Breaking down the question
The prompt is a single concept — Other Backward Classes (OBCs) — and expects the candidate to define the category, explain how it is identified, and discuss its sociological significance. It sits within the study of the caste system and its links to social justice and mobility.
At 10 marks the answer should move beyond a bare definition to the criteria of backwardness, the role of the Mandal Commission, and the debates the category has generated — notably the creamy layer and the interplay of caste and class. A purely descriptive treatment will miss the analytical marks.
For fuller treatment, see the note on backward classes and Dalit movements.
How to approach it
Begin by defining OBCs as the socially and educationally backward classes lying between the forward castes and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Note their constitutional basis in Articles 15(4) and 16(4).
Then explain identification — the Kalelkar and Mandal Commissions and their criteria — and the reservation policy that followed. Discuss the creamy layer and the caste-versus-class debate, and close with a balanced note on the category's significance and its ambiguities.
Model answer
The Other Backward Classes are the socially and educationally backward sections of Indian society that occupy an intermediate position between the so-called forward castes on the one hand and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes on the other. The category is chiefly composed of the middle and lower Shudra castes — cultivators, artisans and service groups — who, while not subject to untouchability, have historically suffered ritual subordination, limited landholding and poor access to education.
The Constitution provides for the advancement of these groups through Articles 15(4) and 16(4), which permit special provision and reservation for socially and educationally backward classes. To identify them, the government appointed the Kalelkar Commission (1953) and, more consequentially, the Mandal Commission (1979). Mandal used a set of social, educational and economic criteria — caste ranking, patterns of marriage and occupation, literacy and school attendance, and indicators of poverty — to prepare a list of backward castes, and recommended 27 per cent reservation in central government jobs and educational institutions. Its implementation in 1990 and its endorsement in the Indra Sawhney judgment (1992) made OBC reservation a central feature of Indian public policy.
Sociologically, the OBC category illuminates the relationship between caste and class. Backwardness is identified largely through caste, yet its justification is the class-like deprivation — in land, education and secular opportunity — that particular castes have suffered. This tension surfaced in the doctrine of the creamy layer, which excludes the advanced and prosperous sections within OBC castes from reservation benefits, reflecting Béteille's insistence that caste and economic class do not perfectly coincide.
The category has had important consequences. It has enabled significant upward mobility and political assertion among middle castes, contributing to the rise of backward-class politics and, in some regions, to a reworking of the older caste hierarchy. At the same time it remains contested: the boundaries of the list are politically charged, the reliance on caste as a proxy for backwardness is debated, and internal differentiation among OBCs is considerable.
In sum, the OBCs represent an attempt to translate the constitutional promise of social justice into policy by recognising cumulative, caste-linked disadvantage. The concept's strength lies in addressing real deprivation; its difficulty lies in fixing and updating the criteria of backwardness in a society where caste and class are entangled but not identical.
Examiner's perspective
At 10 marks the examiner expects the essentials handled correctly: OBCs as socially and educationally backward classes, their constitutional basis, and the Mandal Commission with its 27 per cent recommendation. Vagueness on these markers weakens the script.
The analytical marks lie in the caste-class debate and the creamy layer, where candidates can invoke Béteille to show why economic criteria qualify a caste-based category. A balanced closing on mobility and the contested boundaries of the list demonstrates the judgement examiners reward.