Pandora’s box, political conundrum: SC reservation split

How does the BJP’s stance on sub-categorisation among Dalit communities play into support for the party ahead of the 2024 elections?

The electoral strategy of the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election to consolidate its traditional upper caste vote rested on the implementation of the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) reservation. In the 2024 election season, a new twist in reservation politics came on November 11, with the Prime Minister identifying himself with an agitation in Telangana that sought to split Scheduled Caste reservations. 

The central government, in October 2022, constituted a Commission headed by Justice K G Balakrishnan to examine the inclusion of Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims in the Scheduled Castes list. These developments come at a time when the BJP is trying to grapple with the deafening demand for a national caste census and the political upheaval following Bihar’s caste census.

BJP’s EWS reservation gamble of January 2019, five months before the general elections, paid off. The Amendment, however, breached the 50% reservation rule that was held by the Supreme Court in the 1992 Indra Sawhney case. The political spin-off that followed was two-fold. 

Firstly, political parties which sustained on the social justice plank and backward class politics like DMK, SP, RJD, JD(U) and others realised the constitutional possibility of breaching the 50 per cent reservation dictum. The BJP government included Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (OBCs) as a Constitutional category under Article 342A in 2018.

Secondly, clamour rose for the quantum of reservations to be increased to match their actual population numbers, which is almost double the current 27 per cent reservation at the Centre. 

After the 2019 elections, political parties demanded the enumeration of backward classes in the 2021 census. With the central government not heeding, states like Bihar went ahead with the caste census this year and came out successful, despite legal wranglings, with an exposition of caste numbers. Opposition parties have now further consolidated and promised caste census in their electoral campaigns in an attempt to stitch up the ‘re-Mandalisation’ of the polity.

It is at this juncture that the BJP has now veered their focus to Dalit reservation. On November 11, the Prime Minister, in the rarest case, attended a single-caste rally in Secunderabad, organised by the Madiga community.

He promised to set up a Committee to look into the matter as the issue is pending with the Supreme Court. 

Dividing Dalit reservation has a chequered history, starting in 1975 in Punjab. It came to a standstill in 2004 after a five-judge Constitution bench found it in violation of the Constitution in the E V Chinnaiah case related to the division of reservation in Andhra Pradesh. The Supreme Court also pronounced that Scheduled Castes are a homogenous group and cannot be subdivided. 

Ever since, the issue has been embroiled in a legal tangle. Punjab tried to revive it by law in 2006, but it was set aside again in 2010 in The State Of Punjab v Davinder Singh based on the Andhra Pradesh decision. It is this Davinder Singh case that went to another five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, which in 2020 decided to move it to a larger bench. Now, a seven-judge Constitution bench headed by the Chief Justice of India will start hearing the case as per listing from January 17, 2024. 

In policy, practice

There is precedent across the country for splitting SC reservations in policy. For instance, in 2009, the Tamil Nadu government made a special reservation provision for employment and education for Arunthathiyars within the 18 per cent reservation for SCs in the state. In Bihar, in 2007, the Nitish Kumar-led government created a group called ‘Mahadalits’ (most backward Dalits) which excluded the Chamar, Dhobi, Paswan and Dushad castes among 22 Scheduled Castes. Later in 2015, all castes were declared Mahadalit except Paswans. Bihar gave welfare scheme priority to Mahadalits and did not tamper with Constitutional reservations.

In 2020, Haryana split reservations in admissions through legislation by creating a new group of SCs called “Deprived Scheduled Castes”. This group included 36 Scheduled Castes, leaving out the Chamar and Ravidasia communities. The Usha Mehra Commission constituted by the UPA government has also favoured the categorisation of Scheduled Castes in its report in 2008.

Historically, the first identification and enumeration of Dalits as a separate category was seen in the 1911 Census, based on 10 ‘tests’. Dr B R Ambedkar refers to the 1911 census in his 1948 treatise ‘The untouchables: Who were they and why they became untouchables’. Ambedkar identified ‘untouchables’ as separate from Hindus, as those who were “denied the supremacy of the Brahmins; did not receive the Mantra from Brahmana or other recognised Hindu Guru; denied the authority of the Vedas; did not worship the great Hindu Gods; were not served by good Brahmanas; have no Brahmin priests at all; have no access to the interior of the ordinary Hindu temple; cause pollution; bury their dead; and eat beef and do not reverence the cow”. 

In the closing days of the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar introduced a clause in the Article and stipulated that the exclusive power to add or delete castes or tribes will remain with the Parliament and not with the states. On September 17, 1949, Ambedkar moved an Amendment and mentioned that “the object is to eliminate any kind of political factors having a play in the matter of the disturbance in the schedule”. There was no provision for sub-categorising ‘untouchables’, (now Scheduled Castes) neither in the Constituent Assembly nor in the Constitution.

Potential implications

Political parties are aware of the fact that the majority communities among the Scheduled Castes oppose the split in reservations. The Dalit communities of northern India that oppose dividing reservations are — Chamar, Ravidasia and Jatav castes (Punjab, Haryana, Jammu, Uttar Pradesh); Paswan and Chamar castes (Bihar); and Meghwal and Chamar castes (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh). Similarly, Mala (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana); Holeya (Karnataka); Pulaya (Kerala); Paraya, Pallan (Tamil Nadu); Mahar (Maharashtra); and Vankar castes (Gujarat) also oppose the splitting of reservation. 

Interestingly, all the castes that oppose the reservation split are also the leading castes in the Ambedkarite movement. The Scheduled Castes which demand splitting of reservation are the Mazhabi Sikhs and Balmikis in Punjab and Haryana; the Madigas in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka; and the Arunthathiyars in Tamilnadu.  

BJP, due to its political stance towards sub-categorisation, is likely to lose out on the support of numerically dominant SCs. In this stalemate, the issue now moves to the Supreme Court with altogether different stakes. Apart from the sub-categorisation question, the SC may adjudicate on an unrelated issue — regarding the creamy layer among the Dalits and STs, as in the case of OBCs in the Mandal judgement. 

Further, the BJP government at the Centre has also opened another door of opportunity for Christians and Muslims to enter the Scheduled Castes list by constituting a Commission. The political conundrum is sharply focused on putting SC and ST reservations on the chopping block, which could tamper with the Constitutional idea of reservations, originally prescribed as a mechanism to negate caste identities.

(Rehnamol Raveendran teaches Political Science at the University of Allahabad.)