Commissions In India

Kalelkar Commission

Kalelkar Commission had been established by the Central Government of India in the year 1955 as first commission of such kind focused at them as a Backward Classes Commission meant to promote and uplift the society’s deprived sections. This first backward Classes Commission was an initiative to translate the guidelines having been suggested under the Article 340 of Indian Constitution.

About Kalelkar Commission

Way back in January 29, 1953, a presidential order was issued to establish the first Backward Classes Commission for which Kaka Kalelkar was appointed chairman of the Commission. The main aim was to develop better system and to ensure that all the backward classes could get thorough boost up to lead respectable living.

Mandate

Some of the key factors which worked as important mandates of this Commission was that it would work for the following:-

• This Commission was assigned to determine criteria to adopt and take the judgment about all deprived and backward section of society for assess their conditions
• To boost SC / ST communities and the rest educationally backward classes of masses through the better support system
• Territorial distribution and rest avenues for them to ensure that they can get the best progresses and respect in the society
• Making recommendations for the communities post independent investigation about their conditions to uplift them through education and economic uplift

Recommendation Reports

Kalelkar Commission gave several recommendations to the Central Government of India ever since it was established. This Commission advised the Union and State governments to look at the factors which could make it easy for them to uplift the backward classes to improve their conditions through economic and educational growth prospective.

Implementation of recommendations

This suggestions of Kalelkar Commission to the governments concerned were implemented in part through allocation of certain special grants for the backward classes for their social, educational and economic uplift. Governments concerned were also advised to investigate the many issues that were the major causes of their deprivation for that finding the appropriate solution of problems were sought.

Subsequent Kalelkar Commission Mandates & Recommendations

The Commission has presented its recommendations to the president on regular intervals and has advised for recommendations to explore to work for best solution of the problems. Some of the notable roles which this Commission has played and offered as a guideline for that includes:-

• Identification of socially and educationally backward classes of the Indian society and to find a genuine solution for them
• Keeping in view the factors like low social position in the traditional caste hierarchies  
• Suggesting the measures to resolve issues like lack of general educational advancements in particular section, caste or community in the country
• Suggesting the measures to ensure there is proper representation of persons from the deprived section of society into the various government services
• Advice for best representation of socially deprived people in trade, commerce and industry sectors

Mandate For Deprived Section Classification

Kalelkar Commission did groundwork to find and explore things which could ease the classification of deprived sections of the society. The Commission took initiative to make certain descriptions as parameters to measure the levels of several such communities to assess their educational and social backwardness. Major conditions which were focused at for the classification were as follows:-

• People suffering from the typical stigma of untouchable or near untouchables are being classified as people from the SC communities
• Tribal groups from the country whose assimilation with the general social order is still not at par and who lead the typical lifestyle are classified as ST communities
• People having been driven as a community to crime due to negligence were the classified ex-criminals or de-notified groups in the Indian society
• The nomads hardly enjoying any social respect and are least appreciated for their unique habitat or tradition so are they forced to do mimicries, beg or continue with the jugglery or dancing activities
• Big community of landless laborers who depend on meager agricultural labor
• Chunk of those communities largely tenants who don’t have occupancy rights and lead life under insecure land tenure circumstances
• Big community of people who are small land owners and hardly hold any type of economic stand
• Those communities engaged in the cattle or sheep breeding or fishing are also categorized in it
• Various artisans or those from occupational classes having no employment securities

List of such communities is big for which Kalelkar Commission recommended the special attention and suggested the government to take action to resolve the issues related to them. The purpose was to ensure that people from all such communities discussed above and or those in the majority whom no social status had been given yet in terms of economic sustenance and the educational privileges must be offered additional support for which this Commission was setup to work and explore.

Implementation of recommendations

Kalelkar Commission justified many important things including the issues of social and economic deprivation of masses from various religious groups from the Muslim, Christian and Sikh communities who haven’t achieved desired position in society and are backward on the social and economic levels.

Submission of the detailed report on 30 March 1955 was highly research based as it contained the whole list of 2,399 backward castes and communities besides 837 starred communities being categorized in “most backward” sections. Commission also suggested for caste-wise enumeration of population in census to implement in 1961 census and to treat women into backward class category for their privilege.

A suggestion was also for the 70 percent seats reservation for qualified students of backward classes in all technical and professional institutions. Many new steps were suggested by Commission chairman, Kaka Kalelkar to improve the condition of the backward classes of the society.

This Commission also encountered several disputes as Central government didn’t agree on few of its recommendations.