The debate on the caste survey in Karnataka has unleashed political convulsions in state politics in general and the state’s ruling party in particular. The leading opposition, the BJP, is watching from the sidelines and hoping that the Congress’s internal contradictions would remain centre-stage and they would be able to reap its political dividends.
With the Congress central leadership committed to caste surveys as part of its commitment to social justice, there has been sustained pressure on Congress governments to demonstrate visible action on the ground to honour this promise.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s decision to bring the caste survey to the fore almost half-way down his second term brings up questions on its timing. The party has faced a series of challenges in his second term. The 2024 Lok Sabha election setbacks, the range of corruption charges facing him as well as other ministers, and the rumoured power-sharing dilemmas are all contextual factors. It may be useful to look at the developments from two perspectives—the survey’s context and its content.
For the context, one needs to go back to Siddaramaiah’s first term as chief minister. It was then that the decision to conduct such a survey was taken, with the tentative findings ready towards the end of that term. The leadership took a decision to hold back from announcing the findings. Many would link it to an important poll plank of the Congress in the 2018 assembly elections. The party favoured according the Lingayats the status of a separate religion. Announcing the caste survey’s findings could well have created major challenges in taking forward the manifesto pledge.
Bringing it to the fore now is clearly aimed at reaping political dividends and check-mating opponents within the party. Siddaramaiah has carved a niche for himself as an AHINDA leader championing the cause of the non-dominant backward castes, Dalits and minorities. With the Congress government in the neighbouring Telangana having announced the findings of its caste survey, there was a clear pressure on Karnataka to act on a report done years ago.
More critical are the survey’s political overtones. Reports indicate that the percentages of the two dominant castes in Karnataka—the Lingayats and the Vokkaligas—are significantly lower than what is being projected by the two groups. The two castes have accounted for more than half the elected legislators in all assemblies since 1956; it’s true of the current assembly too, with Lingayat and Vokkaliga legislators spread across the major political parties. In the past, whenever backward caste commissions recommended the removal of one or both dominant castes from the backward castes list, the government of the day was unable to implement it. Both the dominant castes have ensured their continued presence on the backward castes list. So a survey projecting lower percentages for the two could well impact their dominance in state politics. The survey is also believed to indicate a significant rise in the percentages of non-dominant backward castes as well as scheduled castes.
It would be useful to look at data from the Lokniti-CSDS post-poll surveys done at the time of the 2023 assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress garnered the largest chunk of Vokkaliga votes in both these elections. When it came to the Lingayats, the 2023 assembly elections saw a slight dip in the vote for the BJP and a shift to the Congress. The Congress got more than one of every four Lingayat votes, while the BJP secured just a little over a majority of this group’s votes.
When one looked at the Lok Sabha polls a year later, the BJP secured over three-fourths of the Lingayat votes, with their support for the Congress dipping to one of every five. The Congress had a 10 percentage point advantage over the BJP in the non-dominant OBC votes in the 2023 assembly polls, which sharply shifted towards the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls a year later, with the party garnering close to six of every 10 votes and Congress support limited to three of every 10. The scheduled caste vote has been stable with the Congress across the two elections, with the party garnering close to two-thirds. Among Muslims, the Congress had a clear advantage over the BJP, winning nine of every 10 votes of this community in the Lok Sabha polls.
The above data assumes salience in the current debate. As a non-dominant OBC leader, Siddaramaiah is keen to win back his community’s vote that appeared to have shifted to the BJP. Yet, the Congress faces the prospect of alienating the dominant castes. Given that the Vokkaliga vote was with the Congress in the assembly and Lok Sabha polls, making a case for the caste survey could well be counter-productive. The marginal movement of the Lingayat vote to the Congress could also be halted or reversed.
The caste survey has divided the ruling party and has united dominant-caste MLAs across party lines. Questions on whether the survey accurately captured the ground reality and the changes that must have happened over the last decade appear to be pushing the government to reiterate its commitment to social justice and the need for a fresh survey, remedying some of the methodological errors in the study at hand.
(Views are personal)
Sandeep Shastri
National Coordinator of Lokniti Network
Director (academics) at NITTE Education Trust, and co-editor, Electoral Dynamics in the States of India