“Nation Going To Pay… “: When Rajiv Gandhi Opposed 1990 Reservation Transfer

New Delhi:

April 30, 2025: The Narendra Modi authorities says caste knowledge will probably be a part of the following Census and that the transfer will help affirmative motion to uplift the society’s backward sections. Shortly after, Congress MP and Chief of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, claims credit score for pushing the Centre into taking the choice.

September 6, 1990: The VP Singh-led Nationwide Entrance authorities had already determined to implement the suggestions of the Mandal Fee, introducing 27 per cent reservation for Different Backward Courses (OBCs), thereby taking the whole reservation to 49.5 per cent. The transfer was vehemently opposed by Congress’s Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister, then Chief of the Opposition and Rahul Gandhi’s father.

Because the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress battle for credit score on the caste census, here’s a take a look at how the Grand Previous Social gathering responded to the Mandal Fee’s report 35 years again and the grounds on which it opposed the transfer.

A Kashmir Parallel

The Narendra Modi authorities’s determination to incorporate caste knowledge within the Census comes days after a heinous terror assault in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that left 25 vacationers and a Kashmiri pony journey operator useless. Tensions between India and Pakistan are at an all-time excessive and the clock is ticking for a response to the fear strike that has shocked the nation.

Curiously, the 1990 determination of the VP Singh authorities additionally had a Kashmir backdrop. Militancy was at its peak within the Valley and the primary few months of 1990 had seen the killing of a number of Kashmiri Hindus, resulting in an exodus of the minority neighborhood. VP Singh was beneath stress over the scenario in Kashmir and the pressured migration of Kashmiri Pandits, which might snowball into a significant political situation many years later.

The Mandal Fee

The Mandal Fee was fashioned in 1978 after the Janata Social gathering dealt a crushing victory to the Indira Gandhi-led Congress within the years following the Emergency. The mandate of this fee headed by BP Mandal was to establish socially or educationally backward courses. The report was submitted in 1980; by then, the Janata Social gathering was out of energy and Mrs Gandhi had returned as Prime Minister. The following decade noticed key nationwide developments, together with the separatist motion in Punjab, Operation Bluestar by which the Indian Military stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar and Mrs Gandhi’s subsequent assassination by her safety workers.

Following her dying, her older son, Rajiv Gandhi, grew to become Prime Minister with an enormous mandate, however there was no motion on the Mandal Fee report. Within the 1989 Lok Sabha election, the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress was routed and VP Singh grew to become Prime Minister with the assist of the Left and the BJP. In 1990, VP Singh carried out the Mandal Fee’s suggestions, elevating a political storm within the nation.

Mandal Fee’s Suggestions and Implementation

The Mandal Fee beneficial a 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in authorities companies and technical {and professional} establishments within the Centre and the states. In 1990, the VP Singh authorities carried out the quota in authorities jobs, triggering nationwide protests. A Delhi College pupil, Rajiv Goswami, self-immolated on September 19, 1990, to protest the federal government’s transfer and have become the face of the agitation towards reservation. He suffered 70 per cent burns and died of well being points a decade later.

Sixteen years later, the Congress-led UPA authorities took one other step in the direction of implementing the Mandal Fee report and reserved 27 per cent seats in greater training establishments, together with AIIMS, IITs and IIMs, for OBCs. This transfer, too, sparked huge protests by the so-called higher castes who stated the federal government’s transfer discarded meritocracy and was pushed by vote-bank politics.

The BJP, then within the Opposition, supported the reservations however argued that advantages of reservation should even be prolonged to economically weaker sections of so-called ahead castes and in addition pressured the exclusion of the “creamy layer” — these comparatively privileged inside backward sections.

Rajiv Gandhi’s 1990 Speech In Lok Sabha

Rajiv Gandhi’s handle in Lok Sabha on September 6, 1990, as recorded in Parliament data, questioned the timing of the federal government’s determination to implement the Mandal Fee’s report. “It is a time when the nation goes via a variety of very severe, maybe even extreme issues. The scenario in Kashmir is worse than it has ever been since independence. The scenario in Punjab is once more maybe worse than it has ever been. Assam has joined that listing. Tamil Nadu is drawing very near that. Actually, the Prime Minister, if I keep in mind accurately, talking on this very Home, had requested the nation to be ready for warfare… Then, aside from that, we have already got North-South pressure brewing on the query of language…,” he stated.

The parallels between the backdrop then and now are baffling. Whereas Kashmir is tense after a interval of relative calm, the Centre is locked in a language row with southern states.

“Floor Not Ready”

Rajiv Gandhi stated the “floor has not been ready” for the massive transfer. “…the proof that the bottom has not been ready is that the persons are getting killed exterior, buses are getting burnt, trains are getting burnt and buildings are being destroyed. That’s the proof.”

He stated that on one hand, the Prime Minister was asking the nation to be psychologically ready for warfare, and on the opposite, “he’s inflicting a rift in our society”.

On the federal government’s transfer to implement reservation, he stated, “The very fact is that you simply want a complete plan. You want a complete imaginative and prescient, you can’t take a look at this stuff in an remoted method. We, the Congress, are in favour of a complete motion plan, an affirmative motion plan for the backward communities. We’d like that. The issue can’t be solved by enjoying politics or by restricted politically motivated manipulations,” he stated.

