(In commemoration of the Dalit History Month, we will be revisiting our archives with articles on the question of Dalit identity, politics and history throughout April. In this piece from September 2006, Shivam Vij the Indian middle-class anger against reservations for Other Backward Classes. More articles from the series are here.)
In April and May of this year, the Indian government announced the reservation of 27 percent of the seats in educational institutions run by the central government for Other Backward Classes (OBC), also known as the middle castes. This was an extension of what had already been taking place in institutions run by state governments, as well as in government employment at all levels. A group of New Delhi medical students, aided by corporates and the media, demonstrated for several days against the decision. The agitation – which consisted of a hunger strike, some marches and the offering of copious soundbites on live TV – was sustained on the basis of vague memories of similar protests that took place in 1991. During that year the implementation of reservations had first been sought, as originally recommended in 1980 by the B P Mandal Commission on Backward Classes.
The Pioneer newspaper's consulting editor, Chandrabhan Prasad, has often written in his path-breaking Dalit Diary column about how the Indian media ignores the issue of caste, and how rare it is for other publications to give him space to express the Dalit agenda. Ironically, during the agitation earlier this year, Prasad was all over the media – on TV, on the Times of India's edit page – opposing the move. Prasad's contention was not only that the OBCs do not deserve reservations, but also that Dalits would be hurt by the legislation. "The anti-Mandal lobby gained in legitimacy simply because Mandal went the wrong way," he wrote. "It is in that sense that Mandal hurts even Dalits." But this only raises the question, in what sense exactly? Dalits already have reservations at all levels, and New Delhi has now been lobbied and convinced to extend reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes to the private sector. Prasad has always held that we are "in the era of Dalits vs Shudras", Shudras being OBCs and collectively referred to as the Bahujan. Although both have traditionally been oppressed, Dalits are considered as holding a place lower in the social and religious hierarchy. It is only recently that he has conceded that the large category of OBCs has within it a number of castes that are as economically and socially deprived as Dalits. His argument is that only these Most Backward Castes (MBCs) deserve reservation, not the "upper OBCs" who own land, and who need a "social revolution" rather than reservations. This contention – supported by neither facts and figures nor greater research, which has otherwise been Prasad's hallmark – has of late turned vicious, with such statements as: