The Madigas of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are elated over a historic victory. The community’s three-decade struggle for reservation, led by the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), came to fruition on August 1 when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of subcategorisation of the Scheduled Castes (SCs). The judgment, which establishes that SCs are not a homogeneous unit, will pave the way for a carve-out within the current 15 per cent quota for SCs in the Telugu-speaking States.
The MRPS originated as a mass movement in undivided Andhra Pradesh to fight for the rightful share of Madigas with respect to reservation in government jobs, educational seats, and other social welfare initiatives. MRPS founder Manda Krishna Madiga hailed the verdict as a triumph and is now working to get the two States to implement the order swiftly.
Malas and Madigas are two prominent sub-castes among the 60 communities in the SC list in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. According to the 2011 Census, of Telangana’s SC population of 54.32 lakh, Madigas constitute 32.33 lakh and Malas 15.27 lakh. In Andhra Pradesh, the corresponding figures for Madigas and Malas are 34.68 lakh and 40.43 lakh in an SC population of 84.45 lakh. (Some Mala leaders claim that their numbers are undercounted.)
Malas have enjoyed a relative edge over Madigas and others with regard to their economic and social conditions. The MRPS fought against the monolithic grouping of SCs and demanded rationalisation of reservation to ensure a more equitable share among communities. “Madigas faced a kind of twin exclusion, first by the mainstream society and then within the reservation category (SC). The disproportionate access enjoyed by Malas to welfare measures further deprived Madigas. Thus, the MRPS’ logic was historically and empirically valid,” said Adapa Satyanarayana, a former professor in the history department at Osmania University in Telangana. He is the author of Noorendla Dalita Charitra, which documents 100 years of Dalit history in Andhra Pradesh.
Historically, Madigas have faced greater disadvantages because of their stigmatised occupations (leather work, manual scavenging) and because they were predominantly located in the landlocked Rayalaseema and Telangana regions. The Malas, mainly living along coastal Andhra Pradesh, were primarily engaged in agricultural labour. Empirical data submitted in courts in the past show that Malas got a disproportionate share in educational institutions, government services, representation in the Assembly and Parliament, and so on. Consequently, Madigas remained under-represented in all spheres.
However, the issue goes beyond different occupations and a disproportionate share of benefits. In villages where both Malas and Madias reside, they live in separate settlements called Malapalle and Madigapalle (palle means hamlet), said Krishna Madiga.
‘Hierarchy within Dalit groups’
In a March 2000 article titled “A Tangled Web: Subdivision of SC Reservations in AP” in Economic & Political Weekly, K. Balagopal, a lawyer and founder of the Human Rights Forum, noted that there existed “a miniature hierarchy within the Dalits that puts the Malas on the upper rungs of the ladder (to use Ambedkar’s felicitous metaphor) and the Madigas down below. The Madigas are outcastes for the Malas, just as there are castes even lower than the Madigas that are outcastes for the Madigas.”
The demand for Madiga subcategorisation began in the 1970s, even before the MRPS was formed in 1994. The cause resonated across other disadvantaged SC communities. Krishna Madiga began his activism fighting discrimination in his village in the early 1980s in Warangal. He and his young friends who routinely confronted the oppressor castes got the support of the People’s War Group (PWG), a naxalite faction.
“Back then, some of us were attracted to the PWG because they backed us,” Krishna Madiga told Frontline. The association ended when he and a few others chose to fight for Madiga rights in a non-violent manner. “We decided to take up a democratic and constitutional fight,” he said.
Highlights
- The Supreme Court ruled in favor of subcategorisation of SCs, paving the way for a carve-out within the current 15 per cent quota for SCs in Telugu-speaking States.
- Malas and Madigas are two prominent sub-castes in the SC list in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Historically, Madigas faced greater disadvantages due to stigmatised occupations.
- The demand for Madiga subcategorisation began in the 1970s, but it got a fillip with the formation of the MRPS in 1994. The movement successfully galvanised the Madiga community and the subgroups.
The year 1985 marked a pivotal shift in Dalit politics in Andhra Pradesh. On July 17, 1985, dominant Kamma caste men killed six Dalit men and raped three women in Karamchedu village in Baptla district. Hundreds of villagers were displaced. In response, the Dalit Maha Sabha (DMS) was formed. “But overwhelmingly, the DMS leadership was a Mala one. As the DMS emerged and continued to grow, the internal divisions and tensions did not get enough attention. That distance continued in the social and political articulation of the Madiga community,” said Professor K. Srinivasulu, emeritus professor of political science at Osmania University.
In the 1990s, fissures widened when SC subcategorisation emerged as a significant issue. After that, there was no single Dalit movement; it was split into a Madiga movement and a Mala movement, he said.
The Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) electoral foray into Andhra Pradesh was a watershed moment in the State’s Dalit politics. DMS leaders joined the Dalit party en bloc. The BSP contested 235 of the 294 seats in the Assembly election of December 1994 but forfeited deposits in all but one seat. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) won the 1994 election under the leadership of N.T. Rama Rao (NTR).
Madiga dandora
But even before the election, Krishna Madiga and others had floated the MRPS. The movement successfully galvanised the Madiga community and the subgroups. The beating of the Madiga dandora (leather drum) evoked a great response among the masses. The dandora went beyond the urban educated classes to reach even remote villages.
