12-06-2007, 01:49 AM
Shyam,
I might have erred on 1 to 2% extra on each of the Forward castes. My extrapolation is based on personal experiences from few villages in Khammam, and Krishna districts and hence might be erroneous. No one is doing caste based census to get accuracy from open sources. Laloo did one in Bihar <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
1921 census doesn't look accurate to me for the following reasons. The error is not marginal and could be substantial.
1)
The caste names are mostly from coastal Andhra region. The names does not include any of the Telangana region (may be because of British did not do any census for Nizam) and also the ones from north AP (Vizag, srikakulam and Vijayanagaram). Velamas of 1921 are actually costal folks and later they moved to Telangana region and hence they are in the list.
2)
Kapus are kapus and Reddys are Reddys. I don't think they are same. Kapus have different names. In coastal region they are called as kapus or naidus( if there is naidu viz. CBN and venkayya naidu from south/Rayalaseema they are kammas and not kapus). In Guntur and prakasam they are called as Balija and Telaga. In some other regions they are called ontari. In north AP they are called as toorpu
kapu. There are sub sects as well.
Reddys from Telangana which is substantial are completely missing in that number.
3) The list completely misses the tribal population which is now a major factor in politics.
Due to the above reasons I believe the BCs population of 46% may be high in terms of overall population while other sections are right.
Here is the entire list of BC in AP( no %ages)
http://ncbc.nic.in/backward-classes/ap.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The numbers are not really the important factor of my post above. Even from your numbers my theory still holds. The simple summary of the long post above is:
Prior to 1983, Congress used to get its 46 to 53% of winning vote share from mostly Muslims + a large chunk of Forward castes, few BCs, all SCs and all STs. Reddys dominate the overall political structure in Congress.
From 1983 TDP broke this formula with 30% forward castes + a very large segment of BCs + Miscl. votes. In doing this they did not really break the Congress vote bank significantly. They got rid of all the other parties from the political landscape of AP by giving politcal power to BCs while keeping the Kammas domination in the overall political structure.
Some of the forward castes like velamas and BCs like kapus are swinging between Congress and TDP.
The talk of third front was always there and Chiranjeevi for the first time seems to be articulating its constituents. His idea is about the ones that are swinging between Congress and TDP should form a block of their own even if they are just 20 to 25% so that they can have more negotiating power and make other segments swing between three sections. This section is in the corridors of power but waiting there for the last 25 years and this is trying to find a way. TRS is also one of the reason for that purpose.
My view is having another regional front is not good for AP in the long run and BJP should have invested for this section so that people can take it seriously. It could create a block of the 25% and another 8% of ideological voters could bring to power.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I might have erred on 1 to 2% extra on each of the Forward castes. My extrapolation is based on personal experiences from few villages in Khammam, and Krishna districts and hence might be erroneous. No one is doing caste based census to get accuracy from open sources. Laloo did one in Bihar <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->1921 census doesn't look accurate to me for the following reasons. The error is not marginal and could be substantial.
1)
The caste names are mostly from coastal Andhra region. The names does not include any of the Telangana region (may be because of British did not do any census for Nizam) and also the ones from north AP (Vizag, srikakulam and Vijayanagaram). Velamas of 1921 are actually costal folks and later they moved to Telangana region and hence they are in the list.
2)
Kapus are kapus and Reddys are Reddys. I don't think they are same. Kapus have different names. In coastal region they are called as kapus or naidus( if there is naidu viz. CBN and venkayya naidu from south/Rayalaseema they are kammas and not kapus). In Guntur and prakasam they are called as Balija and Telaga. In some other regions they are called ontari. In north AP they are called as toorpu
kapu. There are sub sects as well.
Reddys from Telangana which is substantial are completely missing in that number.
3) The list completely misses the tribal population which is now a major factor in politics.
Due to the above reasons I believe the BCs population of 46% may be high in terms of overall population while other sections are right.
Here is the entire list of BC in AP( no %ages)
http://ncbc.nic.in/backward-classes/ap.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The numbers are not really the important factor of my post above. Even from your numbers my theory still holds. The simple summary of the long post above is:
Prior to 1983, Congress used to get its 46 to 53% of winning vote share from mostly Muslims + a large chunk of Forward castes, few BCs, all SCs and all STs. Reddys dominate the overall political structure in Congress.
From 1983 TDP broke this formula with 30% forward castes + a very large segment of BCs + Miscl. votes. In doing this they did not really break the Congress vote bank significantly. They got rid of all the other parties from the political landscape of AP by giving politcal power to BCs while keeping the Kammas domination in the overall political structure.
Some of the forward castes like velamas and BCs like kapus are swinging between Congress and TDP.
The talk of third front was always there and Chiranjeevi for the first time seems to be articulating its constituents. His idea is about the ones that are swinging between Congress and TDP should form a block of their own even if they are just 20 to 25% so that they can have more negotiating power and make other segments swing between three sections. This section is in the corridors of power but waiting there for the last 25 years and this is trying to find a way. TRS is also one of the reason for that purpose.
My view is having another regional front is not good for AP in the long run and BJP should have invested for this section so that people can take it seriously. It could create a block of the 25% and another 8% of ideological voters could bring to power.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------