Thorough study of BCs in Telangana State underway

The Telangana government under K Chandrashekar Rao has laid special focus on the welfare and accessibility to the development opportunities for the BCs in the state as a part of ushering in a Golden Telangana. He has in fact closely gone by the word ‘inclusion’ for the BCs.

The first Commission in the State of Telangana on BCs was asked to comprehensively re-examine the issues and status related to BCs, MBCs and other nomadic people in order to draw a meaningful roadmap of welfare schemes to mitigate their poverty and economic distress.

When KCR addressed the first meeting of the BC Commission, he spelt out his dream and vision to uplift these communities; in other words, his vision for the BCs became the guiding point for the working agenda of the Commission. Increased political representation of these communities, the CM felt, would enhance the quality of their public participation and social status.

Before 1956, there were about 60 in Telangana and 80 communities in Andhra belonging to Backward Castes. Without properly considering the scientific basis of backwardness of these castes in the year 1963, the Government of AP issued a GO No. 1861, allocating reservations for the BCs in the professional colleges, which was challenged in the High Court, arguing that the order violated the Articles 19 and 29 (2) of the Constitution.

The honorable court agreed with it and set aside the said GO. The court had made critical remarks that the issue of economic backwardness related to the individuals and not to the caste.

Following the outcome of judgment, the government announced in 1964 that the existing list of BCs stood cancelled through GO no. 301 and at the same time, it decided to appoint a Cabinet Sub-Committee for a fresh list of BCs based on poverty, education and housing parameters.

By July 1966, the government came out with another fresh list of 112 Backward Castes to make provision for the reservation in the professional colleges. Again, the decision was challenged in the court of law and the High Court again quashed the order, citing the unscientific approach to the issue of reservation. The Supreme Court too defended the decision of High Court in 1968 when the matter had reached it.

In the wake of these setbacks, the Government of AP in 1968 officially announced the formation of the first ever BC Commission under the Chairmanship of Justice Manohar Parivar and within a year, he resigned from the Commission. K N Anatha Raman succeeded him and submitted its findings, recommendations and opinions to the government in 1970.

The Commission had forcefully recommended for the categorisation of the castes in terms of backwardness and reservations for them in education and employment. In 1982, K Muralidhara Rao Commission made some far-reaching recommendations such as to increase of BCs reservation quota from 25% to 44% and strongly argued for reservations in the Constitutional bodies.

It even suggested the Articles of 15 and 16 could be made use of, to bring a positive change and pitched for an administrative tribunal for effective operationalisation. However, the succeeding government did not show much interest for effective implementation.

Against the background of these developments, the present commission decided to study the framework of the earlier Commissions, policies and recommendations and, along with the Kelkar, Mandal, Ambareesh Commissions, it is also seriously evaluating the practices and policies of the Commissions of other States in India in order to standardize the identify and methods of categorization and appropriate protocols to be established with an intent to acquire complete scientificity of its functionality and recommendations.

The Commission has been closely following the activities of BC Commission of Karnataka State, especially its house to house survey. Members of the TS State BC Commission have undertaken a trip to Karnataka and interacted with the Members and other officials to gain first-hand experience about the Survey.

The Government of Karnataka constituted the BC Commission with new members and chairman in 2014. It asked the Commission to undertake a Comprehensive Household Survey to determine the status of backwardness based on income, educational accomplishments and economic status. To facilitate the process, the government amended the Act of BC Commission and bestowed powers on the authority to undertake the ‘Survey’; besides this, Rs 193 crores were allocated with 1.6 lakh teachers as special enumerators.

This has helped the Commission to overcome any political or legal hurdles as ‘special orders’ were issued in this regard. One should appreciate the efforts of the Government of Karnataka for its farsightedness.

The Government of Karnataka has taken note of the observation made by the Honorable Supreme Court in the case of Indra Sahani (1992) with regard to Comprehensive Family Survey based on certain determined factors and thereafter volume of reservations.

It has not only followed but also adopted the methodology and practices of Census of India such as design of survey pro-forma, selection of enumerators and training modules to its proposed BC Status Survey.

It gathered the details of 1.31 crore families through the ‘Survey Instrument’ and entrusted the job of computerisation and data models to Bengaluru-based PSU, BEL. Such kind of survey requires political commitment and vision of the ruling class. District Collectors and other PR officials were designated as nodal officers of the survey only to enhance the quality and scope of the survey.

Proactive stand of the commission there with full back-up of the government has in fact drawn the attention of the TS BC Commission. The process, challenges, efforts, analyses and outcomes for the Karnataka panel offer ‘Learnings and Lessons’ for us.

Apart from this, the Commission has been constantly interacting with the intellectuals and social scientists on the policy framework. In the same way, the Commission holds discussions with the leaders of MBC and other Nomadic Castes to understand their arguments, status and concerns of them with a view to accommodating them in the policy framework.

The Commission is closely following the reports and recommendations of various Committees on Nomadic Castes to strengthen its formulations towards them. This kind of direct exposure to the domain knowledge has never taken place and the Commission follows the spirit of Supreme Court Judgment (SC 1375) in this regard.

The findings of the Integrated Family Survey which has taken place under the leadership of KCR immensely benefited the Commission. It could understand the social dynamics and roots of backwardness of nearly 52 per cent of the population who belonged to BCs. The Commission is in fact collaborating with ICSSR, CESS and other academic institutions.

The Commission would therefore interrogate the question of backwardness vis-à-vis the performance castes or dependent castes, de-notified tribes, nomadic castes and other bottom-line or unrepresented castes.

KCR while thanking the Governor for the speech delivered in the Assembly reiterated that his government was committed to seeing the happiness and glow on the faces of BCs and informed the House that the BC welfare was his top priority. Such words inspire and guide the deliveries of the Commission. (Writer is a Member of the Telangana State Commission for Backward Classes)

By Dr Anjaneyagoud