[1] It was headed by B. P. Mandal, an Indian member of parliament, to consider the question of reservations for people to address caste discrimination, and to use eleven social, economic, and educational indicators to determine backwardness.
[5] Indra Sawhney challenged the Mandal Commission and government decision to implement it in the Supreme Court in front of a nine Judge bench.
The Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act 2005 that was introduced by the First Manmohan Singh ministry, granted a 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes in all Central Government institutions.
The protests ended when on 10 April 2008, in the Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India case, the Supreme Court upheld the Ninety-third Constitutional Amendment and Central Educational Institutions(CEIs) (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006,[7] for the provision of 27% quota for candidates belonging to the Other Backward Classes in IITs, NITs, IIMs, AIIMS, IISc and other premier educational institutions.
[8] The primary objective that the Mandal Commission had in India was to Identify the conditions regarding social and educational backward classes to consider the question of reservations of seats and quotas.
Leading to the formation of the Mandal Commission, Indian society was based largely on the principles of Jaati and Varna, and to that extent a partially closed system.
This created a social stratification that played a dominant role within Indian society, laying the context for the Mandal Commission to be formed.
The rise of industrialisation and globalisation changed the economic structures in rural India and was another factor leading to the impoverishment of the artisan classes.
[10] Appointment of a commission to investigate the conditions of backward classes in India every 10 years, for the purpose of Articles 15 (Prohibition of Discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth).
In order to identify who qualified as an "other backward class," the commission adopted eleven criteria which could be grouped under three major headings: social, educational and economic.
[14] The commission estimated that 52% of the total population of India (excluding SCs and STs), belonging to 3,743 different castes and communities, were ‘backward’.
[1] The introduction to the Recommendations section in the report presents the following argument:[23] As the commission had concluded that 52 per cent of the country's population consisted of OBCs, it initially argued that the percentage of reservations in public services for backward classes should also match that figure.
[25] In December 1980, the Mandal Commission submitted its Report which described the criteria it used to indicate backwardness, and stated its recommendations in light of its observations and findings.
On 7 August 1990, the National Front government declared that it would provide 27 per cent reservations to "socially and educationally backward classes" for jobs in central services and public undertaking.
[26][27] That same year in September, a case was brought before the Supreme Court of India which challenged the constitutional validity of the Government Order for the implementation of the Mandal Report recommendations.
On 16 November 1992, the Supreme Court, in its verdict, upheld the government order, being of the opinion that caste was an acceptable indicator of backwardness.
Firstly, people in the South were more agreeable to the implementation of the Mandal report recommendations as affirmative action programmes had long been in existence there.
Lastly, as the region had a thriving industrial sector, the educated youth in the South were not as dependent on government employment as those in the North.
The Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act 2005 that was introduced by the First Manmohan Singh ministry, granted a 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes in all Central Government institutions.
The 2006 Indian anti-reservation protests took place in opposition to the decision of the Union Government of India to implement reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in central and private institutes of higher education.
On 10 April 2008, in the Ashoka Kumar Thakur v. Union of India case, the Supreme Court upheld the Ninety-third Constitutional Amendment and Central Educational Institutions(CEIs) (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006,[35] for the provision of 27% quota for candidates belonging to the Other Backward Classes in IITs, NITs, IIMs, AIIMS, IISc and other premier educational institutions.
"[45] Yadav argues that government jobs were availed to those who by their own means had got higher education, and that reservation for OBC's was only one of the many recommendations of the Mandal Commission, which largely remain unimplemented after 25 years.
[46] The National Sample Survey's 1999–2000 round estimated around 36 percent of the country's population as belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC).
A survey conducted in 1998 by National Family Health Statistics (NFHS) puts the proportion of non-Muslim OBCs as 29.8 per cent.
[49] However, according to National Sample Survey's 1999–2000 round around 36 per cent of the country's population is defined as belonging to the Other Backward Classes (OBC).
A survey conducted in 1998 by National Family Health Statistics (NFHS) puts the proportion of non-Muslim OBCs as 29.8 per cent.
Other arguments include that entrenching the separate legal status of OBCs and SC/STs will perpetuate caste differentiation and encourage competition among communities at the expense of national unity.
They believe that only a small new elite of educated Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs benefit from reservations, and that such measures don't do enough to lift the mass of people out of poverty.