BENGALURU: Political parties targeting vote banks by riding on caste couch in Karnataka only got easier as the Siddaramaiah government is all set to conduct the first-ever caste census in
the state.
The caste equation is something that political parties in the country have thrived on for ages. While Congress has played it for long enough, other political parties too have tried to consolidate their vote banks on caste lines. Come April and the people of Karnataka will be evaluated based on their caste and socio-economic conditions, which perhaps would enable political parties to target their favourable vote pockets.
For BJP, it has been the Hindutva card that came in handy while wooing voters. For Mayawati, it should have ideally been the Dalit vote bank until last year when things changed. BSP’s strategy went for a tailspin in recent political drama that unfolded on May 16 general elections in 2014. Here, Modi completely bypassed this old strategy and offered something new to the Indian voter: hope for economic prosperity.
The caste census, set to start in the second week of April, may prove to be a blessing in disguise for other parties too. After the last year’s general election debacle, the Congress and others are clueless about how to play this new game. From old foes joining hands to undertaking surveys to understand the mood of the voters, the political parties are trying to figure out what should be their strategy. This caste census can get them to reach to their
target audience.
The census is also set to reflect vital data on religious conversions too, with columns that would indicate the caste before a person converted and to which religion he or she converted. This has made the BJP see red as the column would read something like this—Brahman-Christian, Kuruba-Muslim, Madiga-Christian, Akkasali-Christian, Sudri-Muslim, Lingayat-Muslim, etc.
BJP is strongly opposing this special column on religious conversion by alleging that it has been introduced with a hidden agenda to introduce quotas for Christian and Muslim Dalits too, which in turn could further encourage conversions.
Speaking to The Sunday Standard, senior BJP politico and leader of opposition in legislative council KS Eshwarappa said, “This is fraught with grave consequences as both Christianity and Islam claim to be caste-less religions. Now the Siddaramaiah government is creating new castes for those who convert from Hinduism to other religions with a long term plan to use them as vote banks by extending reservations in jobs and education for these converted dalits and OBCs.”
The census has also made many minor castes among OBCs, SCs and STs more assertive. For instance leaders of Madiga community(SC) including Social Welfare minister H Anjaneya have been appealing to the community members to ensure that they are listed specifically as Madigas and not just as SCs as the leaders see a possibility of introducing inner reservation within SC and ST quota in proportion to individual caste and sub-castes.
S Shivanna, president of Ram Manohar Lohia Thinkers’ Forum sees BJP’s resistance as reflection of the party’s apprehensions that the caste census could deliver a blow for the party's strategy to consolidate the Hindu community votes cutting across caste lines.
BJP, which has a solid backing of the Lingayat community and is making inroads into the OBC and Dalit communities, has reasons to oppose the caste based census.
Milind Dharmasena, leader of Dalit, Backward and Minorities Forum analyses Siddaramaiah’s initiative on caste census as part of his larger plan to counter the Modi wave and BJP’s Hindutva surge. “Siddaramaiah’s aggressive campaign for the census could come handy in consolidating the party’s traditional vote bank of Dalits and minorities,” said Dharmasena
The census would definitely help in wooing back extremely backward communities like Ganigas, Upparas, Devangas, Kumbaras, Madiwalas who had started resenting the emergence of Kuruba community as a strong force after Siddaramaiah (a Kuruba) came to power.
However, the chief minister has chosen to ignore the resistance and justified the census. “The caste based census will present complete details on economic, social and educational status of each and every caste and sub-caste. This will be of immense value to draw up more focused welfare programmes to reach the really deprived classes. The census will also help in identifying the castes that have benefited the most from reservations and also evolving a more effective criteria to define the ‘creamy layer’. The BJP is opposing the census fearing a threat to its communal politics,” argued Siddaramaiah.
The state government has notified 1357 castes and sub-castes of the forward communities and OBCs, the number of caste and sub-castes for SCs is about 101 and among the STs there are 50 notified castes and sub-castes.
The survey would also cover information regarding access to various government schemes, including that of social security programmes, beneficiaries of merit quota in pursuing both primary and hither education, membership of the co-operative institutions, and data on carrying any terminal diseases like TB, cancer and
other ailments.
A separate column has been assigned to cull out reasons, from school drop outs, with specific reasons as to whether it was due to caste discrimination, problem of medium of instruction, marriage, non availability of admission, deficiencies of basic amenities and other related issues.