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First Backward Classes Commission, 1955 or The Kaka Kalelkar Commission

The Kalelkar Commission (1955): 1. Was the first backward classes commission established in India to identify socially and educationally backward classes beyond Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. 2. It recommended reserving 70% seats in professional institutions for backward classes and minimum reservations of 25-40% in government jobs for OBCs. 3. The commission submitted a list of 2,399 backward castes/communities but the chairman Kalelkar took an equivocal stand and opposed some recommendations in a letter to the President.

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105 views6 pages

First Backward Classes Commission, 1955 or The Kaka Kalelkar Commission

The Kalelkar Commission (1955): 1. Was the first backward classes commission established in India to identify socially and educationally backward classes beyond Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. 2. It recommended reserving 70% seats in professional institutions for backward classes and minimum reservations of 25-40% in government jobs for OBCs. 3. The commission submitted a list of 2,399 backward castes/communities but the chairman Kalelkar took an equivocal stand and opposed some recommendations in a letter to the President.

Uploaded by

Prithvi Setty
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Kalelkar Commission

First Backward Classes Commission, 1955 or the Kaka Kalelkar


Commission
Adhering to Article 340 of the Constitution of India, the First Backward Classes
Commission was set up by a presidential order on 29 January 1953 under the
chairmanship of Kaka Kalelkar.

Its terms of references were to:

1. Determine the criteria to be adopted in considering whether any sections of


the people in the territory of India in addition to the SC and ST as socially and
educationally backward classes, using such criteria it was to prepare a list of
such classes setting out also their approximate members and their territorial
distribution.

2. Investigate the conditions of all such socially and educationally backward


classes and the differences under which they labour and make recommendations

 1. as to the steps that should be taken by the union or any state to


remove such difficulties or to improve their economic condition, and

 2. as to the grants that should be made for the purpose by the union
or any state and the conditions subject to which such grants should be
made;

 3. Investigate such other matters as the president may hereafter


refer to them and

 4. Present to the president a report setting out the facts as found by


them and making such recommendations as they think proper.
Criteria
For identifying socially and educationally backward classes, the commission
adopted the following criteria:

1. Low social position in the traditional caste hierarchy of Hindu society.

2. Lack of general educational advancement among the major section of a


caste or community.

3. Inadequate or no representation in government services.

4. Inadequate representation in the field of trade, commerce and industry


Following descriptions was used for classification of various communities as
educationally and socially backward:

1. Those who suffer from the stigma of untouchability or near untouchability.


(already classified as SC)

2. Those tribes who are not yet sufficiently assimilated in the general social
order. (already classified as ST)

3. Those who, owing to long neglect, have been driven as community to


crime. (Ex-criminal or Denotified Groups)

4. Those nomads who do not enjoy any social respect and who have no
appreciation of a fixed habitat and are given to mimicry, begging, jugglery,
dancing, etc.

5. Communities consisting largely of agricultural and landless laborers.

6. Communities consisting largely of tenants without occupancy rights and


those with insecure land tenure.

7. Communities consisting of a large percentage of small land owners with


uneconomic holdings.

8. Communities engaged in cattle breeding, sheep breeding or fishing on a


small scale.

9. Artisans and occupational classes without security of employment and


whose traditional occupations have ceased to be remunerative.

10. Communities, the majority of whose people do not have sufficient


education and, therefore, have not secured adequate representation in
government services.

11. Social groups among the Muslims, Christians and Sikhs who are still
backward socially and educationally.

12. Communities occupying low position in social hierarchy.

Recommendations
The commission submitted its report on 30 March 1955. It had prepared a list of
2,399 backward castes or communities for the entire country and of which 837 (*
starred communities) had been classified as the ‘most backward’ Some of the
most noteworthy recommendations of the commission were:

1. Undertaking caste-wise enumeration of population in the census of 1961.

2. Relating social backwardness of a class to its low position in the traditional


caste hierarchy of Hindu society,

3. Treating all women as a class as ‘backward’;

4. Reservation of 70 per cent seats in all technical and professional


institutions for qualified students of backward classes.

