Mandal Commission Report

                                      The name 'Mandal Commission' is almost synonymous to the caste based reservation in India. It actually laid the foundation stone of the present caste based reservation in India.  Even after 30 years of the establishment of the commission, it is still a popular topic of discussion.
The Mandal Commission was appointed in 1979 by the Janata Party government under the Prime Minister Morarji Desai , as per the mandate of the article 340 of the Constitution of India.

Article 340(1) says -

' The President may by order appoint a Commission consisting of such persons as he thinks fit to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes within the territory of India and the difficulties under which they labour and to make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by the Union or any State to remove such difficulties and to improve their condition and as to the grants that should be made for the purpose by the Union or any State the conditions subject to which such grants should be made , and the order appointing such Commission shall define the procedure to be followed by the Commission'.

The commission headed by parliamentarian B P Mandal mainly had the following objectives :

• To determine the criteria for defining the socially and educationally backward classes.
• To recommend the steps to be taken for their advancement.
• To examine the desirability or otherwise for making any provision for reservation of appointments or posts for their favour.
• To present a report setting out the facts found by the commission.

The commission estimated the social backwardness in the country based on eleven social , economic and educational indicators.The indicators were :

Social indicators

1. Classes considered as socially backward  by others.
2. Classes which mainly depend on manual labour for their livelihood.
3. Classes where at least 25% females and 10% males above the state average get married at a n age below 17 in rural areas and at least 10% females and 5% males do so in urban areas.
4. Classes where female participation in work is at least 25% above the state average.

Educational indicators

1. Classes where the number of children in the age group of 5-15 years who have never attended school is at least 25% above the state average.
2. Classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25% above the state average.
3. Classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25% below the state average.

Economic indicators

1. Classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25% below the state average.
2. Classes where number of families living in kuccha house is at least 25% above the state average.
3. Classes where the source of drinking water is beyond a half kilometer for more than 50% of the households.
4. Classes where then number of households having taken consumption loans is at least 25% above the state average.

                            Each of the social, educational and economic criteria were given a weightage of three,two and one points respectively. Any class which had at least 50% score ( i.e 11 points) were identified as backward classes.Based on this, the commission estimated that 52% ( excluding SC and ST ) of the total population belonging to 3473 castes are socially backward .This considerable fraction of the population is termed as Other Backward Classes or OBC. Based on the study, the commission put forth some recommendations in the report.

B P Mandal submitting the report to Home Minister Zail Singh in December 1980
Picture courtesy : www.frontline.in

Recommendations of Mandal commission report

• Reservation of SCs and STs are to be proportional to their population ( which is 22%).
• Since the Constitution restricts the reservation to be below 50% , OBCs get a reservation of 27% (Although OBCs constitute 52% of the population).
• Candidates belonging to OBC recruited based on an open competition should not be adjusted against their reservation quota of 27%.
• The above reservation should be applicable to promotion quota at all levels.
• Reserved quota remaining unfilled should be carried forward for a period of three years and de-reserved thereafter.
• Relaxation in the upper age limit for direct recruitment should be extended to the candidates of OBC in the same manner as done in the case of SC and STs.
• A roster system for each category of posts should be adopted by the concerned authorities in the same manner as presently done in respect of SC and ST candidates.
• These recommendations in total are applicable to all public sector undertakings both under the central and state governments , as also to nationalized banks.
• All private sector enterprises which have received financial assistance from the government  in one form or other should also be obliged to recruit personnel in the aforesaid basis.
• All universities and affiliated colleges should also be covered by the above scheme of reservation.
• To implement these recommendations, the government should create rules and regulations in the law.

Estimated percentage of class-wise population
Picture courtesy: www.wikipedia.org

Implementation of the recommendations

                     It is important to note that the commission suggested that the operations based on these recommendations should be implemented for 20 years. As we all know, some of the recommendations have not been implemented at all and those which were implemented are still operating three decades after the submission of the report. The report was submitted in both houses of the parliament on 30th April 1981. But, it was pushed under the carpet by the two successive Congress governments under the Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.This fact is a gentle reminder for us that the politics involved in the reservation issue is of utmost significance.

