Telangana’s CBI Challenges Quota Politics

Each of the 242 castes (133 BCs, 59 SCs, 32 STs and 18 General) was scored on 42 wide-ranging parameters — from daily-wage work and English-medium schooling to toilet access, irrigated land, and discrimination at places of worship — producing a “relative backwardness” score using a quartile distribution. For context, the Mandal Commission used only 11 parameters in its 1980 report. The analysis empirically proves what has long been believed to be true. SCs and STs are three times, and BCs 2.7 times, more backward than the “General” castes. Not all oppressed castes are equally oppressed, and there is now objective, scientific evidence of this truism.

Among the 133 BCs, 69 are more backward than the state average, while 64 are better off. Similarly, 18 of the 59 SC castes and seven of the 32 ST groups are better than the state average. But they represent a tiny share of the total population. In terms of population, 99 per cent of STs, 97 per cent of SCs and 71 per cent of BCs are more backward than the state average.

The biggest determinant of backwardness is not land or asset ownership but access to English and private education. The backward castes of Gouds, Goldsmiths and Christians rank low in land ownership but high in private education. On the flip side, Lambadi tribals and the Mudiraj and Valmiki backward castes rank high in irrigated land but low in private education, and remain more backward. Backwardness is a conflation of factors — from the curse of the birth lottery to the place of birth to living standards.

The report also overturns the refrain that “poverty is the only caste”. Poor (< Rs 1 lakh annual income) General Caste children access private education eight times more than equally poor SC and ST children. Pick four equally poor households from each broad caste group, and the gap in their CBI scores mirrors that of four richer households from each. Caste also travels with people. Urban and rural Telangana show similar gaps in CBI scores across castes. Urban migration may buy a better toilet and a private school seat, but not membership in social networks.

Nearly 12 lakh (3.4 per cent) identified as “casteless” — but expectedly, 90 per cent live in the Greater Hyderabad region, work in government or private professional jobs, and own homes and cars at rates significantly higher than the state average. Caste-blindness is the privilege and prerogative of those who have climbed the caste ladder.

The CBI’s sharpest contribution is what it reveals within caste groups long treated as categorical units. SC Malas rank near the state average in education, occupation and living standards, while SC Madigas rank near the bottom in all three. Shaik Muslims, the state’s second largest population group, are 50 per cent more backward than General Caste Muslims. The Mudiraj BCs outnumber the Padmasali and Munnurkapu BCs combined in population and are 1.5 times more backward.

The Expert Group also analysed beneficiaries of Telangana’s welfare schemes: 30 per cent of benefits flow to those who may not need them. In farm schemes, 15 per cent of beneficiaries are from General Castes while only 12 per cent are SCs, despite SCs being three times more deprived and more numerous.

With the idea of a CBI, the time is ripe to move to a social justice paradigm of “share proportional to backwardness”. Rather than the government filling the “social justice well” with “water (resources)” for all marginalised groups alike, a data-based framework can deliver that water through a “social justice tap” directly into each caste.

Chakravarty was the convenor of the Expert Group of Telangana Caste Census and co-author of the report