Political fallout: OBC and Dalit assertion

Detail

1. Key terms first

• OBC (Other Backward Classes): castes that are socially and educationally backward but are not Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs). In north India they are mostly farming and artisan castes.
• Dalit: a word meaning "the oppressed". Groups used it for castes once treated as "untouchable". In law, these castes are the Scheduled Castes, listed by the President under Article 341 [4].
• Bahujan: "the many" or "the majority". Kanshi Ram used it for SCs, STs, OBCs and religious minorities taken together.
• Mandal: the Second Backward Classes Commission (chaired by B.P. Mandal). Its 1980 report recommended 27% reservation for OBCs in central government jobs. The V.P. Singh government accepted this in 1990.
• Identity politics: winning people's support through a shared caste, religion, region, language or ethnicity, rather than through a broad ideology (such as socialism) or through class (such as "workers" or "farmers").

2. OBC politics: from the Congress to its rivals

How the Congress lost backward-caste support

• Many backward castes moved away from the Congress after the Emergency (1975–77) (see emergency-1975).
• This opened space for parties that drew their support from these castes.

1977: the first national voice

• The Janata Party (1977) first gave OBCs a national voice.
• Two of its member parties had strong rural OBC bases:
• Bharatiya Kranti Dal (BKD), led by Charan Singh

• Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP), which followed Lohia's socialist line

• The Janata Dal (1988) brought this mix of groups together again. It led the National Front government that put Mandal into effect in 1990.

What Mandal changed

• The Mandal debate made OBCs more aware of a shared OBC identity.
• Parties that drew on OBC voters then demanded a share in education, jobs and political power.
• Their argument was that a large part of the population deserves adequate representation (a fair share of seats and posts).

The constitutional basis

• Article 16(4): the state may reserve government posts for any backward class that is not adequately represented in state services [4].
• Article 15(4): allows special provisions in areas such as education for socially and educationally backward classes.
• Article 340: the President may appoint a commission to study backward classes. The Mandal Commission was set up under this article.
• Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992): the Supreme Court upheld the 27% OBC quota. It also:
• kept the better-off OBCs out of the quota (the creamy layer)

• set a general 50% ceiling on total reservation.

• Article 342A: this article now deals with listing backward classes [4]. It was added by the 102nd Amendment Act, 2018.

Beyond NCERT

• New OBC-based parties rose in the north:
• Samajwadi Party (SP) in UP
• Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar

• Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), in Bihar

• The share of OBC legislators in north Indian assemblies and the Lok Sabha grew. This change of power through elections, without violence, is called the "silent revolution".

3. Dalit politics: BAMCEF to the BSP

BAMCEF (1978)

• Full name: All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation. Kanshi Ram founded it.
• It was not an ordinary union of government employees. It did not just ask for better pay or promotions.
• It argued for political power for the bahujan (SCs, STs, OBCs and minorities).
• It worked through educated SC, ST, OBC and minority employees, who were asked to "pay back to society".

DS-4 (1981)

• Full name: Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti.
• It was BAMCEF's arm for protests and campaigns. It led to a political party.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), 1984

• Founded by Kanshi Ram [3].
• Kanshi Ram had left a central government job to work full time on organising Dalits.
• He called political power the "master key" to social equality.
• He took ideas from B.R. Ambedkar and from his own experience of caste discrimination [3].
• He led the party until 2003 [3].

How the BSP grew

• It started among Dalit voters in Punjab, Haryana and UP.
• It broke through in UP in the 1989 and 1991 elections. This was the first such success for a party supported mainly by Dalits.
• Its politics were pragmatic (practical, not tied to fixed partners). It relied on the large numbers of the bahujan and allied with different parties at different times.
• It has formed the government in UP more than once.

Mayawati's terms as UP Chief Minister

Term	Length	Note
1995	about 4 months	First Dalit woman to reach this level of office [2]
1997	about 6 months	Short-lived alliance government [2]
2002–03	about 17 months	Alliance government [2]
2007–12	full 5 years	The BSP won a majority on its own in the UP Assembly [2]

• Kanshi Ram had been Mayawati's political mentor since 1977 [2].
• The 2007 win came through "sarvajan" outreach ("all people"). The BSP widened its appeal from bahujan alone to include upper castes, especially Brahmins.

