Not Just Murthy Couple, Bengaluru Remains Apathetic to Caste Survey in Karnataka
The urban apathy was attributed to technical challenges and Bengaluru's large migrant population.
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After facing technical glitches, legal challenges, protests by enumerators over inadequate training, the general apathy of Bengaluru citizens towards the exercise, and five extensions—two for door-to-door and three for online enumerations—it will be curtains down for the socio-educational survey conducted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes on 30 November.
The socio-educational survey, conducted at a cost of Rs 420 crore, was necessitated after the Congress-ruled Karnataka government decided to junk the caste based survey done when it was in power in 2015 as the findings were a decade old and the law stipulated a review every 10 years.
Why Bengaluru Remained Disinterested
Data released by the Commission after the door-to-door enumeration concluded on 31 October, the earlier deadlines being 7 October and 18 October, said the survey covered 89.47 percent of the population, 1.46 crore households, and about 5.52 crore people.
Karnataka's population is estimated to be 6.87 crore. In Greater Bengaluru Authority, earlier known as Bengaluru Bruhat Mahanagara Palike, the response from the citizens was poor, accounting for 48.32 percent coverage. This was one of the reasons for the Commission to extend the self-declaration of online enumeration not once but twice. But the numbers did not increase.
Prominent among those who declined to participate in the survey, also known as 'caste survey' were Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy and his wife, Rajya Sabha member Sudha Murty. Their reason to decline in a self-declaration form was that they do not belong to any backward community and therefore believed the survey was not relevant to their situation.
BJP MP representing Bengaluru South, Tejasvi Surya, gave a call to the public to boycott the enumeration saying it was politically motivated, similar to strategies used by leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav, "who seek to divide communities.''
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah slammed the Murthy couple for declining to participate in the survey with the jibe: "Are they Brihaspati (Hindu deity associated with wisdom) just because they are founders of Infosys?''
Institutional Challenges
Although the survey commenced on 22 September during the Dusshera vacation for educational institutions, there was uncertainty of its continuation as it had been questioned in the court.
On 4 October, the Karnataka High Court declined to grant a blanket stay on the survey and issued directions to the government to immediately modify the methodology to ensure that participation and disclosure of information was purely voluntary and obligatory.
Those who opted to participate in the enumeration were irked by some of the questions which sought details of bank accounts, jewellery owned, pending litigations or court cases in the family, knowledge of computer literacy or if any member of the family is an NRI.
Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who is also in charge of Bengaluru Development, refused to answer some queries when enumerators visited his house.
"I have asked the Commission not to ask people in Bengaluru how many chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, people are rearing. There's no need to ask how much gold or watches or fridge one has. These are personal matters," he said.
HM Renuka Prasanna, national secretary and spokesperson for Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Mahasabha, told The Quint that they had asked for a public hearing by the Commission before the questions were drafted. This procedure had been followed by H Kantharaj, the Commission's former chairman when the caste survey was done in 2015.
The 2015 Junked Survey
The survey done in 2015 at a cost of Rs 165 crore by Kantharaj and fine-tuned by his predecessor K Jayaprakash Hegde has been scrapped. The fate of the 2015 caste census report, which had used 51 indicators to elicit details about the professions, activities and other aspects of the communities was never made public. But leaked findings of the report estimated the Lingayats population at 66.58 lakh or 11 percent against their claim of being between 17 percent to 22 percent and the Vokkaligas at 61.35 lakh or 10.30 percent against the present 14 percent.
These findings were said to contradict the traditional perception of the numerical strength of various castes with political leaders, seers and organisations representing the Veerashaiva Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities opposing it and demanding a resurvey, thereby forcing successive governments headed by HD Kumaraswamy, now Union minister, BS Yediyurappa, and Basavaraj Bommai to keep the report in cold storage.
Karnataka was nevertheless a pioneer in providing reservation to communities. The brainchild of Siddaramaiah, the 2015 caste census was the first to be undertaken in the country after 1931, which was the last nation wide census to enumerate castes in India.
In 1918, the Maharaja of the princely state of Mysuru Nalvadi Krishnarajendra Wadiyar appointed a committee under the chief justice of the chief court of Mysuru, Sir Leslie C Miller, to recommend steps to be taken for the adequate representation of deprived communities in public service. In 1921, Sir Miller in his report recommended that within seven years the non-Brahmin strength in higher services must be raised from one and half in lower services to two- third, which was accepted by the Maharaja and 75 percent vacancies were reserved for the backward classes.
The Saga of Other Backward Classes
After the first all India caste based census in 1931, a state-wise list of backward classes was prepared. In 1960, the Karnataka government constituted the R Naganagouda committee which classified the backward classes into backward and more backward. A government order issued in June 1960 provided 22 percent per cent reservation for backward classes in addition to 15 percent and 3 percent for scheduled castes and tribes.
In 1972 the first Backward Classes Commission was constituted by former chief minister D Devaraj Urs, considered a champion of the underprivileged communities.
The Urs government went beyond Havanur's recommendations and included Muslims and Dalits who converted to Christianity as backward classes and created reservations for a special group with an income cap.
The government's order was challenged in the high court and the Supreme court by which time Urs had been ousted from power and R Gundu Rao was the chief minister. In 1982, the Gundu Rao government informed the apex court that it would constitute another commission to rectify the anomalies in reservation which led to the setting up of the T Venkataswamy Commission in 1983.
The Venkataswamy Commission submitted its report in 1986 which created unrest as it excluded several communities, including the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, from the backward classes list stating they had enough representation in the government services and were not backward either socially or educationally. The Venkataswamy report was rejected by the Ramakrishna Hegde government, and five categories of reservation were constituted instead, exempting the Brahmins and few other castes.
Later, Justice O Chinnappa Reddy Commission's report submitted in 1990 also excluded the two dominant communities,, the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, with prominent leaders and seers of both communities launching a state wide protest.
Finally, M Veerappa Moily, during his tenure as the chief minister, issued a government which included the Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities under the backward classes list.
Presently, there are five categories for backward classes with the total reservation for them being 32 percent. These inlcude:
Category I—Reservation 4 percent, total castes 95
Category 11A—Reservation 15 percent; total castes 102
Category IIB—Reservation 4 percent, total castes 1
Category IIIA—Reservation 4 percent, total castes 3
and Category IIIB—Reservation 5 percent; total castes 6
The Commission's chairman, Madhusudan R Naik, said the report will be ready by the year's end.
"As far as Telangana is concerned, they did not do it under the provisions of the Backward Classes Commission Act of their state. The survey done by the Planning Authority of Telangana included aspects of employment, political representation and requirements for good governance,'' he maintained.
(Naheed Ataulla is a senior political journalist based in Bengaluru. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)