Mandal report X-Rayed / by K.N. Rao and S. S. Ahluwalia

This is an incisive analysis of the Report of the Mandal Commission, the subject of current national controversy. The authors, expert analysts and evaluators of gov ernment reports of public interest, have examined the Report from sociological, legal and technical angles and bring home the fact that the Report is far from being scientific and is a mere handiwork of a few only to suit the pre-conceived ideas of Shri B.P. Mandal.

The authors convincingly prove that the criteria for social and educational back wardness was pre-determined, much before the work of the Commission had started; it could collect no useful infor mation from the states, a fact which had been accepted by the Commission itself; it imported prejudices into the manipu lated data; and finally prepared a huge list of 3743 OBCs, (as against a list of 1051 of the Anthropological Survey of India, published recently), with no scientific evidence and based on a 0.19 per cent field survey and "personal knowledge" gathered by Shri Mandal and other mem bers of the Commission from a 94 days' tour in 22 states to include many non existent backwards, fake backwards, eli tist, rich and very rich backwards as well as SCs and STs (who are separately listed under SCs and STs). According to the authors, not even in one single case, the Commission could establish the levels of educational backwardness of the OBCs and it was both a violation of the man date of Article 340 of the Constitution and the terms of reference of the Commission. The authors maintain that Mandal's

Report is totally unscientific. It will do injustice to the backward classes because the needy backward classes will not get the benefit. The book, written in a lucid style and language, is aimed at a broad range of audience who are disturbed with the present controversy.