Before we get into this, tell me who are these OBCs? Who decides who is an OBC and who is not?

OBC or Other Backward Classes are backward communities other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. These are mostly ‘shudras’ in the traditional varna hierarchy: below the ‘dwija’ or the twice born but above the ‘untouchable’ communities. But not all ‘shudras’ are recognised as OBCs by the government. The Mandal Commission used a survey to shortlist those ‘shudra’ communities that were ‘backward’ in economic and educational terms. Since then the National Commission for Backward Classes, a statutory body set up on the orders of the Supreme Court, takes the decision about which caste or community and in which state (or sometimes region within a state) should by given the legal status of an OBC. The system is not perfect—the NCBC has been too lenient about including new castes in the OBC list and reluctant to exclude any—but it is not arbitrary. The government can start with this ready-made list.

And why do they get 27 per cent reservation? What is their share in population? Isn’t that a disputed figure?

The Mandal Commission claimed that the OBCs were 52 per cent of India’s population. This figure was based on back-of-the-envelope calculation by remainder method and has not been backed by any social scientific evidence.

The NSS has put the figure at 36 per cent, but this is based on ‘self-reporting’ and likely to underestimate the OBC population. The most robust estimate is anywhere between 40 to 44 per cent. We can’t have more precise information because the Census does not collect information about the OBC population.

... contd.