Disclaimer: Copyright infringement is not intended.

Context:

• Community leaders from Panchamasali Lingayats community held a meeting with lawyers to look at how to take forward the agitation which had fizzled out in 2023.

Who are the Panchamasali Lingayats?

• It is a sub-caste of Karnataka’s dominant Lingayat community.
• The Lingayat community is an amalgamation of many sub-castes, who, put together, can affect electoral outcomes in 90-100 of Karnataka’s 224 seats.
• Of these sub-castes, the agriculturalist Panchamasalis are the largest, making up nearly 70 per cent of the Lingayat population.
• They claim to number around 85 lakh — about 14% of Karnataka’s population of roughly six crore.

Lingayats ●They are followers of Basavanna, a 12th century philosopher-saint who started a radical anti-caste movement which rejected orthodox ritualistic Hindu practices in favour of a more personal, affective relationship with God, specifically Lord Shiva. ●The Lingayats are officially classified as Hindu sub-caste ‘Veerashaiva Lingayats’. Notable Lingayat chief ministers of Karnataka ●B S Yediyurappa (the preeminent Lingayat leader in Karnataka for decades), ●Basavaraj Bommai, and ●Jagadish Shettar have all belonged to other sub-castes. Read about them here: https://www.iasgyan.in/blogs/lingayatism-and-veerashaivism

Their demands

• It has been demanding inclusion in Category 2A of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) for more than three years.
• This will enable them to avail the 15 per cent quota in government jobs and college admissions earmarked for this category, as against the 5 per cent quota the Lingayat community currently enjoys under Category 3B of Karnataka’s OBC quota matrix.
• The community also claims to be economically worse-off than others.

What are the different categories of OBCs in Karnataka?

• OBCs comprise many different castes and sub-castes who are at different levels of marginalisation depending on whether they own land, their occupation, etc.
• To prevent any one dominant OBC group from cornering all quota benefits, most states have come up with further sub-categorisation of OBCs, which takes into account different castes’ relative marginalisation, and their populations.
• In Karnataka, the 32 per cent total reservation for OBCs in government jobs and college admissions is distributed among five categories. Of these, at present, 102 castes fall in the 2A OBC category in Karnataka.

Table 1: Karnataka’s current quota matrix
CATEGORY		QUOTA
Other Backward Classes (OBC)		32
Category 1	Backward Castes	4
Category 2A	Other Backward Classes	15
Category 2B	Muslims	4
Category 3A	Vokkaliga, etc.	4
Category 3B	Lingayat, etc.	5
Scheduled Castes (SC)		15
Scheduled Tribes (ST)		3
Economically Weaker Sections (EWS)		10
TOTAL RESERVATIONS		60

Government versus Supreme Court and Backward classes commission

• On March 27, 2023, the government scrapped the 4 per cent quota under Category 2B for Muslims, and distributed it (2 per cent each) among the Vokkaligas and Lingayats in newly-created Categories 2C and 2D.
• After the move, the Lingayat quota increased from 5 to 7 per cent, and the Vokkaliga quota from 4 to 6 per cent.
• The Supreme court observed that the changes made were “shaky and flawed”.
• The Chairman of the Backward Classes Commission handed findings of the Karnataka Social, Economic and Caste Survey report to the government in February this year.

Table 2: Quota matrix proposed by BJP government, currently stalled in court
CATEGORY		QUOTA
Other Backward Classes (OBC)		32
Category 1	Backward Castes	4
Category 2A	Other Backward Classes	15
Category 2B	Muslims	–
Category 2C	Vokkaliga, etc.*	6+
Category 2D	Lingayat, etc.*	7+
Scheduled Castes (SC)		17
Scheduled Tribes (ST)		7
Economically Weaker Sections (EWS)*		4
TOTAL RESERVATIONS		66
*The proposal includes redistributing 6% EWS quota between Lingayats and Vokkaligas

Current status:

• Currently only 16 Lingayat sub-castes who are considered “very backward” are provided reservations under the OBC quota for central government jobs and college administrations.

Important articles for reference :

Lingayats and Vokkalingas

Lingayat and Veershaivism

Survey of OBCs

OBC reservation in India

Sources:

• https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-politics/panchamasali-lingayats-quota-9471488/
• https://theprint.in/politics/who-are-panchamasali-lingayats-why-theyre-so-important-in-karnataka-politics/1278958/

PRACTICE QUESTION Q. Reservation is crucial to rectify past and historical injustice against backward classes in India. However, the politics of reservation has rendered the main purpose of the reservation policy ineffective in present day India. Critically discuss. (250 Words)