Indian Politics & Policy Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2020 | Page 88

Indian Politics & Policy
9 For instance, in April 1951, the Supreme Court in State of Madras vs. Champakam Dorairajan
struck down Madras’s reservation in educational institutions. In another case, State of Madras
vs. Venkataramana, it struck down Madras’s quotas in government posts for all groups other
than the SCs/STs and “Backward Hindus” (AIR 1951 SC 226).
10 Government of India, Report of the Backward Classes Commission (New Delhi: Government of
India Press, 1956), 2 [emphasis added].
11 See Galanter, “Who Are the Other Backward Classes?”; Galanter, Competing Equalities.
12 Nomita Yadav, “Other Backward Classes: Then and Now,” Economic and Political Weekly 37
(2002) 4495-4500
13 Government of India, Report of the Backward Classes Commission (New Delhi: Government of
India Press, 1980).
14 P. Radhakrishnan, “In Defence of Mandal Commission,” Economic and Political Weekly 17
(1982): 1094.
15 Seema Mustafa, The Lonely Prophet-V.P. Singh: A Political Biography (New Delhi: New Age
International, 1995).
16 D. L Sheth, “Reservation Policy Revisited,” Economic and political Weekly 22 (1987): 1957-62
17 Galanter, Competing Equalities; Hugo Gorringe, “Caste and Politics in Tamil Nadu,” Seminar
633 (2012): 38–42.
18 The suggested reasons for the absence of a backward castes movement in MP and Rajasthan
are as follows. First, backward castes have been less numerous in these two states as compared
to Bihar and UP. Second, in these two states, the size of the dominant backward castes (like
Yadavs and Kurmis) needed for spearheading a movement is too small. Third, the backward
castes were so accommodated in the political structure by both the Congress and the BJP that
they did not feel politically acutely neglected. As a matter of fact, their political representation
had already begun to rise in the 1980s in MP, if not in Rajasthan, except for the Jats. For instance,
the share of OBC MPs in MP almost doubled between 1984 and 1989 (from 7.5 percent
to 25 percent). It further increased to 25 percent in 1996. Hence, these two parties have been
the main recipients of their votes. Christophe Jaffrelot, “The Uneven Rise of Lower Castes in
the Politics of Madhya Pradesh,” in Rise of the Plebians? The Changing Face of Legislative Assemblies,
ed. Christophe Jaffrelot and Sanjay Kumar (London: Routledge, 2009): 103–50.
19 This refers to a colonial system in which zamindars were both land owners and tax agents, as
they collected land revenue. Christophe Jafferlot, “The Rise of the Other Backward Classes in
the Hindi Belt,” The Journal of Asian Studies 59 (2000): 86–108; Jaffrelot, “The Uneven Rise of
Lower Castes.”
20 In 1950s, as evidence shows, the top 10 percent of rural households owned 52.36 percent of the
land and the bottom 40 percent households owned a mere 1.25 percent of the land. And most
of the top 10 percent households that owned about half the land in the state belonged to the
upper castes, except for some Muslims See, Pradhan H. Prasad, “Agrarian Violence in Bihar,”
Economic and Political Weekly 55 (1987): 487-852
21 Pradhan H. Prasad, “Caste and Class in Bihar,” Economic and Political Weekly 14 (1979): 481–
84.
22 Harry W. Blair, “Rising Kulaks and Backward Classes in Bihar,” Economic and Political Weekly
15 (1980): 64–74.
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