Karnataka: Accord ST status to Kurubas or face stir, says Halumatha Mahasabha

HUBBALLI: Office bearers of the Halumatha Mahasabha on Friday set the state government an ultimatum for the inclusion of the Kuruba community in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category.
If the government fails to accord ST status to the community by November 11, the mahasabha has warned the state government of a state-wide agitation from November 21.
The president of the mahasabha’s Karnataka unit, Rudranna Gulaguli, said in Hubballi that records maintained by the British colonisers and the Government of India’s 1950 gazette, both list the Kuruba as a tribal community.
“The list of ST communities published by the Karnataka government in 1977 contains the Kuruba community, slotting in at 28. But the Kuruba community was dropped from the parallel words list, while the Valmikis were added to the list in 1991. This was an injustice to the community by successive governments,” Gulaguli said.
He pointed out that the government had approved the setting up of the Karnataka State Tribal Research Institute in Mysuru in 2018, for which the community had been fighting for 27 years. “But four years since it was instituted, we are entirely unaware of the status of the research undertaken by the centre,” Gulaguli said.
The Gonda and Rajagonda communities, which fall under the umbrella of Kuruba, were given the ST tag in the 1990s, said the mahasabha functionary. “We are aware of the Supreme Court’s verdict stipulating that reservation must not exceed 50%. We have suggested that the government, which has reserved 8% seats reserved for Kurubas in the 2A category of the OBC classification, be transferred,” Gulaguli added.
Demanding that the state government accord ST status to the community on Kanakadasa Jayanti on November 11, he said that failure to do so would prompt the mahasabha to launch a dharna at Freedom Park in Bengaluru from November 21.
Lashing out at former chief minister Siddaramaiah, a member of the Kuruba community himself, Gulaguli said, “Siddaramaiah did nothing for the welfare of our community, but helped other groups.
HUBBALLI:The Kuruba community is the second largest in the state, but Siddaramaiah, to preserve his secular credentials, ignored our demands, as did former minister and senior BJP leader KS Eshwarappa. This is why we have taken this fight out of the political realm.” Prema Naikar, Manjunath Guddannavar, Arun Kumar, Mahantesh Kattikar, were among the other officebearers present at the event.