The caste conundrum in OBC sub-quotas

With the submission of the Justice Rohini Commission report, mandated to study and recommend sub-grouping of castes in the Central List of Other Backward Classes (OBC), the buzz is growing around splitting of the 27% reservations available to OBCs in central government jobs and education institutions. 

The four-member Justice Rohini Commission, constituted in October 2017 during the previous term of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, took a long six years to submit the report. On July 31st, the report was sent to the President of India, that is ten months before the scheduled Lok Sabha elections in 2024.

The OBC enigma for the Union government has many facets. The first, was establishing the Rohini Commission in 2017 to split the 27% backward classes quotas. Within a year, in August 2018, the government decided to introduce two Constitutional provisions in affirmative actions guaranteed to the OBCs. One was granting Constitutional status to an otherwise statutory National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC). The second was to take away the powers of states to add or delete castes to their Backward Classes List, granting the power to Parliament under Article 342A.

The waters were further muddied by the inclusion of Marathas in the OBC category by the BJP-led Maharashtra government in 2018. This was done against the extant Constitutional provisions that restricted state powers to alter the state BC List.

The Union government, by August 2021, made a u-turn with the 105th Amendment by not only restoring powers to states to add or delete castes in the BC List but also absolving them of consulting the NCBC.

50% reservation

In the run-up to the last Lok Sabha elections, in January 2019, the Union government granted 10% reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS), breaching the 50% reservation rule. After the elections, OBCs having realised that the 50% rule could be breached, started demanding reservations as per their actual numbers.

The Mandal Commission Report of 1980 pegged the OBC population of India at 52% but recommended only 27% reservation due to the 50% restriction. This was eventually breached in 2019.

Thus ensued a data war, with demand for OBC and caste enumeration as a part of 2021 Census. There was a demand from Opposition parties to release the socio-economic caste census data of 2011, which has the OBC numbers. The central government denied both demands. Eventually, EWS reservation was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Janhit Abhiyan case in 2022.

Against this backdrop, if the Union government goes ahead with sub-categorisation of OBCs (presuming the same has been recommended by the commission), it will be a step further into their OBC enigma, which made them push three Constitutional amendments in four years. Constitutional amendment to Article 342A can enable the government to subgroup the OBC List.

For OBCs, this kind of categorisation is nothing new as they are already sub-categorised in all states for reservations. There has not been a judicial review against OBC categorisation, as they are not a homogenous group, unlike Scheduled Castes sub-categorisation, which was set aside in 2004 by a Constitutional bench in the E V Chinnaiah case.

Even though sub-categorising among various OBCs is not constitutionally invalid, serious concerns have emerged on the lack of data and demographics. While in 2021, the Union government restored power to states to add or delete castes to the OBC list, the possibility of OBC data availability has become grossly remote, making the proviso a non-starter.

More so when states like Bihar went ahead with a caste survey in 2022 to ascertain OBC population, it has become a point of consternation as the BJP-led Central government joined the case in Supreme Court this year, to oppose the Bihar caste survey. In the fast-changing scenario of OBC politics, the subscript of splitting 27% among OBCs is not new. The gains or losses, if any, will be visible only electorally.

(The writer is an Assistant Professor in Department of Political Science, University of Allahabad)