Factors driving the current pushback against Mandal

This is unjust and unlawful ... and leaves a lasting stain on the world body's record

- 

India is edging toward a renewed anti-Mandal churn because, despite social justice being a far-fetched dream, its categories have hardened into dogma. Ambedkarite constitutionalism and Mandal-era OBC mobilisation are not interchangeable inheritances. Ambedkarite politics rests on a civilisational indictment. Untouchability constituted juridical and ritual exclusion embedded in everyday practice. The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe safeguards respond to stigma, violence and structural denial of personhood. Their constitutional legitimacy derives from historically demonstrable degradation that reproduced itself across generations irrespective of income or occupation. These protections are foundational to the moral architecture of the Republic.

Mandal politics emerged from a different register. The Mandal Commission, whose recommendations were implemented by VP Singh in 1990, was an experiment in redistributive federalism. Its conceptual premise was social and educational backwardness among intermediate castes, Bihar under Karpoori Thakur was its early laboratory, before it was implemented nationally. It was political chemistry, not civilisational reparation.