                                        The first attempt to implement the recommendations of the report was by the V P Singh government. On 7th August 1990, an order was issued for a partial implementation of the recommendations.This  resulted in awarding 27% reservation for OBC in the civil posts under central government, PSUs and FIs. This decision was met with violent protests and agitations.These protests generally known as the Mandal commission protests of 1990, were comparable to large national demonstrations of a labour union strike. These protests - not wide spread into the country - were mainly confined around Delhi. However, it got great media attention locally and nationally. The students of Delhi University were the majority among the anti-reservationists. The protests even included a series of self-immolations initiated by Rajiv Goswami , a student of Delhi University. The genuineness of the intentions of these protests have been questioned later referring to the involvement of political parties. This turnmoil finally resulted in the resignation of V P Singh as BJP withdrew their support.And,Congress came into power in the following elections.

Rajiv Goswami  during his attempt of self-immolation
Picture courtesy : www.outlookindia.com

                                  The implementation of reservation in educational institutions happened much later . Ever since its beginning, the Mandal commission report has been playing a major role in the history of caste based reservation in India. Here's a brief timeline of events related to the Mandal commission.

• January 1 1979  -  Prime minister Morarji Desai of Janata party government appoints the backward class commission with B P Mandal as the chairman.
• December 31 1980 - Mandal Commission submits its recommendations.
• August 13 1990  - Prime minister V P Singh 's order for awarding 27% reservation for OBC in the civil posts under central government, PSUs and FIs.
• November 16 1992 - The Constitutional bench of Supreme Court upholds that caste based   reservation of OBC is valid with the exclusion of 'Creamy Layer'.
• December 21 2005  - The UPA government passes the 104th Amendment bill ( 93rd Amendment Act), almost unanimously. A new clause 15(5) was inserted into the Constitution which allows the government to reserve seats for SCs, STs and OBCs in private unaided educational institutions.
• January 20 2006 - Article 15(5) of the Constitution (104th Amendment) came into force with presidential assent.
• 10th April 2008 - The Supreme court upheld the provision of 27% quota for candidates belonging to OBCs in IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and other premier educational institutions.

                                 The Mandal commission is undoubtedly a milestone in the history of independent India.The impact of its recommendations and the reservation system implemented in our country based on it is subjected to debate every now and then. It was based on a nearly scientific way of estimating the backward class in the country. And, it was definitely necessary for the upliftment of the discriminated backward classes in India.The report says -

'It may appear the upliftment of Other Backward Classes is part of the larger national problem of the removal of mass poverty. This is only partially correct. The deprivation of OBCs is a very special case of the larger national issue: here the basic question is that of social and educational backwardness and poverty is only a direct consequence of these two crippling caste-based handicaps. As these handicaps are embedded in our social structure, their removal will require far – reaching structural changes. No less important will be changes in the perception of the problems of OBCs by the ruling classes of the country'.

                             For what it's worth, it's recommendations definitely helped in formulating rules and regulations to ensure social justice via caste based reservation. Famous Indian human rights activist Balraj Puri asks in one of his articles - "If 43 years after independence, the share of the backward classes, who are estimated to be 52% of the population, in the government jobs has not exceeded by 4.5%, does the statutory measure to ensure their share in jobs to slightly more than half of their percentage in population amount to an undue favour to them? " It considerably improved the lives of a lot of Indians below the middle class. But at the same time, I can't help but notice that the whole idea behind this commission is based on a concept that is socially divisive. It brought back caste into our society as an identity. In our current Indian society, caste actually matters! And, the Mandal commission cannot afford to dodge the responsibility for that. The hands of reservations have reached new levels these days. The implementation of reservation in higher education based on the Mandal report is one of the many unfortunate consequences. Currently, 49.5% of the seats in the prestigious educational institutions in India are reserved for the backward classes. What makes this worse is the fact that a considerable number of these seats are unfilled and wasted every year. And, the benefits of these measures are mostly enjoyed by the economically sound ( or rather rich ) citizens of the "backward" class. Although the commission suggested reservation for just 20 years, our politicians are not going to kill this golden goose as long as the caste politics and vote bank politics have scope in India or ,in simple words, never !

References

1. http://www.wikipedia.org
2. http://obcreservation.net
3. http://www.indiankanoon.org
4. Balraj Puri, An ideological perspective on Mandal report, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 25, No. 42/43 (Oct. 20-27, 1990), pp. 2352-2353 .