In Karnataka, BJP’s Dalit outreach banks on policy, perception

The Dalits constitute about 24% of the state’s population across 101 caste groups

Every place in Karnataka that Dr B R Ambedkar visited in his lifetime will be identified and developed. Not just that, mutts and institutions belonging to the Scheduled Castes will get special government support. Many new hostels and an entrepreneurship scheme backed by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bengaluru for Scheduled Castes are in the works.

These are just some of the announcements Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai made in the 2022-23 Karnataka Budget earlier this month. The announcement is in line with the BJP’s ongoing attempts to create a support base among the Dalits, cashing in on the split among Scheduled Castes created during the 2018 assembly polls in the State.

The Dalits constitute about 24 per cent of the state’s population across 101 caste groups.

The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government’s re-election in Uttar Pradesh has given the saffron party’s unit in Karnataka some confidence that the party can rely on the Dalits.

“After the UP election, the SCs are on the fence,” Kollegal legislator N Mahesh says. “And, I’m trying to make them go with the BJP.” Mahesh won the 2018 Assembly polls to become the lone BSP MLA in Karnataka. He joined the BJP last year after being expelled by the BSP. “In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, we have the examples of Kolar and Chamarajanagar seats,” Mahesh says, referring to consolidation of Dalit votes in the BJP’s favour. “In the Old Mysuru region, the majority Dalits are the Holeyas whereas the Kalyana Karnataka and Central Karnataka regions are dominated by the Madigas. There’s been major improvement for the BJP.”

Traditionally, the SCs in Karnataka are seen as divided into two groups: Dalit Left and Dalit Right.

The Dalit Left, who identify with former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram, claim that the Dalit Right, despite being small in number, bag most of the reservation benefits. The Dalit Left’s demand for implementation of internal reservation among Scheduled Castes, as recommended by the Justice AJ Sadashiva Commission, remains unfulfilled. This anger turned against the Congress in 2018.

The result: Out of the 36 assembly segments reserved for Dalits, the BJP ended up winning 17.

The BJP has been looking to break the Congress’ hold on the Ahinda, a Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits.

There is a perception that the Congress has neglected the Dalit Right – Rajya Sabha MP Mallikarjun Kharge and former deputy CM G Parameshwara belong to this sect. The BJP has cashed in on this by promoting the likes of Union Minister A Narayanaswamy, Water Resources Minister Govind Karjol and MP Ramesh Jigajinagi, who are Dalit Left.

Also read: Shifting caste dynamics

A massive imaging effort is being done by the BJP. Take the 2020 Bengaluru riots for example. The BJP projected the riots as an attack on a Dalit legislator and the Congress’ ‘failure’ to back him, a plan helmed by BJP national general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh. The Congress’ Pulakeshinagar MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, whose house was gutted in the violence, belongs to the Bhovi community.

There are Dalit voters in almost all 224 Assembly constituencies. “But, Dalit votes are decisive in at least 60-70 seats,” Kudachi legislator P Rajeev says. It is because of this spread that the likes of Rajeev are trying to unify Dalits. “The whole ‘right vs left’ is a Congress creation,” says Rajeev, a former police sub-inspector, who is seen as a rising star in the BJP. “We’re saying that the native Hindus are Dalits.”

Bommai himself is banking on some policy interventions to woo the Dalits.

In the new fiscal, the BJP government is tweaking the Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (SCSP-TSP) that has an outlay of Rs 28,234 crore. “Earlier, salaries were included in the outlay. We’ve kept salaries out now, which means SC/STs will get more funds,” Rajeev points out.

But, there’s a lot of work still to do, according to Mahesh, who says that addressing the identity problem suffered by the Dalits will not be enough.

“The government will get sympathy from the SCs if the Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands Act is amended,” he says. “Also, the SCSP-TSP needs to do away with the ‘deemed expenditure’ clause, which will prevent SC/ST money from diversion.”

The Hijab controversy has come handy for the BJP to further break the Ahinda. And, it can be used to bring voters under the Hindutva fold, which worked well in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. “One section of Dalits will be with the BJP and another won’t. There’s ambiguity,” political scientist Muzaffar Assadi, the arts dean at University of Mysore, says. Karnataka is still caste-ridden, Assadi says, and that makes the BJP’s plan to bring voters under the Hindutva umbrella difficult.

“There are three phases for that to happen,” Assadi explains. “The first phase deals with caste identity. The second phase involves moving away from the caste identity. The third phase is Hindutva,” he says. “And, we’re still in the first phase.”

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