Hyderabad: Born in a Madiga community (scheduled caste) family that faced socio-economic challenges in Telangana’s Warangal District, Manda Krishna Madiga had to put up a relentless struggle for three decades, demanding the sub-categorisation of SCs that yielded fruit in August last year.
Krishna Madiga was conferred with Padma Shri award by the Centre on Saturday.
In 1994, Manda Krishna Madiga founded the Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS) to address the specific grievances of the Madiga community, regarding the unequal distribution of reservation benefits among Scheduled Castes.
MRPS has been instrumental in advocating for the sub-categorisation of SCs to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources and opportunities.
In August last year, the Supreme Court gave a ruling empowering states to create sub-classifications of SCs and STs, for providing quotas within the reserved category.
The sub-categorisation had become so sensitive that, during the Lok Sabha poll campaign last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a meeting organised by MRPS and assured the SC community that the Centre would form a committee to adopt all possible ways of empowering the Madigas concerning their demand of categorisation of SCs.
At the meeting, Manda Krishna Madiga became emotional as he sat next to Modi who embraced and consoled him, describing him as his younger brother.
