Caste survey redux in Karnataka

Okayarnataka will maintain its second socio-economic survey from Monday (September 22, 2025). The Congress authorities put aside the report of the primary survey, carried out in 2015, in addition to the suggestions based mostly on it and submitted in 2024. The second survey, to be carried out over a fortnight by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, is being held amid a sea of objections raised by the BJP in addition to some land-owning, politically dominant, and numerically robust communities.

The Commission has compiled a tentative record of 1,400 castes. This has opened a Pandora’s Box. The BJP has attacked the Siddaramaiah authorities for making an attempt to “divide Hindus”. The BJP and a few caste teams have opposed the inclusion of Christian sub-castes (recognized for the primary time throughout the earlier survey based mostly on how folks named themselves) that included nomenclatures similar to Vokkaliga-Christian, Brahmana-Christian, and Lingayat Christian.

To the embarrassment of the State authorities, these nomenclatures have been opposed by Cabinet Ministers representing the dominant communities as properly. Leaders of castes reducing throughout social gathering strains concern that these “new castes” will convey down their inhabitants figures.

During the final Cabinet assembly, the Chief Minister got here below intense stress to scrap the survey or postpone it till the “anomalies” have been set proper. Deputy Chief Minister DK. Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga strongman, and senior Ministers M.B. Patil and Eshwar Khandre, representing the Veerashaiva-Lingayat neighborhood, opposed the “new castes”. The Chief Minister then requested the Commission, an unbiased physique, to deal with the confusion by masking a few of these “new castes” within the record in order that they are often allowed to enumerate themselves within the ‘Others’ class.

While the Opposition blames the federal government for the confusion, the Commission has made it clear that over the last enumeration, members of those “new Christian sub castes” had approached it, requesting it for a separate grouping. It mentioned that the federal government didn’t have any position within the inclusion or deletion of any castes/sub castes.

The RSS and BJP are additionally anxious about developments within the Veerashaiva-Lingayat neighborhood. The Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Mahasabha and the Jagathika Lingayata Mahasabha, two huge caste organisations, have appealed to the neighborhood to say that they belong to the ‘Veerashaiva-Lingayat’ and ‘Lingayat’ religions, respectively, within the ‘Others’ column. Both organisations are working for a separate faith standing for the neighborhood, although they’ve variations of opinion on nomenclature. The BJP is upset that the sabhas have appealed to the communities to not categorise themselves as ‘Hindu’. Leaders together with former Chief Ministers Basavaraj Bommai and Jagadish Shettar have accused the Congress of utilizing caste organisations to “divide The Hindu neighborhood”. Incidentally, Cabinet Minister Eshwar Khandre is the final secretary of the Veerashaiva Mahasabha, whereas Congress chief Shamanur Shivashankarappa is its president.

The dominant narrative to date has been about the best way that neighborhood members would enumerate themselves, with main communities such because the Veerashaiva-Lingayats, Vokkaligas, Brahmins, Muslims, and Kurubas making an attempt to consolidate themselves. The findings of the 2015 survey and the suggestions based mostly on it have been put aside citing the rationale that they have been a decade outdated and “introduced down” the numbers of dominant communities. It ought to be famous that these communities, for many years, bargained for political clout utilizing their estimated inhabitants information.

The Commission’s report based mostly on the survey and its suggestions are essential for backward courses’ reservation, with 32% within the general 56% reservation matrix within the State. Though figuring out “backwardness” of varied caste teams is the important thing goal of the survey, the main focus of the dominant communities has been totally on numerical consolidation.

Nomadic, semi-nomadic and microscopic communities inside the Other Backward Classes grouping, who got the ‘Most Backward’ standing within the outdated report, are hoping that the survey will profit them. However, the voices of those communities stay drowned within the clamour of dominant communities.