Mandal Commission

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The Mandal Commission was established in India in 1979 by the Janata Party government under Prime Minister Morarji Desai ([1]) with a mandate to "identify the socially or educationally backward."[2] It was headed by Indian parliamentarian B.P. Mandal to consider the question of seat reservations and quotas for people to redress caste discrimination, and used eleven social, economic, and educational indicators to determine backwardness. In 1980, the commission's report affirmed the affirmative action practice under Indian law whereby members of backward castes though they were also uppercast (known as Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)) were given exclusive access to a certain portion of government Jobs and slots in public universities, and recommended changes to these quotas, by 27% [1] Mobilization on caste lines had followed the political empowerment of ordinary citizens by the constitution of free India that allowed common people to politically assert themselves through the right to vote.[3]

Setting up of Mandal Commission

The plan to set up the commission was taken by the Morarji Desai government in 1978 as per the mandate under article 340( Appointment of a commission to investigate the conditions of backward classes in India every 10 years) for the purpose of Articles 15( Prohibition of Discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth) and 16( Equality of opportunity in public employment). The decision was made official by the president on 1 January 1979. The commission is popularly known as the Mandal Commission for its chairman being B.P. Mandal.

Criteria to identify OBC

The Mandal Commission adopted various methods and techniques to collect the necessary data and evidence. In order to identify who qualified as an "other backward class," the commission adopted eleven criteria which could be grouped under three major headings: social, educational and economic. 11 criteria were developed to identify OBCs.[4]


  1. Castes/classes considered as socially backward by others,
  4. Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 2 per cent and above the state average.



  2. Castes/classes when the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5–15 years is at least 25 per cent above the state average,





Weighting indicators



Observations and findings

The commission estimated that 54% of the total population (excluding SCs and STs), belonging to 3,743 different castes and communities, were ‘backward’.[2][6][7] The number of backward castes in Central list of OBCs has now increased to 5,013 (without the figures for most of the Union Territories) in 2006 as per National Commission for Backward Classes.[8][9][10] Figures of caste-wise population are not available beyond. So the commission used 1931 census data to calculate the number of OBCs. The population of Hindu OBCs was derived by subtracting from the total population of Hindus, the population of SC and ST and that of forward Hindu castes and communities, and it worked out to be 52 per cent.[11] Assuming that roughly the proportion of OBCs amongst non-Hindus was of the same order as amongst the Hindus, the population of non-Hindu OBCs was considered as 52 per cent.[2]






All the recommendations of the report are not yet implemented.

The recommendation of reservations for OBC's in government services was implemented in 1993. As on 27 June 2008 there was still a backlog of 28, 670 OBC vacancies in government jobs.[15]



The National Sample Survey puts the figure at 32%.[16] There is substantial debate over the exact number of OBC's in India, with census data compromised by partisan politics. It is generally estimated to be sizeable, but lower than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or and National Sample Survey.[17]

There is also a debate about the estimation logic used by the Mandal Commission for calculating OBC population. Yogendra Yadav, psephologist turned politician, agrees that there is no empirical basis to the Mandal figure. According to Yadav, "It is a mythical construct based on reducing the number of SC/ST, Muslims and others and then arriving at a number."[18] Yadav argues that government jobs were availed by those who by their own means had got higher education, and that reservation for OBC's was only one of the many recommendations of the Mandal Commission, which largely remain unimplemented after 25 years.[19]


L R Naik, the only Dalit member in the Mandal Commission refused to sign the Mandal recommendations.[21] Naik argued that intermediate backward classes are relatively powerful, while depressed backward classes, or most backward classes (MBCs) remain economically marginalised.


