While the censuses in colonial India categorised and enumerated the various castes, the censuses in independent India only enumerate the population of castes and tribes according to the central government list. With the Supreme Court requiring fresh data on the other backward classes, how will the identification of the OBC from the 4,000 castes in the country be undertaken?

By staying the operation of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006, the Supreme Court has ensured that “elite” central institutions of higher learning such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) remain elitist

Against the backdrop of the policy of reservation of seats in higher education for the Other Backward Classes in India, this paper examines two inter-related yet distinct issues: (i) the use of economic criteria for assessing the backwardness of different social groups, and (ii) assessment of fairness of access to higher education of an identified "backward" social group. On an analysis of the NSS 55th round surveys for 1999-2000 we show that, on a range of economic criteria, there is a clear hierarchy across (essentially) caste-based social groups, with the scheduled castes (in urban India) and the scheduled tribes (in rural India) at the bottom, the OBCs in the middle, and the non-SC/ST "Others" at the top. However, for the poor among them, there is more of a continuum across caste-groups, with surprisingly small differences between the OBCs and the non-SC/ST Others. It is also shown that for the OBCs as a group, and especially for over 70 per cent of them who are above the poverty line, the extent of their under-representation in enrolments at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels is less than 5 per cent. Therefore, a 27 per cent quota for the OBCs, which would effectively raise their share in enrolments to over 50 per cent when their share in the eligible population is 30 per cent or less, is totally unjustified.

Kanshi Ram

The current protests against reservation in Karnataka may appear to be largely political in nature. But the protests overlook the historical nature and the wider repercussions in the polity, society and economy that the issue of reservations has had in the state. As a group, the "other backward classes" have come to constitute a politically significant section of the populace. But even as the protests unfold over reservations in government-run higher education institutions, these overlook the fact that the OBC community is in a state of flux and divisions within them indicate that a new social coalition is in the making.