MYSURU: Dalit Mahasabha president S Rajesh has urged the government to reject the internal reservation report submitted by Justice H N Nagamohan Das, calling it “unscientific and divisive”.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Rajesh said the report attempts to divide communities and should not be implemented.
He demanded that the caste census report prepared by the Karnataka Backward Classes Department be made public and that reservation policies be implemented based on the findings of that report.
“According to the caste census data, there are about 53 lakh people belonging to Scheduled Castes. In this context, the Nagamohan Das report contains several errors,” he said.
Rajesh also claimed that Dr B R Ambedkar was never in favour of internal reservation. “If Dr Ambedkar had supported such a system, it would have been clearly mentioned in the Constitution. When Dalits across the country and the state unite, it becomes difficult for dominant castes to control them. Internal reservation is being used as a tool to create divisions among Dalit communities,” he said.
He claimed that Justice Nagamohan Das had shown “bias” during the process of preparing the report. “From the very first meeting until the submission of the report to the government, there were indications that he favoured one particular community,” Rajesh said.
According to him, during the first meeting, the former judge had stated that one community was extremely backward while another had already received a larger share of benefits.
“He has portrayed a community with a larger population as smaller and a community with a smaller population as larger in his report. The survey process was concluded in haste even though data collection in urban areas was not fully completed. Communities such as Adi Karnataka, Adi Dravida and Adi Andhra have been placed in separate groups. This has led to injustice to the Alemari community,” he alleged.
He claimed that communities belonging to the same homogeneous group have been placed in different categories instead of being grouped together. Rajesh said the Dalit Mahasabha will urge Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to reject what he described as an “unscientific and prejudiced report” and drop the proposal for internal reservation, which he said threatens the unity and identity of Dalit communities.