In a fiery speech in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Home Minister Amit Shah labelled the Congress “anti-reservation” by bringing up the long-forgotten Kalelkar Commission report. It was India’s first backward classes commission, but “its report is missing from the records of Parliament”, said Shah.

The Kalelkar Commission, officially known as India’s First Backward Classes Commission, was set up by President Rajendra Prasad in January 1953.

Among other recommendations, the Kalelkar Commission recommended that data on castes and communities be collected during the 1961 Census. The Commission recommended 70% reservation in higher education institutes for backward classes, and that all women be declared backward, according to a paper on Shodhganga, a repository managed by the UGC.

Its report is of significance because it suggested ways for uplift of backward classes three decades before the Mandal Commission, which changed the political landscape of India.

“Had the Kaka Saheb Kalelkar report been accepted, the Mandal Commission report of 1980 would not have been necessary,” Shah said in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on the Constitution on Tuesday.

What is interesting is that the chairman of the commission, Kaka Kalelkar, himself didn’t agree with the report’s outcome.

“He [Kalelkar] concluded that the remedies suggested by the commission were worse than the evil it was out to fight,” says the Shodhganga paper.

The Commission consisted of 11 members, including its chairman Kalelkar.

The Kalelkar Commission submitted its report in March 1955. It was considered by the government over the next half-decade but was rejected in 1961, according to the National Commission for Backward Classes’ 2012-13 annual report.

Before getting into the content of the Kalelkar Commission report and what happened to it, let us look at the context why Shah brought up the long-forgotten panel during a parliamentary debate.

WHY AMIT SHAH BROUGH UP KALELKAR COMMISSION REPORT

The Congress bettered its performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election by talking about a caste census. It alleged that the BJP was looking for over 400 seats in the Lok Sabha to change the Constitution and end caste-based reservations.

BJP leaders rejected the claims and fears as unfounded, but Congress has been time and again trying to project the BJP as anti-reservation.

Amit Shah, by referring to the Kalelkar Commission, tried to project the Congress as “anti-reservation”.

“Today, I want to tell you how the Congress party is actually anti-reservation. Their words and actions are completely contradictory. In 1955, the Kaka Saheb Kalelkar Commission was formed to provide reservations for OBCs. Where is its report,” asked Shah.

Shah argued, “The Kalelkar Commission report was forgotten because OBCs would have received reservations.”

The Home Minister said that he had searched the records of both Houses of Parliament but didn’t find the Kalelkar Commission report.

“Any report that comes has to appear before the Cabinet, but instead of bringing it to Parliament, they keep it in the archives,” he added.

The Commission was set up in 1953 when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister.

Trying to point out the significance of the report, Shah said, had the Kalelkar report been accepted, the Mandal Commission of 1979 would not have been needed.

The Mandal Commission, or the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission, was constituted during the prime ministership of Janata Party’s Morarji Desai government in 1979.

After the commission submitted its report in 1980, VP Singh’s Janata government implemented its recommendations in 1990, which sought to provide 27% reservations in central government jobs, public sector undertakings, and seats in higher education institutions.

The 27% OBC reservation was added to the existing reservations for Scheduled Castes (15%) and Scheduled Tribes (7.5%), bringing the total reservations to 49.5% in central government jobs and educational institutions.

WHAT DID THE KALELKAR COMMISSION RECOMMEND?

The Kalelkar Commission prepared a list of as many as 2,399 communities that were treated as socially and educationally backward. Of these, 913 communities alone had an estimated population of 115 million (11.5 crore). According to the 1951 Census, the population of India was 36.11 crore.

That means, the Kalelkar Commission suggested that a huge chunk of India’s population needed to be treated as backward.

The panel recommended reservations in government jobs, educational institutions, and legislative bodies for socially and educationally backward classes (SEBCs).

Interestingly, it also suggested all women should be treated as a “backward class”.

Although the Kalelkar Commission examined several criteria for identifying backward classes, it ultimately chose to regard caste as a primary factor in the determination process.

A key recommendation was reserving 70% of seats in technical and professional institutions for candidates from backward classes.

For government services, the commission proposed a graded reservation system — 25% for Class I, 33.5% for Class II, and 40% for Class III and IV jobs.

These recommendations are designed to ensure equitable representation and economic progress for the SEBCs, though the recommendations were not implemented.

WHAT HAPPENED TO KALELKAR COMMISSION REPORT

Chairman Kalelkar himself disagreed with the Commission’s report.

In his covering letter to the president dated March 30, 1955, Kalelkar expressed his inhibitions, according to the UGC’s Shodhganga material, ‘The First Backward Classes Commission: Dilemma of Caste Based Reservation’.

“My eyes were, however, opened to the dangers of suggesting remedies on a caste basis when I discovered that it was going to have a most unhealthy effect on the Muslim and Christian sections of the nation,” wrote Kalelkar, according to Shodhganga.

After the submission in 1955, the report of the Commission was laid before Parliament in 1956 by Govind Ballabh Pant, the Home Minister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s Cabinet.

The parliamentary memorandum on the Kalelkar Commission’s report was highly critical of it.

The memorandum held that the commission, which saw differences of opinion among its members, failed to establish objective criteria to define “backwardness”.

Kalelkar himself had reservations about using caste as the sole parameter for gauging backwardness, as he believed there were extremely poor and deserving individuals in all communities.

“Due to the failure of the Kaka Kalelkar Commission to devise ‘positive’ and ‘workable criteria’ other than caste failed, the [Nehru-led Central] government in May 1961 decided against drawing up all India lists of OBCs and extending reservations in its services for any groups other than the SCs and STs,” noted the Shodhganga document.

The Nehru-led Centre, however, asked the state governments to exercise their discretion in determining criteria for backwardness, suggesting that it would be preferable to use economic tests rather than rely solely on caste.

Sixty-three years after the Kalelkar Committee’s recommendations were rejected, Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah used it to allege that the Congress was “anti-reservation”. Shah argued that the Nehru-led government’s decision to disregard the report’s recommendations for OBC reservations deprived the community of timely representation. Though the Kalelkar Commission wasn’t unanimous on its report and the outcome was different from what it had set out to do, the recommendations and observations could have helped provide support to backward classes much earlier.