5. That special economic measures be taken to uplift the OBCs economically


through such programmes as extensive land reforms, reorganization of village
economy, Bhoodan movement, development of livestock, dairy farming, cattle
insurance, bee-keeping, piggery, fisheries, development of rural housing,
public health and rural water supply, adult literacy programmes , etc.; and
6. Minimum reservation of vacancies in all government services and local
bodies for other backward classes on the following scale: class I = 25 per
cent; class II = 33½ per cent; class III and IV = 40 per cent.
Kaka Kalelkar, the Chairman, took a rather equivocal stand on the issue, though
he did not record a formal minutes of dissent, in his forwarding letter to the
President he opposed some recommendations made by the commission

Observations in the Report


The commission’s observations:

1. The commission observed that although untouchability or tribal character


may not be found, the backwardness persists, the tribal people found anywhere
in the state should be brought under the list and a uniform policy must be
followed throughout India in the interest of the advancement of these classes
otherwise it will amount to setting a premium on their remaining within certain
areas. It would be invidious to single out sections of the community or areas of
modernization and to deprive people of help on that score. Let the whole
community get modernized. The whole state should be one unit and the help
offered to the tribal people must be given to them irrespective of their shifting
from one areas to another in the state.

2. The privileged classes must voluntarily renounce their privileges and their
claims to social superiority and must work wholeheartedly for the eradication
of social evils.

3. The ultimate solution seems to be that all production and distribution


should be on a socialistic basis and that people should be encouraged to
establish the necessary moral basis and to train themselves for the change over.

4. In India, economic backwardness is often the result and not the cause
of social evils.

5. In the final analysis, I stand for a social order in which neither religion nor
political power are organized to control the destinies of humanity. Just as we
stand for a secular democracy, I stand for a non-political social order based on
mutual love, trust, respect and service. But, this has nothing to do with the
universal adult franchise which I accept whole-heartedly.

6. According to the terms of reference to the commission, we were asked to


consider whether any sections of the people of the territory of India, in addition to
the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, should be treated as socially
and educationally backward classes. The word specifically used are classes and
sections of the people and not castes; and yet, as explained in the body of the
report the word ‘sections and classes’ can in the present context mean nothing
but castes, and no other interpretation is feasible. It must be admitted, however,
that, taking the wording of terms of reference, we are not precluded from
interpreting the words ‘sections and classes of the people’ in their widest
significance even excluding the idea of caste. We feel we were justified in
accepting the traditional interpretation. We were warned by well-wishers of the
country that investigations into caste may encourage people to be caste-
conscious, and thus increase the atmosphere of communalism. Following the
analogy if the proverb, viz. ‘using the thorn to remove a thorn’, we held that the
evils of caste could be removed by measures which could be considered in terms
of caste alone.

7. It can be safely said that those who possess large tracts of land; those who
have enough money to lend, those who have brains to create quarrels and
factions amongst the people, and those who have the tradition of wielding
governmental power, are all dominant people in the rural areas. I did not succeed
in the effort of classifying the backward classes because I could not carry
conviction to my colleagues that these dominant communities must be
segregated if the victims of domination have to be saved.

8. Who, then are the backward people? Evidently those who do not
command adequate and sufficient representation in government service, those
who do not command large amount of natural resources like land, money and
industrial undertakings; those who live in ill-ventilated houses; those who are
nomadic; those who live by begging and other unwholesome means; those who
are agricultural laborers or those who practice unremunerative occupations
without any means to enter better paying professions; and those who on account
of poverty, ignorance and other social disabilities are unable to educate
themselves or produce sufficient leadership, are all backward. The communities,
classes or social groups who occupy an inferior social position in relation to the
upper castes and who also answer the above description, naturally come under
the category of other backward classes.

9. It is therefore, essential that no dominating community should be allowed


to claim to be the protectors of the weaker sections. It is only the good men from
every community, men who are imbued with a sense of social justice, who can
forget caste prejudices, are prepared to surrender their privileges and who can
combine to usher in a new era of social justice and universal family hood, that
can be natural leaders and protectors of the helpless, mute and suffering
masses. It is much better if new communities are allowed to try their hands at
leadership. Only those like Nehru, are above communal considerations and even
nationalistic considerations, should be allowed, to formulate the policy of the
nation. It is no use challenging the leadership of the best in the land by searching
out the community to which they belong, and then accusing them that they are
monopolizing leadership for the upper classes. All monopoly must be broken
even of it is fully justified and opportunities for service must be assured to all
sections of the population.

10. He has given the history of reservations and political leadership in India.

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