Private Opinion

Rajiv Gandhi On Mandal Commission

Karan Thapar writes in Hindustan Times about the speech Rajiv Gandhi gave in the Lok Sabha on 6th September 1990 against the Mandal Commission.

Then Rajiv pointed out that the report is based on the work of a research and planning team “which met for only three days” and a second panel that met for five. Rajiv’s conclusion: “This means no specialist, no sociologist was involved with this report apart from these eight days.”

Now let’s turn to the data the report is based upon. Rajiv pointed out that the first set of data is from the cost indexing of 1891 and the census of 1931. As he asked: “We are talking about data which is a hundred years old or sixty years old. Is that valid today?”