“If we add all the claims of the community, I want to know what the population of the state will be”

Former Chairman of the Karnataka Backward Class Committee, K. Jayaprakash Hegde submitted the Socioeconomic and Educational Survey (Caste Census) report to the state government in 2024. The report has now been debated in the cabinet, causing a storm in the Karnataka pition last week. Hindu He was spoken to about the issue that the controversial report was being debated.

Editing excerpt:

Some community leaders say the investigation is unscientific and not all houses have been visited. How do you defend the investigation?

The survey was conducted by more than 130,000 teachers in the state overseen by government agencies. There is a professional style with 56 questions that can collect social, economic and educational details for each family (including caste). These professional forms are still in the regional government, including the signatures of the person interviewed. For answers to 56 questions, signatures cannot be made by teachers. This large amount of data is digitized by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) and approved by the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. I don’t understand how it is called unscientific.

Not only Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Vokkaligas, several other communities have also objected to their population size. Many say that surveyors do not visit every home.

Indeed, we cannot cover every household. The state is expected to have a population of 6.33 billion in 2015, and we have paid more than 60 million people, accounting for about 95% of the state’s population. This is a very good survey of any objective size. Furthermore, even if the population of more than 3 million people were not included in the survey, only certain community families were left out when the survey itself was a decentralized activity of 1.3 million government teachers from all communities and regions.

Every community seems to be exaggerating their number. If all the community claims are taken into account, I wonder what the state’s population will be. Meanwhile, the government can still choose to update the investigation if needed.

However, in the case of Veerashaiva-Lingayats, some members of some of their subcastes, such as Ganiga Lingayats, Banajiga Lingayats and Sadara Lingayats, may have been identified as belonging to their equivalent communities in a larger Hindus society to require reservations in Class 2A. I don’t deny it. But this investigation cannot be missed.

One of the suggestions against the recommendations of the committee you are leading is to apply the cream layer to the category 1 with the most backward communities. Why introduce it?

Recently, even the Supreme Court has stated that the cream layer should be applied to all retention categories. This will prevent the same parts of the community from passing on from generation to generation. This is a gradual step to ensure better distribution of booking benefits.

Many communities (including Kurubas) (which are often considered good) have moved from more backward categories to most backward categories. Over the past four decades, has this told us about retention as a tool for social advancement?

A committee of experts evaluates each community based on its socioeconomic and educational indicators found in the survey. Each community is marked as 200 points and depends on the scores awarded to each community and the board selected, the community is classified as last retreat, more behind and behind. This is not a temporary classification. It is based on the data collected and the decision of the expert committee.

In our recommendations, the transition from earlier backward classification to most lagging does not mean that they have degenerated. This is the first time every community has obtained the quality of this socio-economic and educational data. This reflects the reality, based on volume-strong investigations, and sometimes temporary decisions, against early classifications. Kurubas, for example, was found to be more behind than they thought.

There are concerns that some communities considered relatively dominant and largely dominant will dominate the category, thus depriving other smaller communities in the same reserved welfare category. Based on your suggestions and several other smaller communities, Kurubas is now in Class 1B with a reservation of 12%. How to avoid this situation?

The application of cream layers should ideally prevent this abuse and protect smaller communities.

Panchamasalis has always required reservations under separate categories, not with Veerashaiva-Lingayats. Their needs have not been met as you suggest. What is the reason behind this?

Panchamasalis is a subcaste of Veerashaiva-Lingayats, with the same characteristics. All subcastes of the community always fall into the same reserved category, so Panchamasalis cannot be transferred to another category.