Mandal and the politics of reservation

Reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in legislatures, education and public employment date from the Constitution itself, as a remedy for centuries of exclusion. The question of reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) — socially and educationally backward communities that were neither Scheduled Castes nor Tribes — was left to later policy, and it became the most consequential social policy debate of independent India.

The First Backward Classes Commission, headed by Kaka Kalelkar, reported in 1955 but its recommendations were not implemented. The Second Backward Classes Commission, headed by B. P. Mandal, was appointed in 1979 and reported in December 1980. It identified backward classes using social, educational and economic indicators, estimated their share of the population, and recommended 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central government services and public undertakings, in addition to the existing 22.5 per cent for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Successive governments shelved the report for a decade.

Implementation came in August 1990, when Prime Minister V. P. Singh's government issued an office memorandum on 13 August 1990 granting 27 per cent reservation to Socially and Educationally Backward Classes in central services. The decision triggered nationwide protests, including self-immolations by students, and a fierce political debate. The Supreme Court examined the policy in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India and delivered judgment on 16 November 1992, by a 6:3 majority upholding the 27 per cent reservation but with conditions: the creamy layer — the socially advanced among OBCs — must be excluded, total reservations should generally not exceed 50 per cent, and reservation in promotions for OBCs was not allowed.

Mandal reshaped Indian politics. It gave OBC communities a central place in party competition, especially in northern India, and made caste-based mobilisation a permanent feature of elections. It also set the legal frame within which later changes were judged, including the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, 2019, which introduced 10 per cent reservation for Economically Weaker Sections, and the constitutional status given to the National Commission for Backward Classes by the 102nd Amendment, 2018. The debate continues: supporters see reservations as representation and repair; critics argue for economic criteria, sub-categorisation of OBCs, and attention to quality of education and jobs alongside quotas.