India, Oct. 15 -- Karnataka has been in the grip of a massive panic attack, especially among caste associations and their leaders, mathadhishas (pontiffs of monastic orders with caste affiliations), and Opposition politicians. Prompted by the Socio-Economic and Educational Survey, which is concluding this weekend, every jati (caste) and upa-jati (sub-caste) is advising its flock on how to fill - or not fill - the 60-question form. This re-survey was loudly demanded by two of Karnataka's most dominant castes, the Vokkaligas and Lingayats. They had opposed the findings of the Kantharaj Commission of 2015, which were withheld until 2025 for many reasons, calling into question its scientificity. But a "scientific truth" in the reckoning of the dominant castes can only be a truth which affirms their demographic dominance. In the 2015 survey, the Big Two seemed to account for about 11% each in the state's population. No surprise, too, that the Commission found that the SCs, STs, and Kurubas, among the most dominated caste groups, constituted at least 50% of the population. The scientificity was challenged on the grounds that the report was 10 years old. And in some cases, the response had been that "no enumerator came to my door". The survey, which covered over 10 million households, is exactly what it says - a survey, not a census, which sampled a substantial population systematically. Yet the claims of the Vokkaligas and Lingayats (that they constitute 14% and 16-17%, respectively, and not the survey's 11% each) were extrapolations of the 1931 census, the last time caste was counted. In short, science and objectivity quietly disappeared; statistics seem acceptable only if they align with one's claim to dominance. Given the Big Two's presence - not only in the economic, social, and educational spheres, but also in politics - the re-survey was announced. Haunted by the memory of the Lingayats' demand for recognition as a separate religion (recommended by the state government, but shot down at the Union government level in 2018), Veerashaiva and Lingayat leaders first scrambled to ensure that their flocks obeyed their orders on how to report their religion/caste status. Reports of innumerable meetings, arguments by leading ideologues, pamphlets, and full-page advertisements have flooded the print media and dominated the TV channels. The Veerashaivas, unable to get Lingayats to commit firmly to their alleged unity, were forced to make amusing and contradictory announcements. For instance, whether Lingayats are indeed Hindus has been debated and discussed for close to a century. Basava Jaya Mrutyunjaya Swami, leader of the most important subcaste, i.e., Panchamasalis, who, he says, constitute 80% of Lingayats, had long headed the movement to claim a change in reservation status. Now, he has advised his followers to self-report as Hindus as a temporary measure, until the Lingayats' separate status is legally ensured. Other leaders have urged their followers to report themselves as Lingayat under the religion column. The Lingayats had a mega convention last weekend that had chief minister Siddaramaiah, not known for using religious insignia, sporting three stripes on his forehead. The BJP and its allies, and the All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha (which has lately hyphenated itself to Lingayat) have asked their members to report only as Hindus. While some leaders are claiming that the Veerashaivas too are committed to the separate religion status, others have seen the socio-economic survey as a ruse of the Siddaramaiah government to wreck the unity of Veerashaivas and Lingayats. Meanwhile, a Panchamacharya (Veerashaiva) swami of the Rambhapuri matha, asserted his superiority by mounting the adda palakki (cross palanquin) for Dussehra, a symbol that they equalled Brahmins in the public sphere. It is difficult to sweep more than a century of antagonisms and theological debates under the carpet. Should the people demanding a separate religious status claim reservations at all, asked Shivakumar Shivacharya Swamiji of the Sirigere Matha, one of the most important of Karnataka's Lingayat mathas. He has rightly pointed out that socio-economic and educational attainments have been thrust aside to focus on caste questions alone. True adherence to the tenets of Basava, he says, would be to generate strictly "secular" data on socio-economic and educational status for the state to redress inequality. But as we all know, especially from the way in which a 10% chunk of reservations has slyly been slipped in using the criterion of poverty (i.e., EWS), this is not how inequality and discrimination are experienced by lower castes and Dalits, even in the present day. Those who have kept the goal of social justice in the foreground have no confusion about how to report in the ongoing survey. Now, the Big Two are challenging the survey in the courts. Preventing social justice thus appears to be the goal of all those opposing the re-survey. Brahmins, usually zealous about implementing the commensal and connubial distinctions of gotra, etc, have now appeared eager to declare unity. Others have made the laughable assertion that people should boycott the survey (which is, in any case, optional, not compulsory, since it is a survey, not a census) because "who knows to what use this data will be put?" Every Indian citizen knows from her painful daily experience that banks and airports, schools and places of employment, all are tirelessly and insistently demanding documents of citizens. To what use is this vast citizen data being put? This appetite for data is growing even as the Indian State and its apparatuses have become completely inscrutable as the Right to Information Act has been blunted. Meanwhile, Karnataka is now divided between those who see the socio-economic survey either as a threat to their dominance or as a promise of greater social, economic, and educational equality. Which side will turn up trumps?...