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Sent: Thursday, 14 May, 2009 0:33:37
Subject: [india-unity] Caste and Electoral Choice..Karnataka
Date:13/05/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/05/13/stories/2009051353511100.htm Back
Opinion - News Analysis
Caste and electoral choice: the Karnataka case
Parvathi Menon and S. Bageshree
The notion of a caste or community voting en bloc is one that is well entrenched in most political and election analyses. In the context of Karnataka this is often applied to the voting choice of the two communities Lingayats and Vokkaligas. Politicians and pundits alike often speak of the "Vokkaliga vote" in southern Karnataka, and the "Lingayat vote" in parts of central and northern Karnataka as holding the key to the electoral performance of a party or candidate.
This notion supports, for example, the current wisdom that the Lingayat 'vote bank' has voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party in these elections. It also appears to underlie the Congress strategy in the prestigious Bangalore South constituency where the party fielded a Vokkaliga in the belief that he would have weaned the 'Vokkaliga vote' away from the BJP's Brahmin candidate.
The theory that Lingayats and Vokkaligas constitute a 'vote-bank' is based on three erroneous assumptions. The first is that they are a numerical majority in certain districts of the State. Secondly, members of these communities vote only for a community candidate. Third, a non-Vokkaliga or non-Lingayat cannot win from a constituency in which one of these groups dominates without getting the community vote. In other words, the two communities are internally undifferentiated and the primary identity marker of their members is caste.
Although in specific contexts in India communities have collectively voted in favour of a party or candidate, the assumption that they constitute a 'vote-bank' does not consider the complex social process that drives voting choices. Even for categories such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and religious groups like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and so on, where population data is available, assumptions of uniform voting preferences of these groups are untenable. In respect of groups like Vokkaligas and Lingayats, where there is no reliable population data, the assumption of a uniform voting behaviour is even more misleading and over-simplified.
There is no dependable data on the numerical strength and distribution of castes in Karnataka. The last caste-based door-to-door census was conducted by the British in 1931 and a proposal to conduct another such exercise has been hanging fire for almost five years now.
After Independence the first attempt to enumerate castes in the State was by L.G. Havanur, chairperson of the first Karnataka Backward Classes Commission, whose report was submitted to the State government in 1975. Using a sample survey of villages and pre-Independence caste census data, he calculated the Lingayat and Vokkaliga population at 14.64 per cent and 11.82 per cent respectively of the total State population.
More recently, the Karnataka Backward Classes Commission extrapolated the figures given in the report of the Second Backward Classes Commission under T. Venkataswamy in 1986 for the year 2001, putting the population of Lingayats at 15.42 per cent and Vokkaligas at 10.64 per cent respectively of the State's population.
These figures though estimates would nevertheless suggest that the Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities are much smaller than what political parties and community leaders project. Yet the fiction that they are a numerically decisive force is the basis for electoral calculations by parties while fielding candidates. Mainstream parties cynically perpetuate this myth because of the social and economic clout of these communities and their ability to finance and mobilise support during elections. The end result is that they have a much larger political presence than their numbers warrant.
Out of the 19 Chief Ministers in Karnataka since Independence, seven have been Lingayat and five Vokkaliga, a telling indicator of their dominance in politics.
The two communities have had a significant representation in the Lok Sabha and the state assembly. Table shows the numbers of Lingayat and Vokkaliga MPs returned from the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in the last four elections. Lingayats have been the single largest caste grouping.
If the population size of a caste or community automatically gave it a dominant status, Muslims, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes should have had a major representation in politics as they constitute 39 per cent of the population together. Yet as the table shows, the number of MPs from the SC and ST communities has never crossed five. Karnataka had four reserved Lok Sabha constituencies till 2004. In the current elections, there are seven reserved constituencies comprising five SC and two ST, and it remains to be seen how this will change Vokkaliga and Lingayat representation.
A similar community dominance is seen in the Vokkaliga and Lingayat share of seats in the Karnataka Assembly. The 2008 elections, for example, sent 59 MLAs from the Lingayat community and 52 from the Vokkaliga community to the 224-member State Assembly.
The notion of caste-based 'vote-banks' is so entrenched that all parties invariably give ticket to candidates from these communities in areas which are seen as Lingayat or Vokkaliga "pockets," which splits the votes even within the voters of these castes. Clearly, the candidate needs substantial support from outside his/her caste base to win. There are also numerous examples of non-community candidates winning from constituencies that have a "Lingayat-dominated" or "Vokkaliga-dominated" tag, that further gives the lie to the 'vote-bank' theory.
What then are the factors that underlie Lingayat and Vokkaliga dominance in Karnataka politics?
The access of these communities historically to land, education and government jobs; and more recently to the commercial and business opportunities thrown up by economic liberalisation is the basis for their social dominance. Despite hierarchies of class and sub-caste within them, Lingayats and Vokkaligas are bound by complex community ties and obligations. Vokkaligas are present mainly in the Old Mysore region, in districts like Mandya, Hassan, Mysore, Ramanagaram and Bangalore Rural. Lingayats are concentrated in the northern districts but with a fairly even spread in other parts of the State barring the coastal belt and southern districts.
A salient aspect of Lingayat social organisation is the influence wielded by the many powerful religious mutts of the community, whose religious and business affairs remain unregulated by government. Many of them run education empires that profit from capitation fee-based professional colleges. Vokkaligas also have their share of mutts, although they are fewer in number.
In the case of Lingayats, power is both "economical and spiritual," according to former Backward Classes Commission Chairperson Ravivarma Kumar. The power of the mutts extend not only over the Lingayat population, but other communities in a given region as well. "Political parties, cutting across ideological barriers, are known not to give tickets to anyone whom the powerful mutts disapprove of," he says. Both communities own professional colleges, hospitals and other institutions which also add to their economic and political status.
The reluctance of political parties to think beyond the 'vote-bank' framework has helped legitimise the inflated demands by these castes for representation disproportionate to their numerical strength in electoral politics.
This has not only strengthened caste in politics, it has served to choke the growth of alternative political processes based on progressive class-based alliances.
© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu
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