Karnataka Reservation Row: A Look at Significance of Lingayats, Vokkaligas in the State Ahead of Polls

In a bid to woo Lingayats and Vokkaligas, the two powerful dominant communities of Karnataka ahead of the assembly elections which are due in May, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday unveiled the statues of 12th century social reformer and Lingayat sect founder Lord Basaveshwara and Bengaluru founder Kempe Gowda at Vidhana Soudha, the Karnataka seat of power.

Shah also justified the decision of the BJP government in Karnataka led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to scrap the four per cent reservation for Muslims in the 2B category asserting that there was no provision in the Constitution for affirmative action on the basis of religion.

The four per cent reservation has been re-apportioned equally to the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, leaving the Muslims to compete for the 10 per cent reservation provided for Economically Weaker Sections of the general category, which is decided based on family income. The government also decided to implement the Scheduled Castes’ long-pending demand for internal reservation, as proposed in the 2012 AJ Sadashiva Commission report, reports said.

The decision has invoked a political slugfest in the state. Let’s explore all the aspects of the issue:

Lingayats and Vokkaligas in Karnataka

Lingayats and Vokkaligas are both important communities electorally in Karnataka. As DP Satish writes for News18 on Vokkaligas’ history, “this 100% agrarian community had a few medieval chieftains — Kempe Gowda — the founder of Bengaluru is the most famous among them.”

“During the rule of Mysore Kings under the British, Vokkaligas were restricted to farming. Literacy level and political participation of the community were abysmal. The Independence in 1947, changed all that and Vokkaligas became key players in Karnataka’s socio-political life,” he writes. Read the full report here

And the Lingayats, who have been BJP supporters for over two decades, account for 17% of Karnataka’s population and are said to have sway over the outcome of 100 of the state’s 224 assembly seats.

The Lingayat religion is thought to have evolved from the teachings of Basava, a 12th century social reformer and Kannada poet. Several scholars, however, believe he aided an established sect. Basava, who was inspired by the ‘Bhakti’ movement, rejected temple worship and Brahmin ceremonies in favour of a religion free of gender and religious prejudice, said a report by the Print. Over the years, several people from backward castes chose to be Lingayats in order to avoid the rigid Hindu caste system, the report says.

As per Satish, according to leaked Caste census data, Vokkaligas form 11% of the total Karnataka population. They rank number four after SCs, Muslims and Lingayats. However, this data is disputed by both Vokkaligas and Lingayats. Vokkaligas claim that their number is much higher, that is, 16%. Like Lingayats, Vokkaligas also have many sub castes and they normally view each other with suspicion. Gangatakara, Dasa, Marasu and Kunchitiga are the four sub-castes among the Vokkaligas.

Long-pending SC Demand

A section of the Scheduled Castes has been pursuing internal reservation, claiming that only a few powerful “touchable” sub-castes were reaping the majority of the benefits while countless untouchable communities remained marginalised. In response to these demands, the Basavaraj Bommai Government resolved to establish internal reservation to offer equal opportunity for all 101 SC castes. The BJP government has already increased reservation for SCs in education and employment from 15% to 17%, and for STs from 3% to 7%.

Previously, the Justice A J Sadashiva Commission proposed internal reservation based on taluk-level demographic data. This was argued by a group of SCs who asked that the government take the 2011 Census into account. “Based on the 2011 census, we have created this matrix. When developing the reservation matrix, we also considered the remoteness of communities “J C Madhuswamy, who chairs a Cabinet sub-committee on internal reservation, told Deccan Herald.

The Siddaramaiah-led Congress was accused of stalling on the study between 2013 and 2018. According to pollsters, this resulted in a segment of Dalits abandoning the Congress during the 2018 elections, says a report by Deccan Herald.

While the SCs account for 16% of the state’s population, the STs account for 6.9%, as per a report by Indian Express.

When the old Mysore state, from which the state of Karnataka was founded, joined the Union of India in 1948, the President classified certain castes and tribes in the ‘Scheduled’ category under Articles 341 and 342 of the Constitution. According to the government, while the number of Scheduled Castes in the state has expanded as additional groups have been incorporated inside it, and the population of both communities has grown by leaps and bounds, the reservation has remained the same.

What Does BJP Say?

The Union Home Minister recently lauded the Karnataka government’s decision of scrapping the four per cent reservation for Muslims under 2B Other Backward Classes (OBCs) category, saying the Constitution does not provide for a quota on religious lines.

Earlier, addressing public meetings at Gorata village in Bidar district and Gabbur in Raichur district, he slammed the Congress for introducing the four per cent reservation for Muslims for “its vote bank politics”.

Shah said that the Bommai-led BJP government had also tried to do away with the “injustice to the Scheduled Castes” by introducing a new internal reservation.

The four per cent quota taken away from the Muslims was equally divided among the two dominant communities of the state: Vokkaligas in 2C reservation category and Veerashaiva-Lingayats in 2D reservation category.

With this, the 2B category became redundant while the Vokkaligas’ reservation went up from four per cent to six per cent and that of the Lingayats from five per cent to seven per cent.

“The BJP never believes in appeasement,” Shah said, strongly defending the decision to take reservation away from the Muslims and increase the quota of the Vokkaligas and Veerashaiva Lingayats ahead of the Assembly Elections. “So, it decided to change the reservation.”

“The BJP abolished the four per cent reservation given to the minorities and gave two per cent to the Vokkaligas and two per cent to the Lingayats,” Shah said. “The reservation for minorities is not Constitutionally valid. There is no provision in the Constitution to give reservation based on religion. The Congress government did it for its appeasement politics and gave reservation to the minorities,” he added.

What Did Oppn Say

Flaying the BJP-led Karnataka government for its decision to scrap reservation for Muslims under Category 2B in the OBC list, the Congress declared on Sunday that it would restore the quota to the minority community in the event of the party coming to power in the State, where Assembly elections are due by May.

President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) D K Shivakumar termed the step “unconstitutional” “They (the government) think that reservation can be distributed like a property. It’s not a property. It’s a right (of minorities)”, he told reporters here. “We don’t want their four per cent to be scrapped and given to any of the major communities. They ((members of the minority community) are our brothers and family members”.

“Entire Vokkaligas and Veerashaiva-Lingayats are rejecting this offer,” Shivakumar claimed.

Exuding confidence that the Congress party will come to power in the “next 45 days”, he said: “we will scrap all this” and added that there is no basis to remove Muslims from the OBC list.

Charging the Basavaraj Bommai-government with trying to rake up “emotional issues” as it’s set to lose the polls, Shivakumar said as party president, he wants to declare that the first meeting of the Cabinet, in the event of Congress coming to power, would take a decision to restore the quota.

A Congress statement said the complete taking away of the decades-old reservation for Muslim minorities of four per cent has caused great consternation and a sense of injustice in the minority community.

It alleged that shifting of Muslims to the EWS quota is per se unconstitutional and is an attempt to deceive the minority community.

“EWS quota is founded upon economic status and income. It is not based upon caste or religion. A member of any caste or religion would anyway be entitled to EWS reservation based on his or her economic status,” the party said. “How is the (Basavaraj) Bommai government then making false claims of shifting Muslim minority to EWS quota?”

With inputs from PTI

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