On Wednesday (24th April), the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) criticized the Congress-led Karnataka government’s decision to classify the Muslim community as a backward caste for reservation purposes, claiming that it undermines the ‘principle of social justice’. The commission said socially and educationally backward castes or communities cannot be treated at par with an entire religion.
According to the national commission, the move by the Siddaramaiah-led administration undermined the rights of other Backward Classes. Also, in an election rally in Rajasthan’s Tonk on Tuesday (23rd April), Prime Minister Modi said that the Congress party in the state had tried to extend reservation to Muslims out of the Dalit quota. The PM also accused the party of hatching a deep conspiracy to snatch people’s wealth and distribute it among the minorities.
Amid this, the Alt News Co-founder Mohammed Zubair who has a history of spreading misinformation posted a social media statement blaming the Janata Dal (Secular) and the BJP for implementing the OBC quota for Muslims in Karnataka in the first place.
“It was the Deve Gowda government in 1995 that implemented the OBC quota for Muslims in Karnataka, the issue which is being raked up by PM Modi. Interestingly, Deve Gowda’s JDS is now an ally of the BJP-led NDA,” he said in a post.
Zubair, as usual, tried to blame the Deve Gowda government for implementing the Muslims reservation in the state but forgot to mention the fact that it was introduced first by the Congress govt led by Veerappa Moily who was Chief Minister of Karnataka till December 1994. In January 2024, Moily himself confessed that he was the state CM when the Muslims got the reservations.
According to Moily, Muslims were granted 6% reservation under OBC Category 2B in July 1994, based on the Reddy Commission’s recommendations. Moily stated that when the Supreme Court set a 50% reserve cap, an order was issued in September 1994 that granted Muslims a 4% quota.
However, Zubair later agreed to the fact further posting that it was Congress who introduced the reservation but the same was implemented by the Deve Gowda government after he came to power in the year 1994.
Here’s what we all need to know about the Muslim reservation in Karnataka
The saga began in the year 1995 when Congress leader Veerappa Moily was the Chief Minister of the state. The decision to give reservations to the Muslims was based on the recommendations issued by the O Chinnappa Reddy Commission. The commission suggested grouping Muslims in Category 2 under the OBC list.
Following this, the Veerappa Moily-led Congress administration established a 6% reservation in Category 2B, known as “More Backward,” for Muslims, Buddhists, and Scheduled Caste converts to Christianity by orders dated the 20th of April and the 25th of April 1994.
Muslims were allocated 4% of the quota, while Buddhists and SCs who converted to Christianity received 2%. The reservation was intended to go into effect on 24th October 1994. However, the reservation was challenged before the Supreme Court. On 9th September 1994, an interim ruling was issued requiring the Karnataka government to limit total reservations to 50%, including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and OBCs.
In the meanwhile, the Congress government led by Veerappa Moily then experienced a political crisis and the govt fell on 11th December 1994, before enforcing the directive.
HD Deve Gowda then became the Chief Minister on 11th December 1994 and on 14th February 1995, he executed the previous government’s quota order with revisions based on the Supreme Court’s interim ruling. SCs who converted to Christianity and Buddhism, previously categorized as 2B, were reclassified as 1 and 2A, respectively, in the same sequence. The 2B quota protected 4% of seats in educational institutions and state government jobs for Muslims.
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In the year 2023, when the BJP government was in power, it scrapped the 4% reservation given to the Muslims in the year 1994 and instead increased the existing quota of Vokkaligas and Lingayats by 2% each. The religious minorities were then brought under the category of Economic Weaker Section (EWS) and allotted a 10% quota to the religious minorities without any condition.
Gowda appeased the Muslims while the BJP made efforts to abolish the unconstitutional quota
Gowda in an attempt to appease the Muslims back then implemented the quota introduced by the Congress but that does not allow him to take the entire ‘credit’ as claimed by Moily. Both, the Congress and the JD(S) intend to restore Muslim reservations in the state of Karnataka while BJP has been the only one to abolish the same. During the recent state elections, Congress promised that it would get back the reservation for Muslims once it came back to power. Similarly, Gowda in the year 2023 had said that though he maintains good relations with PM Modi, he would restore the reservation for Muslims once JD(S) comes back to power.
Given this, it cannot be denied that Gowda in an attempt to appease the Muslim community granted the 4% reservation for Muslims in the state that stayed the same unit the year 2023.
The state also proposed the abolition of the 4% quota for Muslims in the Supreme Court saying that it was unconstitutional to provide reservation to any community on the basis of the religion. The lawyer representing the state also argued that a section of Muslims were already getting reservations under the Other Backward Class (OBC) category. The apex court then had said that there would be no stay on scrapping the reservation quota for Muslims though the foundation of the state’s decision-making process was ‘shaky and flawed’.
How Muslims got categorized under the category of OBCs?
