Why the OBC Bill matters
On August 10, Lok Sabha passed a landmark bill allowing states to decide who its Other Backward Classes are. The 127th Constitution Amendment Act, 2021, restores the power of states to identify socially and educationally backward classes, usually called OBCs. This bill was necessitated by the Supreme Court’s interpretations of “some provisions in the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act”, which had inserted Article 338B and Article 342A after Article 342. If the state lists got abolished, around 671 OBC communities would have lost access to reservations in educational institutions and jobs, adversely impacting nearly one-fifth of the total OBC communities. The significance of OBC votes in the Indian electoral spectrum can be gauged from the fact that all opposition parties, including the Congress, supported the 127th Constitution Amendment Bill, at a time when Parliament is in a deadlock over the issue of Israeli-made military-grade Pegasus spyware allegedly being used to snoop on opposition leaders, government critics and journalists.
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