CM Siddaramaiah and community leaders call for unity in upcoming caste survey

Bengaluru: In numerical strength lies political power. In line with this doctrine, almost all major caste and community groups are making efforts to consolidate themselves for the Social & Educational Survey, starting on September 22. 

The Congress government was forced to junk the previous 2015 Social & Educational Survey after various communities alleged that they were undercounted due to “unscientific” enumeration, especially while recording sub-castes. 

This time, communities are going all out to create awareness amongst their members.

Communities hold meetings

The Veerashaiva-Lingayats, Vokkaligas, Muslims, Scheduled Castes, Brahmins, Kodavas and other communities have held meetings to decide how they should identify themselves during the survey in order to shore up their numbers. 

By showing higher numbers, communities believe they can demand greater political representation. 

CM’s call to Kurubas

Even CM Siddaramaiah, on Saturday, asked his fellow Kurubas to identify themselves as only ‘Kuruba’ during the survey, without specifying sub-castes.

“Kurubas have many sub-castes - Kadu Kuruba, Jenu Kuruba, Betta Kuruba, Halumata, Gonda Kuruba and so on. Don’t write all that. Just write Kuruba,” Siddaramaiah said at a Kurubara Sangha event in Gadag. As per the junked 2015 survey, there were 42.81 lakh Kurubas in the state. 

The ‘dominant’ Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Vokkaligas have held meetings of their top leaders to decide how they should put up a united front during the survey. 

The All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha has decided that its patrons must identify their religion as ‘Veerashaiva-Lingayat’ and caste as Veerashaiva, Lingayat or Veerashaiva-Lingayat. The Mahasabha believes there are not less than two crore Veerashaiva-Lingayats. 

The community, however, is divided. One section wants to identify the religion as ‘Hindu’ while puritans say the name of their religion is just ‘Lingayat,’ without the word ‘Veerashaiva’.

Reddy Lingayats (or Raddy Lingayats) have issued a public advertisement asking their communities members to consolidate. Non-Lingayat Reddys come under Category-3A with a 4% reservation. The Raddy Lingayats come under Category-3B with a 5% quota, the ad says. 

Vokkaliga leaders, who say the community’s population is about a crore, want to identify their caste as just ‘Vokkaliga’ so as to consolidate. 

“No matter how many meetings are held, people will write what they want,” Backward Classes Welfare Minister Shivaraj Tangadagi said.

“The backward classes commission will record whatever people say and send it to government. Then, government will take a call on what’s right,” he said.

The Akhila Karnataka Brahmana Mahasabha has said that community members need not specify their sub-caste. In a statement, Mahasabha president S Raghunath said community members should identify themselves as ‘Hindu’ in religion column and ‘Brahmana’ as caste.