Going back to the 20th century, a ‘Non-Brahmin’ movement had begun to emerge in the princely kingdom of Mysore. In 1916, different representatives, primarily from the Vokkaliga and Lingayat clans, addressed the then-Maharaja of Mysore, Sri Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV. In 1918, the Maharaja formed a commission chaired by Justice Miller, Chief Judge of the Chief Court of Mysore, to discuss how to expand non-Brahmin representation in Mysore state services. In 1921, based on the committee’s recommendations, the Maharaja of Mysore implemented a reservation policy in favor of various non-Brahmin Hindu communities, notably the prominent Vokkaligas and Lingayats, as well as Muslims.
However, it is worth noting that the committee’s recommendations could only be implemented after Bharat Ratna M Visvesvaraya (Sir MV), Mysore’s visionary Dewan, resigned from office. Sir MV was a firm believer in meritocracy and supported the establishment of schools and other methods to uplift the backward classes rather than reservations. Sir MV, for his part, believed that the Maharaja was trying to appease the non-Brahmin leaders. As a result of this Non-Brahmin agitation, the Muslims of the former Mysore state, now known as the ‘Old Mysore Region’ in Karnataka, were granted reservations.
Following the establishment of the Constitution, the reservation regime that existed in Old Mysore was discontinued. Muslims were awarded reservation in the state of Mysore in Independent India for the first time in 1962, on the proposal of the R. Nagana Gowda Commission. This was accomplished through an executive decree that added some castes among Muslims to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list. This was followed by many rounds of litigation in both the High Court of Karnataka and the Supreme Court, intermingled with reports from three commissions: the Havanur Commission, the Vekataswamy Commission, and the O Chinappa Reddy Commission.
Meanwhile, due to the linguistic rearrangement of states, the larger state of Karnataka was established in 1971. While the litigation was inconclusive, the board of commissioners recommended Muslim reservations. Muslims were classified as category II (B) of restricted communities in 1994, with a 6% quota. Following the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Mandal Commission case, all OBC quotas were reduced to a total of 27%. Thus, the Muslim quota was reduced to 4% in 1995, a figure that remained unchanged since then until the year 2023.
Muslim quota and its categorization
The Karnataka government had established several categories to provide reservation privileges among the Other Backward Classes. The categories were I, II(A), II(B), III(A), and III(B). Each of these categories included a number of castes and received a share of the reservation benefits. The government updates the list of castes covered in each category from time to time. Until 2023, category II (B) consisted solely of Muslims and received 4% of the total 32% reservation allowed to Other Backward Classes in Karnataka.
However, the BJP in 2023 declared that Category II (B) would be eliminated and two new categories, i.e. II(C), II(D) would be added instead. The 4% quota previously available to II (B) was then distributed among the newly designated II(C) and II(D) categories. II(C) now includes several Vokkaliga castes and has 6% reservation (2% from the abolished II(B) and 4% otherwise) and II (D) includes diverse castes within the Lingayat fold and receives 7% of overall reservation (2% from the abolished II(B) and 5% otherwise).
In essence, the quota previously allocated to Muslims was divided between the Vokkaliga and Lingayat caste groups. However, though no stay was issued by the Supreme Court over the scrapping of the 4% reservation to the Muslims, it is difficult to explain whether this was implemented on the ground or not as Congress took over the reigns immediately after Bommai scrapped the quota in 2023. Also, the matter was stayed by the SC before it stood pending before the Constitution bench in the year 2023
Is it right to restore the 4% quota to Muslims in Karnataka?
After court cases challenged reservation to non-SC or ST categories, amendments were made to the Constitution, including Articles 15 and 16. Article 15 prohibited discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. However, clause (4) was added to it which allowed special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes, including Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
As a result, a community desiring reservation but not falling under the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe categories became known to be a “Socially and Educationally Backward Class”. Notably, the Indian Government, State Governments, and Judiciary have long argued that certain castes, including Muslims and Christians, constitute a Socially and Educationally Backward Class. This position was echoed by the Mandal Commission, leading to many non-Hindu groups being granted reservations.
The National Commission for Backward Classes also earlier suggested that Muslim communities are not socially homogenous, with many groups enjoying high social status, contradicting claims of socially and educationally backward castes within the Muslim community. At present, it has decided to summon Karnataka CM over the Muslim OBC quota.
Thus, the inescapable conclusion from these considerations is that reservation in favor of Muslims en masse violates the right to equality guaranteed by Articles 14, 15, and 16 of the Constitution.
Furthermore, the Karnataka Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (Reservation of Appointments, etc.) Act of 1990 defines “Other Backward Class” as “the communities, castes, and tribes notified by the State Government from time to time under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution.” This makes it abundantly evident that the idea of a 4% quota for Muslims in general violates not just the Indian Constitution, but also Karnataka State legislation.
Conclusion
The Congress government clearly needs to take into consideration the state legislature and the Indian Constitution before making any efforts to restore the 4% reservation to the Muslims. The Congress continues to accuse the BJP and Prime Minister of violating India’s constitution. However, what it is doing in the state of Karnataka is not just a violation, but it is also harming the rights of the actual members who are economically and socially disadvantaged and who require this reservation more than what the Muslims have been receiving for the previous ten years. Some sections of the Muslim community however continue to get benefits under the reservation allotted to OBCs. Congress should consider whether others with high social positions should be classified as OBC solely for reservation purposes.
