Whether it’s the government making a show with announcements, bills, and ordinances, or the Opposition making discreet noises, neither side is seriously thinking about who is responsible for the BCs’ failure to secure their rightful share.
Published Aug 16, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 16, 2025 | 9:00 AM
(Representational/ iStock)
Synopsis: In Telangana politics today, the buzzword echoing everywhere is “BC quota”. However, much of what is being said is mere lip service — words meant for display, aimed at winning the goodwill of unsuspecting BCs. It is as true that no one fails to talk about BC upliftment as it is that no one actually takes or proposes the steps necessary for it.
In Telangana politics today, the buzzword echoing everywhere is “BC quota”. No political party or leader dares to oppose it openly, fearing that doing so would alienate the Backward Classes (BCs), who make up about 60 percent of the state’s population. However, there is reason to doubt whether even half of those who appear to be supporting it and speaking in its favour have a genuine commitment.
Much of what is being said is mere lip service — words meant for display, aimed at winning the goodwill of unsuspecting BCs.
Whether it’s the government making a show with announcements, bills, and ordinances, or the Opposition making discreet noises, neither side is seriously thinking about who is responsible for the BCs’ failure to secure their rightful share in education, employment and politics in Telangana, or what concrete steps must be taken — at least now — to ensure that share.
It is as true that no one fails to talk about BC upliftment as it is that no one actually takes or proposes the steps necessary for it.
Regrettably, such a fair and democratic aspiration has ended up going nowhere after being tossed around among so many mouths. Old proverbs like “too many cooks spoil the broth” and “when ten people strike at a snake, it never dies” seem to be coming true in the case of BC reservations. However, this betrayal is neither new nor recent; it is a story of generations.
In our society, communities known by various names — Shudra castes, intermediate castes, productive castes, labouring castes — came to be referred to in constitutional language not even as “Backward Castes” but under a new term, “Backward Classes.”
Acting on the Constitution, inspired by the ideal of social justice, when the government ordered that the Scheduled Castes should be given 15 percent reservation and the Scheduled Tribes 7.5 percent reservation in education, jobs, and elections — owing to their long history of oppression and denial of opportunities — these proportions were fixed based on the 1951 Census data.
In the Constituent Assembly debates of August–November 1949, there was also discussion of the backwardness of communities other than SCs and STs, and the need to extend special protections to them. Arguments were made that they, too, had been denied social and educational opportunities for generations and should receive protective reservations proportional to their population.
Since caste was a primary indicator of social and educational backwardness in Indian society, some argued for caste-based reservations. Others argued that backwardness should be measured instead by poverty and lack of education, not caste.
Along with the disagreement on what basis backwardness should be identified, there was another technical issue. Unlike with SCs and STs, where exact Census figures existed, there was no precise numerical data for other castes. Consequently, no fixed reservation quota for the Backward Classes was determined at that time.
The vague term “Backward Classes” (not “Backward Castes”) was adopted. As Dr BR Ambedkar concluded the debate: “We have to balance the principle of equality of opportunity with the need to give fair opportunity to those who have been denied it for centuries. Therefore, while we are not fixing precise quotas now, we are empowering the government to make special arrangements wherever there is social and educational backwardness.”
Since there had been no caste-wise enumeration after the 1931 Census, the principle of proportional representation could not be applied directly. Three years after the Constitution came into force, the Ganesh Vasudev (Kaka) Kalelkar Commission was appointed.
Starting work in January 1953, it submitted its report in 1955, identifying 2,399 castes as Backward Classes based on their place in the caste hierarchy, educational and economic status, and occupation.
Because in rural Indian society, caste played a larger role than religion, and because it was customary to treat non-Hindus as belonging to different castes too, this list included people of various religions.
The Kalelkar Commission recommended 20 percent reservation in jobs for SCs, 10 percent for STs, and 40 percent for other Backward Classes, along with proportionate reservation in higher education. In 1961, the government announced that it was not accepting these recommendations.
