Who are the OBCs?
OBC stands for Other Backward Classes. A community is classified as “OBC” if it qualifies as “backward” based on a complex set of social, economic and educational criteria, as specified by the National Commission on Backward Classes (NCBC) [1]. “The OBCs comprise, by and large, the lower rungs of the Sudras who, in the past, suffered from varying degrees of ritual prohibitions applied to the a-dvijas (literally, those not twice-born) and remain till today socially and occupationaly disadvantaged”. [2] “OBCs, by profession, being small cultivators, agricultural laborers, artisans and also being engaged in weaving, fishing, construction work, etc. and these occupationsbeing common to SCs and OBCs, the status of OBCs cannot be treated as very much different from that of SCs ….OBCs constitute a majority of poor and backward population which produced a variety of goods and services, but on terms and conditions unfair to them.” [3] “In absolute size, the OBC poor outnumber SC as well as ST
