Naheed Ataulla

Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes will commence the socio-educational re-survey from 22 September to 7 October. The Karnataka government notified a fresh socio-educational survey after keeping aside the one done by commission's former chairman H Kantharaj in 2015 and analysed by his successor K Jayaprakash Hegde in 2024, on the grounds that the data was a decade old and decisions by the courts require contemporaneous/recent origin. Commission Chairman Madhusudan R Naik in a conversation with Salar News outlines modalities of the survey. 

From the proposed 90 days, the socio-educational survey has been crunched to 15 days now. Is a fortnight adequate to survey a population of seven crore?

That's a misconception. We were given a window of 90 days to conduct our survey. The 90 days is when the government makes an order. The survey which we are expected to make involves several things other than preparations at the ground level. This requires preparing the questionnaire and identifying who should do the survey which takes about a month and a half.  We have decided the Dasara vacations as the time when the actual fieldwork can be done. Factoring in that, we have started our process, which started much earlier immediately after the cabinet decision on 12 June. 

The survey will be conducted from 22 September to 7 October, when the educational institutions will be closed for Dasara. It is a vacation given to celebrate Dasara which is a state festival with people planning for short holidays.  Can you ensure a 100 per cent fool proof enumeration?

The actual survey will start from 22 September to 7 October, that's when the teachers are on vacation. The whole idea is that a survey should not affect the teaching programme because that is the mandate by the orders of the court. It says you should not take away teaching from the teachers for any kind of work of enumeration even for the census.  Earlier surveys conducted were physical but that won't be anymore. We have the benefit of advancement in technology and will be using devices which captures the entire data and automatically transmits it to the main server. 

There's an estimated household of 1.35 lakh consisting of about seven crore population in the state. Our task is to survey every household and every resident of Karnataka. Hopefully, a surveyor should be able to survey about 8 to 12 households which will involve about 30 to 40 minutes, and given the time frame we should be able to complete that survey. 

We are trying to design a survey which would be pre-notified even before the actual work starts. We will allow online surveys as well.

People who are planning to go out, those who are not likely to be there, to facilitate them—we have also thought of providing an online survey option where they go to the particular website and participate in this survey work. Even thereafter, if somebody misses, we have provided means to contact them.  We’ll be involving clusters or welfare associations in cities like Bengaluru where there are apartment complexes.  

Why was there a lukewarm response from Bengaluru to both the H Kantharaj caste survey and the recent Justice HN Nagamohan Das commission to decide on internal reservations for the Scheduled Castes?    

The Commissions did have some problems in places like Bengaluru during the previous surveys. There was some kind of reluctance or doubts in participating. People were under the impression that it is not for their benefit. The impression was that if the government is surveying for Scheduled Castes to determine some issues between them, why should we be volunteering and participating in this kind of a survey?

Our survey does not involve only identifying the backward classes but covers social, educational, economic, political and employment status of the entire residents of the state. 

Now you may ask why is this data required? The government uses this data in formulation of its policy. Several welfare measures are taken by the government — not necessarily confined to sections of the society but across. 

Teachers have opposed the decision to enlist them as enumerators stating it violates the Right To Education (RTE) Act provisions that their services cannot be used for purposes other than teaching. How do you plan to tackle this issue?

The Right to Education Act is for the betterment of education to the children of a particular age group — 6 to 16 years. We will ensure that not a day or a moment of the teaching program of the students is affected. 

The teachers who have opposed this are under the misconception that RTE is for protection of their rights but court orders have said they are for the students' interests. They are the employees of the state and I’m not saying in any disrespectful manner, (but) the teachers are there to do the service to the state and owe a duty to the society.

The commission has evolved a proposal, a package, which is fairly attractive for them.  We are not ignoring their deprivation of their vacation. The teachers’ vacation will only get deferred. We will convert the days for which they work into earned leave and that earned leave can either be encashed or availed in future. The package is under consultation before the government.

I’m sure once they realise the package which is proposed it should clear their doubts and we should be able to persuade the teachers to join us in this. 

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has asked the Commission to study the socio, economic, political, and educational survey which was done by the Telangana government, which is now considered as the role model for all caste surveys to be done in the future. So, what was Telangana's USP — the unique selling proposition?

Our state's Backward Classes Act provides for assessing the social and educational status of the citizens for giving the benefits under Articles 15 and 16 (of the Constitution). The Supreme Court has held every factor of the backwardness -- social, educational, and financial should be assessed.  

As far as Telangana is concerned, they did not do it under the provisions of the Backward Classes Commission Act of their state. The survey done by the Planning Authority of the state included aspects of employment, political representation and requirements for good governance. Our secretary is visiting Telangana on 28 July, to find out what else, or how best, they have done it. If there's something to be incorporated, we will do so.

You can be rest assured, our survey will be the model in terms of what is being referred to as the Telangana model.  Our data will be available to the government for budgeting, for initiating numerous other issues which go into decision-making and the furtherance of good governance.

Will the results of the Centre's caste enumeration, that has been included in the population census to begin in 2026, override the report of the Karnataka Commission's?

That's a misconception actually. Under the Census Act of 1948, there's no provision for a caste survey. The government can amend the Act and include caste enumeration. The Central government is now planning to invoke Articles 338, 339 and 340 (which empower the President to appoint a Commission to investigate the social and educational conditions of the SCs/STs and backward classes respectively) to include caste enumeration in the population census. Therefore, it's altogether a different work to be done by the census authorities and the survey by the state authority.

This question arose in 1996 in Uttar Pradesh and in Karnataka in 2015, when there were two lists of the Centre and states. The Supreme court has given full authority to states to prepare their lists. Hence there is no conflict and nothing overrides the other.

What is the status of the case pending in the Supreme Court pertaining to the (Basavaraj) Bommai government scrapping the 4 per cent OBC reservation for the Muslims in 2023? Has the Commission taken any steps to get the case vacated as the Bommai government had assured the apex court that the decision will not be implemented after the court called it “`prima facie shaky and flawed?''

I don't have details of the case. The matter is still pending in the court, after the Bommai government gave an undertaking it will abide by the order of 2002. Regarding the scrapping of the 4 per cent reservation, the Muslims were in a particular category and they were pushed down with a limited reservation.  I'm sure the government will bring it to the Supreme Court's notice that all this was unnecessary once fresh data is available.

Reports of all backward classes commissions in the past, from LG Havanur to Venkataswamy to O Chinnappa Reddy to H Kantharaj, were mired in controversies and some rejected. Will these precedents be a deterrent or a challenge to the Commission that yours will be accepted?

Accepting the report or otherwise is left to the government. But since our survey work and the recommendations based on that would be very scientifically evolved, taking note of all the issues that had cropped in the past - court pronouncements and the statutes in the Constitution---, our report is going to be a fair one to be accepted by everybody. I don't see any difficulty in that.

The only issue that disturbs me is that from the beginning there was a recommendation to confine the benefits to all other than the creamy layer. Therefore, certain sections who are termed as the creamy layer in earlier reports had recommended not to accept the reports for political reasons. Our report will be data based and I`m sure the government will take it in the right manner. Confident it will happen.

 Watch the interview on Salar Youtube channel @dailysalardigital

Link: https://youtu.be/nz7zw7HEk2E?si=6JHsmd8p0-f7hvUN