The Mandal Era: Identity Politics and the Change of Indian Society (1990-2000)

The ten years from 1990 to 2000 were a time of major change in modern Indian history. While the 1991 New Economic Policy is often seen as the key event that started economic reforms, this paper argues that putting the Mandal Commission Report into action in 1990 was the more important social and political break of that time (Jaffrelot, 2003). The choice to give 27% of central government jobs to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) released forces that completely changed the Indian political scene. This study uses a historical-political method, looking at parliamentary debates, party election documents, important academic works, and news reports from that time. It shows how Prime Minister V.P. Singh's decision caused widespread protests against reservations. This then led the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to start the Ram Janmabhoomi movement as a planned response (Brass, 1994). This dynamic realigned the party system around the issue of caste and began a time of strong backward caste politics. The paper concludes that the "Mandal moment" permanently changed the main ideas of social justice and secularism in India, creating the basic patterns for 21st-century politics. Keywords: Mandal Commission, Identity Politics, Caste, V.P. Singh, BJP, Reservation, Social Justice, Indian Politics, 1990s, and OBCs.