Three issues are involved: One, the reservation policy is not implemented properly and hence does not benefit the needy social groups. Two, OBCs are not a homogenous social class and therefore policy must tune itself to the ground reality of backwardness, Three, inclusion in the OBC category is a political matter and communities (or sections of communities, a la creamy layer) need to be excluded from social justice policies. These three issues can be handled only with the help of a body of serious and systematic inquiry.

Secondly, it is time to rethink the strategies of implementing social justice. We must adopt a composite Equal Opportunity Index (EOI) that takes into account various systemic or socially grounded mechanisms of inequality and addresses them in an integrated manner. Most supporters of social justice would agree that while caste continues to be the most important marker of backwardness, there is a pressing need to integrate in our social justice policy some other markers of backwardness. Along with caste, gender, poverty, and the urban-rural divide are the three other factors that have an adverse effect on the opportunity structures available to groups or individuals.

In fact, the debate on Mandal has expanded the overall understanding of the democratic responsibilities of a society: We have moved away from the language of caste alone, and we are talking now about social justice. It is imperative that we follow the logic of this language of social justice and expand the policy horizons. A related dimension would be the mechanisms whereby social justice can be meted out.

... contd.