Mandal and the politics of caste
The government extends job reservations to the "Other Backward Classes", sparking upper-caste protest and transforming Indian politics.
- India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst / Columbia University Press (2003)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
India’s constitution reserved seats in legislatures and shares of government jobs and university places for Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis), today 15% and 7.5% respectively. In 1980 the Mandal Commission recommended adding 27% for the “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs), intermediate castes that it estimated made up over half the population.
- India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst / Columbia University Press (2003)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
In August 1990 Prime Minister V. P. Singh suddenly implemented the report for central government jobs. Upper-caste students protested across north India, and several set themselves on fire. In 1992 the Supreme Court upheld the quotas but capped total reservations at 50% and excluded the better-off “creamy layer”.
- India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst / Columbia University Press (2003)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
The deeper effect was what Christophe Jaffrelot called India’s “silent revolution”: lower-caste parties and leaders, such as Mayawati, a Dalit woman who became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, rose to power. In 2019 a further 10% quota was created for poor people outside the existing categories, and in 2025 the government announced that the next census would count caste for the first time since 1931.
- India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst / Columbia University Press (2003)
- Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy — Christophe Jaffrelot, Princeton University Press (2021)
Centuries of caste exclusion cannot be undone by formal equality alone. Quotas give Dalits, Adivasis and backward castes a real share of power, and their effects can be seen in new elites and political leaders.
- India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst / Columbia University Press (2003)
- From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement — Eleanor Zelliot, Manohar (1992)
Quotas based on caste rather than income entrench caste identity, help the better-off within "backward" groups most, and penalise poor upper-caste students. Merit should decide.
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
Why it matters today
Reservations (quotas) in education and government jobs are among the most argued-over issues in India. Many communities campaign to be classed as "backward", and the question of counting caste in the census has returned to the centre of politics.
Mandal brought lower-caste Hindus into power in north India and forced the question of caste hierarchy into the open, challenging both upper-caste dominance and the Hindu nationalist hope of a united Hindu vote.