Part 1: Brahmin to Dalit - RSS vision of 'Vedic' society takes root in KCR's Telangana

In the first of a two part series, Business Standard reports how non-Brahmin castes in Telangana are being incentivised to stick to their forefathers' professions

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might want to take note. A couple of years after the BJP successfully emulated Telangana’s landmark Rythu Bandhu scheme and marketed it as a blockbuster election-winning pan-Indian programme for farmers, naming it the PM-KISAN, another experiment consonant with the Sangh’s own vision of an idealistic society seems to be unfolding down south.
 
In the land of Telangana, the last state of North and the first state of South India, whichever way one looks at it, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government, headed by Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (or KCR as he is called) is almost done replicating the Vedic economic model of a varna-driven society where each caste in the state sustains or prospers by continuing the profession of its ancestors. “Unlike in North India, backward castes in Telangana pursue caste-based professions,” lamented KCR recently while justifying his economic policies directed at specific caste groups. KCR was speaking at an event just days before the official launch of a scheme for Dalits that could possibly be the final chip in the Vedic social maze he is trying to piece together in Telangana. 

 
Dalit Bandhu: Millionaire models or model millionaires?
 

In July, the state announced the launch of Dalit Bandhu, a scheme that unarguably is the biggest ever ‘reparation’ to India’s most downtrodden caste in history. The government would provide Rs 10 lakh as a one-time cash transfer to each of the 1.8 million Dalit households in the state. Dalits, who comprise 18 per cent of Telangana’s population, will get the money directly from the government as a grant without the intermediation of banks or financial institutions. Coincidentally or otherwise, the Dalit Bandhu scheme would be launched from Huzurabad, the same constituency from where KCR had launched his historic Rythu Bandhu scheme in 2018. Under Rythu Bandhu, each of the state’s six million farmers was paid Rs 10,000 every year. A bypoll is scheduled to be held in Huzurabad this year after Etala Rajender, an influential minister of the KCR cabinet, was sacked. Rajender subsequently hopped over to the BJP side.

 
Huzurabad is estimated to have 21,000 Dalit families. With every household now being given Rs 10 lakh each, the landmark programme could end up costing Rs 2,100 crore for a single constituency. The government has sanctioned Rs 1,000 crore so far. This indicates it would initially go for partial targeting of the poorest among the Dalits in Huzurabad. By 2024, when the KCR government expects to have covered most Dalits, the scheme would have cost Telangana upwards of Rs 1 trillion, according the state’s own estimates. “The open-endedness of the Dalit Bandhu scheme is welcome as it allows cash transfers to be spent in any manner the beneficiary wishes. The idea of cash transfers isn't extraordinary, as discussions are already happening in the country around this idea,” says Suhas Palshikar, political scientist and director of Lokniti.

 
Raining goats, mopeds and washing machines
 
The open-endedness that Mr Palshikar welcomes is perhaps an aberration in Telangana’s history of electorally-motivated schemes retrofitted to the tastes and needs of specific castes. Since assuming office as the first chief minister of Telangana in 2014, KCR has unleashed a plethora of schemes specifically targeted at individual castes. KCR’s special attention to the influential Yadav and Kuruma community in Telangana in his first term is considered one of his political masterstrokes.
 
The Yadavs, who were shepherds traditionally, claim to form 20 per cent of Telangana’s population. They are the most dominant among the backward castes when it comes to swinging votes in a party’s favour. In 2017, KCR launched a scheme that provided 21 sheep (20 females and one male) literally free of cost to every Yadav household in the state. With each sheep’s cost estimated at Rs 1.25 lakh, the government paid 75 per cent of the amount and the rest was footed by the beneficiaries. Almost 800,000 Yadav households got millions of sheep. In 2020, the unit cost was adjusted for inflation and raised to Rs 1.75 lakh.

 
The fisherman castes (Gangaputra, Mudiraj, etc) were given full subsidy for opening fish-culture farms in lakes and ponds across the state. In recent years, as fish farms have proliferated and become self-sustaining, the benefits of the scheme for fisherman castes started plateauing. That’s when KCR decided to provide 75 per cent subsidy on purchase of mopeds and small trucks to an estimated 2.4 million fisherman households. The government’s logic was that fisherman castes had done well with the free fish farms but were struggling to get their perishable produce quickly to the nearest markets.
 
A similar subsidy was provided to weavers, estimated to be the single largest caste occupation in the state. In 2021, KCR upgraded his own ‘corporate version’ of an Employees Provident Fund (EPF)-type scheme for weavers. Under this, his government would contribute 16 per cent of a handloom worker’s declared income to a savings account. The state’s estimated 35,000 handloom and powerloom workers can access these savings in emergencies.

 
Born a barber? Die a beautician
 
“The lower castes played an active role in the formation of a separate Telangana state. Instead of promoting an education revolution, KCR is encouraging castes to stick to their occupation. There is no doubt that he is casteist. He belongs to the influential ruling Vellama caste and these schemes make it evident that he wants to promote existing caste hierarchies,” says K Lakshminarayana, political scientist and professor of economics at University of Hyderabad. The state’s caste-specific welfarism stretches beyond the rural hinterland. Almost 40 per cent of the state’s population resides in its 136 statutory towns, with many castes having migrated to cities in search of better livelihoods.

 
Two of the most prominent are the Rajaka (traditional washermen) and the Nayee Brahmins (barber) castes. In recent years, the state has showered these two castes with electricity meters and 250 units of free power for establishing modern laundries and salons in towns and cities. A group of five washermen together can get a grant of anywhere between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 20 lakh from the government for buying washing machines, dryers and other equipment to set up a modern laundry.
 
Similarly, Nayee Brahmins are being given one-time grants of lakhs of rupees and subsidies to set up modern parlours, replete with salon chairs, massage beds, air conditioners, sterilisation machines and a so called ‘Nayee Brahmin kit’, which consists of all tools a barber might need. In small towns, barber caste associations have started exerting their influence, setting rates for various salon services in an apparent sign of unionisation. Any barber of the caste charging below the union-prescribed rates risks ostracisation, and in some cases, even ‘monetary penalties’ at the hands of these ‘Nayee Brahmin’ associations. Tomorrow: In the final part of this series, Business Standard reports how wooing Brahmins may be politically suicidal in rest of India, but not in Telangana. Read here