SP–BSP ties (beyond NCERT)

• 1993 UP Assembly election: SP–BSP alliance. Mulayam Singh Yadav became Chief Minister. The alliance broke in 1995.
• 2019 Lok Sabha election: the SP and BSP allied again (the mahagathbandhan, or "grand alliance") against the BJP.

The BSP's decline

• Its vote fell after 2012.
• 2024 Lok Sabha election: the BSP won no seat (verify with ECI).

NCERT's point

• Dalit politics and OBC politics developed separately, and often competed with each other. In villages, OBC landowners and Dalit labourers often had opposing interests. So a lasting "bahujan" unity has been hard to build.

4. Identity politics: the debate

• Identity politics became prominent after the Mandal decision of 1990.
• NCERT's cartoon questions frame the debate:
• Will a few powerful castes and families within these groups capture the gains?

• Will this kind of politics lead to better policies for the really deprived?

• Exercise Q2 in the chapter asks students to match caste-based parties with the rise of OBCs.

Beyond NCERT: who benefits inside a group?

• Creamy layer: the better-off members of a backward class are kept out of reservation, so benefits reach the poorer members. Indra Sawhney (1992) applied this to OBCs.
• Sub-categorisation (sub-classification) means splitting a reserved group into smaller groups so that the weakest castes get a fixed share.
• Punjab Act, 2006, Section 4(5): 50% of the SC quota in direct recruitment went first to Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs [4].
• The Punjab and Haryana High Court struck this down in 2010, following E.V. Chinnaiah v. State of A.P. (2005), which treated SCs as one single group [4].
• In State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (27 August 2020), a five-judge Bench said: "The benefit by and large is not percolating down to the neediest and poorest of the poor." (Percolating means "trickling down".) The Bench asked for a seven-judge Bench to look at Chinnaiah again [4].

• August 2024: the seven-judge Bench allowed states to sub-classify SCs (verify).

• Caste surveys:

• Bihar held a caste-based survey in 2022–23. It found the unreserved category, including unreserved minorities, to be only about 15% of the state's population [5].
• Bihar Act 19 of 2023 then raised reservation in state posts to 65%: SC 20%, ST 2%, Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) 25%, Backward Classes (BC) 18%. The open merit category was cut to 35% [5].
• This was above the 50% ceiling set in Indra Sawhney, so its validity was challenged in court (verify current status).

Prelims Hooks

• BAMCEF (1978) → DS-4 (1981) → BSP (1984): all founded by Kanshi Ram. BAMCEF was not an ordinary employees' union. Its aim was political power for the bahujan.
• Bahujan = SCs + STs + OBCs + religious minorities (not Dalits alone). This is a common trap.
• The BSP's first breakthrough in UP came in 1989 and 1991. It won a majority on its own in UP only in 2007 [2].
• Mayawati's first term as UP Chief Minister was in 1995 and lasted about four months. She was the first Dalit woman to reach this level of office [2].
• The BKD (Charan Singh) and the SSP (Lohia socialists) were Janata Party (1977) members with rural OBC bases.
• Article 16(4) allows reservation in posts for backward classes "not adequately represented". Article 341 deals with the President's list of SCs [4].
• E.V. Chinnaiah (2005) treated SCs as one group. Davinder Singh (2020) sent the question of sub-classification to a seven-judge Bench [4].
• Bihar Act 19 of 2023: 65% reservation (SC 20, ST 2, EBC 25, BC 18) [5].
• "Silent revolution": the rise of OBC legislators in north India through elections, without violence.

Mains Points

• Democratic deepening vs. capture by a few: OBC and Dalit parties brought large, long-excluded groups into power (the BSP in UP; the SP, RJD and JD(U) in the north). But NCERT warns that gains may be monopolised (kept) by dominant castes and political families. Sub-classification [4] and caste data [5] are the policy answers to this. (GS-I/GS-II)
• Identity vs. programme: caste-based mobilisation wins representation quickly. Critics say it can replace policy delivery with symbols. The BSP's move from "bahujan" to "sarvajan" (2007) [2] and its decline by 2024 (verify) show the limits of a vote base built on a single identity.
• Dalit–OBC competition: NCERT notes that the two streams often competed, and the SP–BSP alliances of 1993 and 2019 did not last. This shows that "backward unity" is fragile, because rural OBC and Dalit interests often clash on land and labour.
• Reservation design: the creamy layer, sub-categorisation and caste surveys all try to aim benefits at the most deprived. They also test the 50% ceiling from Indra Sawhney (1992) and raise questions of federalism (who may identify backward classes).