Bengaluru: After being snubbed by Rahul Gandhi over the caste census report, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's effort to get a flash survey done has raked up yet another controversy.
While the caste columns have sub-divisions like Dalit-Christian, Vokkaliga-Christian, Kuruba- Christian, Lingayat- Christian have stirred an unrest among the recent converts, who still try to get government benefits under their old faith, the sub-groups among Lingayat and Vokkaligas also are facing stiff resistance from the powerful communities.
Moreover, all castes coming under `nomadic' schedule tribes are on the streets, stating that the government had deprived them of their rights while extending internal reservations. At the same time, the efforts by the Scheduled Tribe Welfare Department to include Kuruba community under scheduled tribe is also receiving backlash, as Siddaramaiah belongs to that community.
Recently, when Siddaramaiah wanted to implement reservations based on the Justice Kantharaju Committee report, tried to implement reservation based on socio-economic status along with the population of each community, there was a stiff resistance within his cabinet itself. When Siddaramaiah was adamant on implementing the recommendations of Justice Kantharaj committee, many of his cabinet colleagues approached Rahul Gandhi and convinced him that the party will suffer support of majority communities and many of the SC/ST communities. Rahul Gandhi intervened and announced that the data was 10-year-old and the government would update the data before implementing the recommendations.
Though everyone thought that the issue was over, Siddaramaiah has ordered a fresh caste based socio-economic survey conducted by 1.75 lakh teachers, between Sep 22 to Oct 7. The teachers are opposing this census saying that it was the Navarathri period, where the teachers were being forced to work for 17 days out of 18 days holiday.
Meanwhile, the census form has retained the sub-caste columns for Lingayats and Vokkaligas remain the same as mentioned in the Justice Kantharaj committee report. Many of the sub-sects among Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities will not be considered as Lingayat and Vokkaligas as per new survey also. This has provoked the dominant communities again. Besides, addition of new sub-columns like Dalit-Christians, Vokkaliga-Christians, Lingayat-Christians has irked the converts, who have been reaping the government benefits even after conversion.
Meanwhile, the move by the Scheduled Tribes Welfare Department to include Kuruba community into Schedule Tribe category has angered the communities under nomadic tribes, who are more than 20 lakh in number. During the recent internal reservation distribution, the share of Schedule Tribe reservation was passed on the Scheduled castes. While the nomadic tribes are still protesting against this, the move by the government to include Kuruba community, to which Chief Minister belongs to has angered them. This would mean that the nomadic tribe would hardly have any say while receiving reservations.
The opposition BJP has come down heavily on the government, saying that the Congress was trying to divide people on caste lines also. BJP Chief whip in the Legislative Council Ravi Kumar said that ``There is a deliberate attempt by the government to encourage conversion and divide the Hindus on caste and sub-caste basis.''
Former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has said that the Chief Minister is directly promoting conversion of Hindus to Christianity. ``In Constitution, there are names of only six religions and in the census, only those names should be mentioned. Apart from conversion, there are reverse conversions also. Why is that column not mentioned in the census form?'' he questioned.
