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OTHER BACKWARD CASTES
Who cares for social justice?Veeraiah Konduri This is the irony of democracy and politics. The Party that staunchly opposed the VP Singh government's decision to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations is now claiming that carrying forward of social justice (foundational ethos of Mandal Commission) as their ideal. The sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes is a contentious issue since the time of the Mandal Comission. Mr. L.R. Naik, member of that commission in his dissent note proposed to divide the OBCs into intermediate backward classes and other depressed backward classes, i.e. most backward classes. But the Mandal Commission went by the law of the land as on day. The office memorandum issued while initiating implementation of the Mandal Commission categorically stated, " the criteria for determining the poorer sections of other economically backward sections of the people who are not covered by any of the existing schemes of reservations are being issued separately :" The Union Government constituted a Commission. The Finance minister, while briefing the then Cabinet decisions to the press, not only informed that the Cabinet will soon set up a commission to examine subcategorisation of Other Backward Classes in the Central list of reserved categories, but also made it clear " the proposed commission would submit its report within 12 weeks from the day its chairman is appointed.
VP Singh promising to implement the Mandal report
in an election rally in 1989
1. To examine the extent of
inequitable distribution of benefits of
reservation among the castes or communities included in the broad
category of Other Backward Classes
with reference to such classes
included in the Central List,
2. To work out the mechanism,
criteria, norms and parameters in a
scientific approach for subcategorisation
within such other
backward classes , and
3. To take up the exercise of identifying the
respective castes
or communities
or sub-castes or
synonyms in the
Central List of
Other Backward
Classes and
classifying them
into their
respective subcategories.
Narendra Modi, Amit Sah and Arun Jaitley
The modus operandi of the BJP
administration is evident even in the
case of appointing the said
commission. Long back on August 23,
2017, top guns in the Modi
administration, Amit Sah and Arun Jaitley told about the ensuing
Commission for sub-categorisation of
Other Backward Classes. Amit Shah,
well before the Parliament took up
constitutional status of the National
Commission for Backward Classes,
said in a statement that the various BJP
state government's attempts of subcategorising
the OBC was proved
beneficial and the Modi government is
inclined to scale up the task at national
level. Assessing the quantum of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation itself requires laborious process given the fact that as on today there are 2683 centrally listed Other Backwards Castes. But the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment told media that they had the data of 5000 castes. No one knows what is the dimensions of data the minister refers to. go ahead, with this nationwide
exercise of Sub-Categorisation within
the OBCs; (ii) an in-principle approval
of the Government for the
methodology, the number of subcategories
and other issues related
thereto as indicated in the report, (iii) Agree to provide necessary funding for
undertaking this nationwide project
with the help of an expert body like
ICSSR." While conceding the UPA's idea
of Sub-Categorisation, the NCBC in its
March 2015 issued a warning about
the finalization of modalities.
According to NCBC, "even for
submitting the proposal of subcategorisation
into three groups, the
expert opinion of an expert body like
ICSSR is required to be obtained for
finalization of indicators, criteria,
norms and methodology, etc among
OBCs." |