Rajiv Gandhi’s Creamy Layer Argument

Mr Gandhi stated that the federal government should settle for that there are people who find themselves from a socially and educationally backward group, however “on no account they are often described as socially and educationally backward”.

“I’ll give an instance. Supposing we now have an individual who has been a Supreme Court docket decide for a variety of years, say 10 or 15 years after which joins politics and turns into a Cupboard Minister, is he socially backward? Is he educationally backward? Do his kids need assistance?”

When an MP requested what number of such individuals had been there, Rajiv Gandhi replied, “I’m not saying what number of. Even when there’s one, that help ought to go to any individual else somewhat than to him. That is the purpose. For instance, do we would like the profit that the federal government is giving to be cornered by the Ministers or the sons of Ministers? Do we would like the advantages which might be being given by the federal government to be cornered by huge landlords and individuals who have quite a lot of property?”

The Minority Query

In his Lok Sabha handle, Rajiv Gandhi had questioned why the federal government had not aimed to increase reservation advantages to backward sections within the minority communities. “Sir, it ought to go not solely to such underprivileged teams and lots of others like them, however to individuals from all religions who’re underprivileged and that is the place I’ve a grave distinction with what the federal government is bringing in. They’re wanting virtually fully at caste.”

“For those who take a look at the Muslims, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim neighborhood in India is backward, educationally, socially, economically all over the place. The identical factor is true for Christians. The identical factor is true even for Sikhs who’re by and huge okay, however there are nonetheless teams who should not all proper. It’s true for nearly each faith as teams who’re socially and educationally backward. Why ought to they not be included? The federal government should clarify this; the nation desires to know,” he stated.

The “Casteless Society” Argument

Rajiv Gandhi stated that implementing reservation would put caste again into Indian society. “Can we nonetheless have that purpose of a casteless society? … For those who consider in a casteless society, each main step you’re taking, have to be such that you simply transfer in the direction of a casteless society. And you have to keep away from taking any step which takes you in the direction of a caste-ridden society. Sadly, the step that we’re taking right this moment, the style by which it has been put, is a casteist method. Whereas accepting that caste is a actuality, we should dilute that method and break that method by including one thing on to it. In order that a minimum of we begin inching away from the casteist method. That is the place I really feel that the Leftists should not finishing up their duty. And it’s best to try this. It’s inside your powers to do it, it’s not inside our powers to do it,” he stated, addressing the Prime Minister.

At one level, taking a swipe at VP Singh’s erstwhile royal roots, Mr Gandhi stated, “Sir, Raja Sahib is placing the caste into our society, as soon as once more. He’s guaranteeing that caste doesn’t exit by this motion… this Authorities is making a vested curiosity in casteism and the nation goes to pay a really heavy value for this,” he stated.

Rajiv Gandhi demanded that the federal government should deliver socially and educationally backward courses from different castes inside the Hindu faith beneath the purview of reservation and in addition deliver backward sections from different religions beneath it.

How VP Singh Replied

In his response to Rajiv Gandhi’s creamy layer argument, then Prime Minister VP Singh stated that the problem in query is about socially and economically backward courses, not people. “When a category strikes up, then, in fact, weaning out will be there. However when the entire class is beneath simply zero and one per cent, that’s not the problem. The problem is whether or not the entire class has gone up or not. That’s the situation.”

The then Prime Minister additionally quoted Jawaharlal Nehru and stated, “He (Nehru) says that half a dozen or could also be ten so-called superior castes dominate the Indian scene among the many Hindus… There isn’t a doubt about it. And if I speak about removing of casteism, don’t perceive that I need to perpetuate the current classification as some individuals on the prime and different individuals on the backside.”

To this, Rajiv Gandhi replied, “Does the Prime Minister consider in a casteless society or not? I don’t need to know what Panditji believed in.”

The Many Twists and Turns Between Rajiv and Rahul

Between Rajiv Gandhi’s dogged opposition to the VP Singh authorities’s determination to implement reservation and his son Rahul Gandhi claiming credit score for the caste Census transfer, a lot water has flowed via the Ganges. On the time, the BJP was part of the ruling coalition with 83 members. The Congress, regardless of being within the opposition, was the only largest get together after the 1989 Lok Sabha election. The story is completely different now. The BJP, regardless of struggling a setback within the Lok Sabha polls final 12 months, is in its third consecutive time period. The Congress, which had been decreased to its all-time low of 44 seats within the 2019 normal election, posted a restoration final 12 months and now holds 99 seats. Main gamers within the caste political panorama, akin to Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Social gathering and Lalu Yadav’s Rastriya Janata Dal, are actually Congress’s allies.

The BJP, too, has grown adept at cracking the caste arithmetic in polls and reaped advantages. Curiously, the BJP, a piece of which had as soon as pushed for a creamy layer classification, has now backtracked. Following a Supreme Court docket judgment final 12 months by which Justice BR Gavai — quickly to take over as Chief Justice of India — beneficial a coverage to establish the creamy layer, the federal government had made it clear that it had no such plan.

With Bihar polls approaching, the BJP’s transfer goals to show the tables on the Opposition — RJD and Congress. The Congress, then again, calls the announcement as its victory and insists that Rahul Gandhi pressured the federal government’s hand. However between 1990 and 2025, as get together stands and ideological positions are swapped, it’s much less about ideology and extra about pragmatism.