The 1950 Constitution only provided for reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. But the Constitution writers left a window, by the way of Article 340, which allowed future governments to appoint a commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes. The first such commission was appointed on January 29, 1953, chaired by former freedom fighter Dattareya Balakrishna Kalelkar. The commission had eleven members most of them being backward caste representatives, except Kalelkar who was a Brahmin. The commission submitted its report on March 30, 1955. It had prepared a list of 2,399 backward castes, recommending 25-40 per cent reservation for them in Central government services. It also recommended that women as a class be categorised as “backward” extending all the benefits to them too, irrespective of their caste. But Kalelkar himself undermined the report with a 23-page cover letter denigrating the commission’s two-year-long work. “It is only when the report was being finalised that I started thinking anew and found that backwardness could be tackled on a basis or a number of bases other than that of caste,” he wrote.
The report was tabled before Parliament on September 3, 1956, but was not even discussed. Its recommendations were never implemented, primarily because Congress – which had the support of the “extremes” (the Dalits and the forward castes) – was afraid to undo the delicate balance. Yet, anxious to not lose the OBC votes it drew in the south and the west, the Congress found a middle path, declaring that while there would be no OBC quota in Central government jobs, state governments were free to set up their own commissions to provide reservation in state government institutions. Over the next two decades, ten state governments (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh) set up 15 such commissions, all of which acknowledged that reservations for OBCs were necessary and set varying quotas for them, ranging from five per cent in Punjab to fifty per cent in Karnataka. Karpoori Thakur was one of the first chief ministers, way back in 1978, to implement reservation for the backward castes in Bihar.
The Janata Party in 1977 decided that the Kalelkar Commission report was insufficient. It instead set up a new commission, this time headed by Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal, former chief minister of Bihar. But by the time he presented his report, the Janata Party was voted out of power and the Congress was back. Once again the report lay forgotten, until the National Front government came to power.
Implementing the Mandal Commission report was one of the key poll promises of the Janata Dal. Soon after the formation of his government, in December 1989, Prime Minister VP Singh set up a committee chaired by his Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal to oversee the process of implementation of the Mandal Commission report. The social welfare department under Paswan was told to match the Mandal report’s list of OBC castes for each state with the lists already in use by many of them, to iron out anomalies. It was a ginormous task and Paswan did not have much time on his hand. Devi Lal, who belonged to the prosperous Jat community, wasn’t too interested or invested in ensuring reservation for the backward classes. As the chairman of the committee, he did precious little and it fell upon Paswan to oversee the job.
It would be incorrect to credit VP Singh alone for the implementation of the Mandal Commission report and for bringing in 27 per cent reservation for the backward classes in government jobs and educational institutions. The situation and the people around him forced his hand.
The confrontation that began in February 1990 over the Meham by-polls ended with Devi Lal’s expulsion from the government on August 1, 1990. In a counter-offensive, Devi Lal announced a public meeting on August 9 to coincide with the Quit India Movement anniversary. He calculated that the participation of Janata Dal MPs and MLAs loyal to him would embarrass VP Singh enough to either resign himself or pave the way for his return to the cabinet.
A panicked VP Singh telephoned Janata Dal MP Sharad Yadav, who was a close associate of Devi Lal, asking for help. Sharad Yadav drove down to the prime minister’s residence at 7 Race Course Road (now 7 Lok Kalyan Marg).
I was in a quandary. On the one hand was Devi Lal, who I saw as my guide and mentor, and on the other my own commitment to making reservation for the backward castes a reality. If I were to abide by my friendship and go along with Devi Lal the government would fall, the Mandal report would remain buried forever.
Sharad Yadav told VP Singh that he had only one arrow in his quiver to counter Devi Lal’s threat, the Mandal Commission reported. This alone could stop the OBC leaders in the Janata Dal ranks from deserting him. If the Mandal Commission report was not implemented, he told VP Singh he would leave along with his supporters.
