Mandal Commission

While the CPI(M) has been vociferously demanding the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, particularly in the Hindi states, in West Bengal it denies the very existence of OBCs.

It needs to be asked, as a matter of principle, whether the injustices of history can be corrected in the way the present reservation package seeks to do. Have the parameters of discussion set by the ruling class, which is facing its severest crisis of legitimacy, been thrust, upon the left movement?

Dominant Castes, Ruling Classes and the State D N THE V P Singh government's decision to institute some reservation for backward castes (BCs) has brought about a sharp turn in Indian politics. Certainly it is not the 'social revolution' that some of its votaries are calling it. But the very reaction it has aroused shows that the step is not a mere, insubstantial gesture.

Reservation for OBCs: Hardly An Abrupt Decision Kameshwar Choudhary The policy of reservation may be a 'reform measure' adopted by the ruling class to maintain the existing inegalitarian system, but opposing it at the moment would be a retrograde step.

Reservation An Election Event THE timing of the current anti- reservation agitations in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat is not unexpected. Reservation of seats in professional educational institutions and/or in government jobs on a caste basis is a device used by ruling parties to expand and consolidate their support bases on the eve of elections. And invariably the move leads the higher castes to take to the street s in protest. Three months ago, just prior to the Lok Sabha poll, the MP government announced reservation of 25 per cent of the seats in professional colleges and government service for 'backward classes'. More recently, just before the impending election to the state legislatures, the Gujarat government also raised the proportion of reserved seats in professional colleges and government service from 10 to 25 per cent. These reservations are in addition to t hose already in existence for Scheduled Cartes and Tribes, freedom fighters. evservicemen, and so on.