It is not as if there were no divisions within the MRPS. “Of course, internal politics was always there. The upper castes and opponents of the MRPS tried to create cleavages by saying that within Madigas, there are differentiations, that other depressed communities were not represented, and so on. There did exist a level of differentiation, but that doesn’t mean Madigas are a privileged group,” said Satyanarayana. As expected, the principal opposition to the MRPS came from Malas.
Within a year of assuming power, NTR’s son-in-law Nara Chandrababu Naidu launched a coup and took charge of the party. He attempted to woo Madigas into the TDP fold. The MRPS had gained critical mass by then and, according to Srinivasulu, supporting Madigas and their subcategorisation demand was a political gesture by Naidu to gain favour among Dalits since the TDP was considered a patron of the Kammas and the Backward Classes.
The MRPS’ association with the TDP did yield results. In 1996, Naidu appointed the Justice P. Ramachandra Raju Commission to look into the differential benefits of reservation accruing to Mala and Madiga sub-castes and to recommend the need for categorisation of SCs for equal distribution of reservation benefits. On the basis of its recommendation, in 1997, Naidu brought in a Government Order apportioning the 15 per cent SC quota into four categories. The High Court struck this down, stating that the government had not consulted the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes before acting.
In his second term as Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh (1999-2004), Naidu passed the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2000, which split the SC reservation benefits among four subgroups. The attempt to subcategorise SCs got caught in a legal mess again. While the High Court upheld the Act, the Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional in November 2004.
In June 2005, Krishna Madiga undertook a long march (one of the many the MRPS undertook to mobilise the masses), walking over 1,500 km from Bengaluru to Hyderabad, demanding that the then Chief Minister, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, put pressure on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre to introduce a Bill in Parliament regarding subcategorisation.
The Congress’ relationship with the MRPS was rocky, mainly because of its own wavering approach to subcategorisation. In the UPA’s second term, the Manmohan Singh government appointed the Justice Usha Mehra Commission in 2007. The commission favoured subcategorisation and recommended a constitutional amendment. Between 2007 and 2010, Krishna Madiga announced a “fast until death” thrice, first to bring attention to the issue, then to demand the submission of the commission’s report, and the third time to demand a Bill in Parliament. The Congress did not table a Bill.
A protest in New Delhi by Mala Mahanadu activists in September 2023 against the subcategorisation of the Scheduled Castes. | Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
Krishna Madiga has had only one agenda: accomplishing subcategorisation. Time and again he aligned with any party that promised to fulfil the goal. Ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, some BJP candidates apparently promised subcategorisation of SCs within 100 days of coming to power, but nothing happened. After nearly a decade of inaction, the MRPS intensified its protests in 2022.
On November 11, 2023, Krishna Madiga shared a stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Hyderabad and urged him to address their 30-year-old struggle for social justice. Accusing the Congress and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (in Telangana) of making empty promises, he said the community would stand by Modi.
“The Congress didn’t address our demands when it was a ruling party and didn’t raise them in Parliament when it was an opposition party. We supported them [the BJP] because even as an opposition party [ahead of the 2014 election], they offered to stand by us,” said Krishna Madiga. In the recent Lok Sabha election, the Congress did not field a single Madiga leader from Telangana or Andhra Pradesh.
Krishna Madiga’s acceptance of the BJP thus does not come as a surprise. Most supporters of the MRPS in civil society find it unsettling, but are sympathetic to the factors that have pushed Krishna Madiga to align with the BJP.
On its part, the BJP has been trying to use the fissures within various marginalised castes (SCs, STs, and BCs) to further its presence in Telangana politics. Its attempts paid off, and the BJP won eight Assembly seats and eight Lok Sabha seats in that State in the recent elections.
The BJP, too, had soft-pedalled the issue for 10 years until the State election neared in Telangana in 2023. Individual leaders from Telangana, including G. Kishan Reddy, supported the demand. “As a pragmatic politician, Krishna Madiga had to acknowledge the role played by the BJP leadership. But that doesn’t mean the BJP is a champion of Madigas or Dalits,” said Satyanarayana.
Movement against subcategorisation
Naidu has welcomed the Supreme Court verdict, even as his party’s ally BJP has refrained from offering a formal comment except about the “creamy layer” issue. Meanwhile, as the Congress (at the national level) is deliberating on the judgment, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has announced that the State will be the first one to implement subcategorisation. However, the process might not be as smooth as the States hope. G.V. Harsha Kumar, a Mala leader and former MP from the Congress, has launched a movement against subcategorisation and warned of severe agitation if the Telugu States implement it.
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Experts say it could worsen the existing fault lines between Malas and Madigas. There is potential for exploitation of such cleavages by privileged castes, as has been seen historically. Some Mala activists say that the empirical evidence available is too outdated to make a correct assessment of the situation. Even those who see merit in the grievances of the MRPS call the movement a ploy to divide Dalits and they recommend other measures to support Madigas. Krishna Madiga argues that there is no unity among the communities anyway but that the possibility of clashes reduces when each has its “rightful share”.
Srinivasulu believes that the problem lies in the fact that neither the Dalit leadership nor any political leadership of any hue has the political acumen to bring the contending communities to the table and arrive at a consensus.
Meanwhile, the Telangana Congress unit has asserted that it will not oppose subcategorisation. Health Minister Damodar Raja Narasimha is heading a committee tasked with drafting the legislation. For now, the primary concern for the States is to find a rational way to implement the subcategorisation ruling.
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