Raichur/Yadgiri/Kalaburagi: In the Sunder Nagar slum in Karnataka’s Kalaburagi, human excreta litter the streets, open drains stink up the neighborhood and water supply is only once in five days, for an hour.
Residents of the Scheduled Caste (SC)-dominated slum have a lot to complain about, but lack of civic amenities does not seem to be a swing factor when it comes to their voting preferences in the May 10 assembly elections in the state.
Muralidhar Upadhyay, a resident of Sunder Nagar, told ThePrint that the Congress has always neglected the SC-Left, but the BJP has done development work in sub-caste-dominated areas, which considered by Experts have historically been among the most persecuted people. Sunder Nagar is predominantly held by the SC-Left, which has traditionally been inclined towards the BJP.
“These roads that you see here have been widened by the BJP. For 40 years, the Congress and (party president) Mallikarjun Kharge ignored us. Now before the elections they are trying to woo us. Why should we vote for him?” Upadhyay asked.
This could come as a disappointment for the Congress, which was hoping to reap political gains from the appointment of Kharge, a Dalit from Kalaburagi, as the party’s national president last year.
Kharge is from The Holeya community (SC-Right, is considered somewhat more privileged than SC-Left). According to community experts, the opposition party is hoping the Kharge factor to cut ice with nearly 40 per cent of the state’s Dalit population, who identify themselves as ‘SC-Left’.
Scheduled caste community in Karnataka is divided into four groups , ‘right’, ‘left’, ‘finger’ and ‘other’.
Advocate S Marappa, a resident of Raichur and a member of the SC-Left sub-category, claimed that the classification came from an incident in Tamil Nadu dating back to the 8th century. “A temple run by goldsmiths (known as pickle) was attacked by Brahmins wanting to capture it. At that time, in order to take sides, some untouchables supported the Brahmins. Others supported the goldsmiths. Those who sided with the brahmins came to be called ‘Dakshinpanthis’, while those who sided with the goldsmiths came to be called ‘Vams’. Essentially, the ‘Left’ revolutionaries were a sub-caste,” he said.
On the other hand, Dasanur Kusanna, an expert on caste issues from the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC), told ThePrint that ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ were “professional categorisations”.
“The right side includes all communities belonging to land based occupations, while the left side is non-land based and were in occupations like painting, leather work, scavenging and others, which is why they were more oppressed and were denied entry or access to most public places used by other caste Hindus,” Kusanna explained.
“Slowly, rigid casteism and social constraints forced them to live in submerged compartments. Hence, he never inter-dines with anyone.
According to James Manor, a political scientist and emeritus professor of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, many caste groups do not identify themselves with the ‘left’ or the ‘right’, but may cling to a sense of caste solidarity.
“In Karnataka, they are not as conflict-prone, not as bitter as in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with similar divisions between right- and left-handed Dalits. The division there is completely contradictory, while in Karnataka the division is less bitter.
Congress bid to strengthen SC-rights in Hyderabad-Karnataka region
In the Hyderabad-Karnataka or Kalyana Karnataka region, which is considered one of the poorest in the country, the Congress is trying to consolidate its vote bank of SC-rights and ‘others’. It has not given a single ticket to any SC-Left candidate in the region.
The region has 41 assembly seats, of which the Congress won 21 and the BJP 15 in the 2018 elections.
A Karnataka Congress functionary told ThePrint that the Congress strategy is broadly two-pronged as far as the Scheduled Caste community in the Hyderabad Karnataka region is concerned.
The first aspect pertains to the caste enumeration, while the second relates to the guarantees in the party’s manifesto.
“In the entire Kalyana Karnataka belt, we have not given even a single seat (ticket) to the SC-Left. We have given more seats to Bhovis and Banjaras (Chhoots). The number of seats for SC-right is the same as last time,” said the executive.
“Usually, we give ticket to SC-Left community from Gulbarga Rural seat but this time it has been given to a Banjara. Another seat in Raichur for which ticket is usually given to SC-Left has been given to Bhovi community. We are focussing on the votes that will bring about a massive change,” said the executive.
To woo SC-Left, Congress in its manifesto has promised to fulfill one of the group’s biggest demands , To present the Sadashiv Commission report in the first session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly if the party comes to power in this year’s elections.
The Justice AJ Sadashiva Commission submitted a report to the Sadananda Gowda-led Karnataka government in 2012, recommending internal reservations for communities among the Scheduled Castes.
In a move to give representation to the SC-Left within the party, the Congress in April appointed state SC-Left leader BN Chandrappa as its working president.
Congress MP and Karnataka leader Naseer Hussain told ThePrint, “There should be social justice for all groups. How can we get them to take affirmative action? How do we see that every caste is represented in development and progress? We need a different strategy for this.”
Congress strategy on SC-Left is not over.
“Out of 41 assembly seats in the Kalyana Karnataka region, not a single one has been given (for tickets) to the SC-Left by the Congress. More than 18 (out of 36 reserved SC) Karnataka-wide seats have been given to SC-rights. SC touchables have been given more than 10 seats. The SC-Left has been given tickets by the party for only nine seats,” advocate Marappa quoted earlier.
He said that there is no alternative to the BJP for the Scheduled Caste-Left community. “If we leave the BJP, where will we go?” He asked. “I don’t like the local BJP candidate here. But my vote is for BJP because PM Narendra Modi has promised development.”
SC-Left and BJP’s reservation bet
Shahid Patil is one of the very few residents of SC-Left-dominated Sunder Nagar who seem to lean towards the Congress.
“They (the BJP-led government in Karnataka) have proposed to increase the reservation for Scheduled Castes (Left) to 6 per cent, but within that, 2 per cent reservation has been given to Alemaris (a sub-caste). This means we have 4 per cent left.
In October 2022, the Karnataka cabinet headed by Basavaraj Bommai recommended 6% for SC-Left, 5.5% for SC-Right, 4.5% for ‘Chhoot’ and 1% for ‘Others’ within the ambit of reservation.
But Patil’s fellow SC-Left members are not impressed with the reservation issue.
In Raichur’s Harijanwada, an SC-dominated area, Govind, a Madiga (SC-Left), told ThePrint: “While the Congress has given us nine seats, the BJP has given us 11 seats, just two more. Ultimately, I think our community will need to form its own party like the Bahujan Samaj Party (in Uttar Pradesh). It seems no one is ready to fight for us.”
There is a sense of hopelessness about the state of affairs, although they cling to the hope that it might change.
Another resident of the area, Narasimharan, a Madiga, said he would vote for the BJP, as he had done twice before.
“More than anyone else, we trust Modiji. BJP has many leaders from our community so I am sure they will work for us. I wish that our water and drainage problem is solved. It’s been 40 years and there is no water in the area,” he pointed out.
His friend, Taiyappa, also a Madiga, said the caste pressure by all parties was just an “electoral gimmick”.
“Before elections, everyone thinks about Madigas, but when they are in power, no party helps us. For example, the housing board here has not passed any loan in five years. We do not have toilets in our houses. which do not have proper drainage system. Everyone including our women has to go to the fields for defecation. Whichever party comes to power, I hope this will change.
It is this disillusioned section of the Scheduled Castes-Left on whom the Congress is pinning its hopes.
(Editing by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Read also: Defectors, some new faces, dynasts: Decoding the BJP’s Karnataka list that has angered many leaders