VP had very little room for manoeuvre. He still wanted to delay the announcement. He felt that the ramparts of Red Fort, during the prime minister’s Independence Day address was perhaps better suited for such a momentous announcement. But Sharad Yadav insisted that the government didn’t have time for grand gestures. It was simply now or never.
On August 2, the day after Devi Lal quit the government, the cabinet note for the implementation of the Mandal Commission was brought in. Only two people in the cabinet knew: Paswan, the minister-in-charge, and Sharad Yadav. Arif Mohammed Khan, the current governor of Kerala (he was appointed on September 1, 2019) was the energy minister with the additional charge of civil aviation. He recalls that he was the only one in the cabinet that day to object to the proposal. “Many others also had doubts, but they held their tongue. I wasn’t against the implementation of the Mandal Commission. My only objection was the way it was brought in. During the meeting I said that the Janata Dal has not got the mandate on its own, it was operating with the support of the BJP and the Left parties. A decision, as monumental as this, should, therefore ideally be discussed with both sides before implementing it.”
Paswan and Sharad Yadav, both strongly differed with Khan’s line of argument. “They wanted the report to be implemented with great speed.” Paswan, Khan says, was working on the Mandal Commission with his entire “heart and soul” and was immune to reason. He would have fought off any obstacle in the way to implement it. He was also optimistic that the populace would joyously embrace him and the VP government for the step. There is another extended version of this very conversation published in the former editor of the Indian Express Arun Shourie’s autobiographical book The Commissioner for Lost Causes.
During the cabinet meeting, Paswan reportedly said, “Sir, yeh jo apne nirnay liya hai, hum iska poora samarthan kartey hain. Isko lagoo karney se ab hamey bees saal tak koi bhi satta se hatta nahi sakega.” (Sir, we totally support this decision that you have taken. Once this is implemented, no one can remove us from power for twenty years). To this Khan replied, “Pradhan Mantri ji, bees saal to kya isko lagoo karney ke baad agar aap bees haftey bhee satta mein reh gaye to mera naam badal dena.” (Mr Prime Minister, forget about twenty years. If you continue to remain in power for even twenty weeks after implementing this decision, then you can change my name.) This conversation was relayed to Shourie by Khan.
While VP Singh was steadying the ship after Devi Lal’s desertion, key ally BJP was ready to jump. Though the BJP did not want to openly oppose the reservation issue, it wasn’t happy the way VP Singh had rammed it through without consulting them. LK Advani writes in his autobiography My Life, My Country, that he had requested VP Singh not to announce the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s report before its implications were debated at the informal coordination committee comprising the leaders of the National Front, BJP and the Left parties. He told him that the regular Tuesday meeting was just two days away. But VP Singh was adamant. “No, I cannot wait, I have to announce it tomorrow,” Singh replied.
“He did not specifically refer to the scheduled Kisan rally by Devi Lal but it was obvious to me that he was using the Mandal issue for sheer political survival.” Left too wasn’t convinced by VP Singh’s move. They wanted economic criteria to be made on the basis of reservation and not caste. But VP Singh and Paswan remained adamant.
The announcement of the Mandal Commission report paid off at least in the short term. Very few Janata Dal MPs or MLAs attended Devi Lal’s rally barring Chandra Shekhar.
The official notification was issued on August 13, 1990, with the government listing only those castes as OBCs that were common to the Mandal Commission and the state government lists about 1,200 of them.
Paswan, Sharad Yadav and VP Singh became the ambassadors of the OBC reservation, a Dalit, a Backward and a Thakur. On August 14, Sharad Yadav and Paswan addressed a pro-Mandal rally in Delhi. The two passionately argued in favour of the OBC reservation at this meeting. This was just one of the many public meetings and interventions they made defending the decision.
Excerpted with permission from Ram Vilas Paswan: The Weathervane of Indian Politics, Sobhana K Nair, Roli Books.