by the Supreme Court in 1992 (in the Indira Sawhney case).

Earlier, the Centre had gone beyond the 50% quota ceiling through the 103rd Constitutional Amendment in 2019 to provide 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections from non-socially backward communities.

Finally, on December 29, the Bommai Cabinet announced that the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, also a dominant community in the state, would be classified under categories 2C and 2D, respectively, for OBCs, and be eligible for 6% of the 10% EWS quota created by the Centre. It said it was doing so on the basis of an interim report on status of castes by the Karnataka Backward Classes Commission. This was done in time for the government to meet a December 29 deadline set by the Panchamasali Lingayats to take a decision on their own separate demand, for 15% of the OBC quota.

But if the BJP government thought it had the perfect answer, it was soon proved wrong. The Panchamasali Lingayats, a sub-sect of the community who have been agitating for nearly two years for the 15% quota under the OBC 2A category (which already includes 102 castes), rejected the offer made by Bommai.

The Panchamasalis, led by both Congress and BJP leaders, have warned of consequences for the BJP in the 2023 state polls if their demands are not met.

The move to reallot 6% of the 10% EWS quota to the dominant Lingayats and Vokkaligas, meanwhile, did not go down well with forward communities like the Brahmins.

And now the move has hit legal hurdles in the Karnataka High Court. On January 12, the court stayed the December 29 decision that created new subgroups for the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, after a petitioner moved the court saying this could not be done on the basis of “interim” reports of the Backward Classes Commission.

CM Bommai has argued that his government is serious about providing the new reservations, and is not just creating an illusion ahead of the 2023 polls. On January 14, he said his government had given in-principle approval to the interim report of the Backward Classes Commission within a week, adding: “We are looking at the reservation demands of all communities and have announced that there will be inclusions in category 2 and also increases in quotas… We are working with good intent.”

Bommai questioned the Opposition’s role, saying that 10 years after the Sadashiva Commission had presented its report on the issue of internal reservations and six years after the Kantharaj Commission report was submitted, these had not been implemented. He also said that the Backward Classes Commission was trying to collect the data on status of castes and provide a final report “as fast as possible”.

Law Minister J C Madhuswamy, however, has indicated that the final report could take about three months, which suggests that the ball on all reservation demands would eventually pass on to the next government, if the state polls are held in April as expected.

Among the prevailing quota demands in Karnataka which the BJP has expressed intent to address are internal reservations for the most backward among Dalits on the basis of the Justice Sadashiva Commission set up in 2012. However, that too won’t be easy, with protests already started by less backward groups among SCs like the Bhovis and Lambanis against the move.

Government officials said the BJP government was also considering moving Muslims from the backward classes category, where they avail 4% quota since 1995, to the EWS category.

None of these reservation demands is devoid of the risk of ripple effects, including going against constitutional provisions, and creating new tensions between caste groups. While advisers are of the view that the government must put its foot down and convince communities of the legal implications of new demands, the BJP is running in the other direction, on the poll stretch.