Later, the Mandal Commission (1979) at the national level, and commissions like the Anantharaman Commission (1962) and Muralidhara Rao Commission (1986) at the state level, made several recommendations for BC development. But governments and political leadership never showed the sincerity to implement them fully.
When the VP Singh government attempted to implement the Mandal Commission recommendations, anti-Mandal agitations erupted — encouraged directly and indirectly by the RSS — leading to violence. In 1992, the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case imposed a cap that total reservations in the country should not exceed 50 percent.
This meant that SCs and STs together had 22.5 percent, leaving only 27.5 percent for BCs, creating a tight bottleneck. In truth, this 50 percent limit is meaningless, unjust, and arbitrary.
It goes against the democratic principle of “jitni abaadi, utna haq”—rights proportional to population. In the three and a half decades since the Mandal Commission, awareness of this democratic principle has grown. One demand arising from that awareness has been: first, determine the BC population.
Until the Bihar government announced its Caste Census results on 2 October 2023, there was no exact figure — only estimates. Based on the 1931 data and population growth rates, guesses ranged from 55 percent to 70 percent. The Bihar Caste Census established for the first time that there were 209 castes in that state, with a total BC population of 63 percent.
This gave renewed momentum to the decade-old demand for caste enumeration. The BJP, which had supported the caste census while in Opposition, began opposing it once in power.
All political parties have been showing similar double-speak behaviour. The Congress, which had demanded a nationwide caste census, has still not released the report of the census conducted in Karnataka two years ago.
In this backdrop, the caste census (2024 Social, Educational, Economic, and Employment Caste Survey) was conducted in Telangana. Though it had shortcomings, it was done.
But instead of releasing the full report, the government only announced a single combined figure for all BCs: 56.33 percent of the population. Even without a caste-wise breakup, once that figure was established, the key question became: Will proportional representation be implemented? The government began efforts to provide not 56 percent but 42 percent reservation.
In March 2025, the Telangana Legislative Assembly passed two bills to provide 42 percent BC reservation in education, government jobs, and local self-government bodies. This exceeds both the current BC quota of 29 percent (A 7, B 10, C 1, D 7, E 4) and the Supreme Court’s imposed limit. These bills await the President’s assent.
Meanwhile, since the high court ordered local body elections to be held by 30 September, the government issued an ordinance granting the 42 percent BC quota in these elections.
The Congress staged a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, demanding that the President promptly sign the bills, attempting to apply legal and political pressure. It says the Union government’s apathy is an insult to Telangana and the BCs. Unlike the BJP, which is blocking the bills, Congress says it will give 42 percent of tickets to BCs in the local body elections.
The BJP’s Telangana unit claims to support the 42 percent BC reservation, while the Union government blocks it. State BJP leaders are also quietly pushing that BC-E (Muslims) should not be included, trying to create a rift between BCs and Muslims, and opposing the caste census in Telangana.
The BRS, while claiming to approve reservation hikes to avoid alienating BCs, questions the Congress’s sincerity. Former MP K Kavitha, whose current position in the party is uncertain, claims that it was they who first demanded enhanced BC reservations, forcing Congress to act, and accuses Congress of lacking the sincerity to implement the Kamareddy Declaration.
She says the current decision should be expanded and made more systematic.
In reality, Telangana officially has 112 BC castes (162 in the latest survey — perhaps because some sub-castes have been counted separately). Of these, fewer than 10 percent enjoy even a fraction of their population share in education, jobs, wealth, and opportunities.
For the remaining 90 percent, not only political space but also greater educational access, government jobs, and self-employment opportunities must be provided. Care must also be taken to ensure that those already enjoying benefits do not corner the increased quota being announced now.
Unless such work is done with genuine commitment, everyone will keep offering “support”—but the actual help received will remain zero.
(Views are personal. Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