A decade after the commission gave its report, V.P. Singh, the Prime Minister at the time, tried to implement its recommendations in 1989.[22] The criticism was sharp and colleges across the country held massive protests against it. Soon after, Rajiv Goswami while goswami was also included in the OBC List, student of Delhi University, committed self-immolation in protest of the government's actions. His act further sparked a series of self-immolations by other college students and led to a formidable movement against job reservations for Backward Castes in India. First student to die due to self-immolation was Surinder Singh Chauhan on 24 Sep 1990.[23]

Arguments against reservations

The opponents of the issue argue:

  • As a consequence of legislating to provide reservations for Christians and Muslim, religious minorities in all government education institutions will be introduced[24] which is contrary to the ideas of secularism, and is a form of anti-discrimination on the basis of religion.
  • Most often, only economically sound people (and rather rich) from the so-called lower castes will make use of most of the reserved seats, thus counteracting the spirit of reservations.[25] Political parties know reservations are no way to improve the lot of the poor and the backward. They support them because of self-interest of the "creamy layer", who use the reservations to further their own family interests, and as a political flag of 'achievement' during election campaigns.[26] Several studies show that the OBC class is comparable with the general caste in terms of annual per capita consumption expenditure, and the top strata of OBC is ahead in a host of consumption areas.[27]
  • There are no efforts made to give proper primary education to truly deprived classes,[25] so there is no need to reserve seats for higher studies. The government schools in India have absolutely no comparison to the public schools in the developed countries, and only about 65% of the Indian population is literate,.[29] The critics argue that "reservation" only in higher institutions and jobs, without improving primary and secondary education, cannot solve this problem.[26]
  • The government is dividing people on the basis of castes for political advantages.[28]
  • The autonomy of the educational institutes are lost.[26]
  • The reservation policy will create a huge unrest in the Indian society.[28][30] Providing quotas on the basis of caste and not on the basis of merit will deter the determination of many educated and deserving students of India.[28]
  • Multi-national companies will be deterred by this action of the government, and foreign investment in India may dry down, hurting the growth of the Indian economy.[26] Doubtless, urgent actions to improve the lot of the majority, which has not benefited from development—not achieved after 55 years of reservations for scheduled castes—are essential. But this must not hazard improving the economy's competitiveness in a very competitive world.[26]
  • There are already talks of reservations in the private sector.[26] If even after providing so many facilities to reserved categories during education, if there is no adequate representation of those people in the work force, there must be some problems with the education system.


See also


  1. ^
  3. ^ "Complete Original Text of mandal Commission Report". National Commission for backward Classes, Government of India. Retrieved 2 November 2016. 
  4. ^ "Redesigning reservations: Why removing caste-based quotas is not the answer". 
  5. ^ a b c "Mandal Commission" (PDF). 
  6. ^ "BC, DC or EC? What lies ahead of the census- Haphazard lists and multiple definitions could pose hurdles in establishing identity during the caste count". 
  7. ^ "OBCs: Who are they?-Reservation policy for OBCs: Who would benefit and what are the costs involved". Retrieved 2006-07-17. 
  8. ^ "Time to curb number of backward castes". 
  9. ^ "The Muslim OBCs And Affirmative Action-SACHAR COMMITTEE REPORT". 
  10. ^ "SECC 2011: Why we are headed for Mandal 2 and more quotas before 2019". 
  12. ^ Mandal Commission report, Vol I, pp 23
  13. ^ Mandal Commission report, Vol I, pp 31
  15. ^ Daily Times of India
  18. ^
  19. ^
  22. ^ "Mandal vs Mandir". 
  24. ^ Quota for Tamil Nadu religious minorities
  25. ^ a b Srinivas, M.N. (August 1997). "The pangs of change". Frontline. The Hindu. 14 (16). Retrieved 2006-05-24. 



External links

  • Reserving the deserving, genesis of a debate
  • The Skimming of the creamy layer
  • Countercurrents
  • Youth for Equality
  • Diluting Mandal from S.S.Gill,Secretary,Mandal Commission.
  • Supporting reservations
  • Late Mr Rajiv Gandhi's Speech on Mandal Commission
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