Religion, Caste And Tribe Based Reservation - 3

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<b>Last OBC count in 1951</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NEW DELHI::With the Supreme Court asking the Centre the basis of fixing 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs in its proposed amendment bill, the need to put up a credible demographic data of the OBCs population may force the government to dig out hitherto unpublished 1951 census data on the backward castes.

Since Independence, the only Census that collected caste-based data was conducted under Commissioner Gopalaswami in 1951.<b> It collected data of not just SC/ST population but also that of the other castes, except for the obviously non-backward castes such as Brahmin, Rajput and Kayasth. </b>

Though the SC/ST data was published, the government decided to withhold the OBC data. However, this OBC data was made available to the first Backward Caste Commission set up in 1954 under a constitutional mandate and also to the Mandal Commission in ’90s.
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