About the Book
Despite the fact that the OBCs constitute the largest chunk of the Indian society, they are the single most neglected social-constitutional category. This is the first book that attempts to empirically answer crucial questions about their present status and treatment of the OBC problematic by different fractions of the ruling coalition. It is divided into four parts. The first part deals with their composition and characteristics. The second part analyzes the role of the politico-administrative fractions deciding the key questions of methodology of identification and scheduling of the OBCs, the anomalies in the listing, the creamy layer, the composition and decomposition, characteristics, and institutional mechanisms handling different empowerment tasks. The third part highlights the role of the opinion- makers. The fourth part presents the acts of commissions and omissions by the bar and the judiciary. The book is likely to trigger a whole new sets of studies on the OBCs and the caste-based inequalities in India. It would be an essential reading for social scientists, policy planners, political parties and the OBCs themselves.
Contents
About the Author / Editor
Harnam Singh Verma has been associated with various prestigious institutions such as the NIRD, Hyderabad (1965-1971), CIDCO Ltd., Mumbai (1971-1974), IIM, Ahmedabad (1975-1977), GIDS, Lucknow (1977-1982), and UP State Planning Commission (1982-1993).
Unlike mainline academic sociologists who only teach and conduct research on social history, he opted to be part of the process of creating social history while also studying it with the insights of an insider. He has been working on the OBC problematic for the last 13 years.
