Divide and win

As the final phases of the general elections draw to a close, an increasingly panicky Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started upping the ante on the question of reservations for Muslims, once again attempting to rebuild his majority by forcing a Hindu-Muslim divide.

- MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

If, as the BJP has long been stressing, and Modi has been underlining, religion is nowhere mentioned in the First Amendment of 1951, which brought in reservations for Other Backward Classes, it is also necessary to underline that “caste” is also nowhere mentioned in this connection. The operative word is “classes”—a point stressed by Jawaharlal Nehru moving the legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the select committee set up by Parliament. “Classes”, of course, include both castes and communities. That is why Nehru, moving the amendment on May 29, 1951, described our aim as being “to realise an egalitarian society”, given the indisputable fact and social reality that, “infinite divisions have grown up in our… social structure”. He, specifically, described these infinite divisions as relating to “the caste system or religious divisions”. The use of the words “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs) was clearly designed to address all backward groups whether of castes, or occupations, or religion.