COMMUNAL GO 1921

COMMUNAL GO 1921

Subject : History

Context : With the Supreme Court readying itself to raise its previously-imposed ceiling of 50 per cent as the upper limit for reservations, the spiral of history has completed a full cycle in almost exactly one hundred years.

Concept :

Communal GO

• In September 1921, the so-called “Communal GO” (or Government Order) was passed in the Madras Presidency by a provincial government led by the Justice Party.
• The Communal GO was essentially a power-sharing agreement that had the blessings of the colonial government.
• It allocated government jobs and seats in public higher education institutions to different communities in specific proportions.
• It was designed to check the near-monopoly of Brahmins on these opportunities despite the fact that they constituted only about three per cent of the population.
• The GO also signalled the arrival of popular politics, and was the culmination of a successful campaign for electoral power by the so-called non-Brahmin movement spearheaded by the Justice Party.
• These government opportunities were to be shared among six communities: Brahmins, non-Brahmin Hindus, Mohammedans, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans, and others.
• But most important here is the rationale for this policy — it is not based on any form of backwardness or disadvantage. Rather, it is an explicitly political principle of sharing the state’s resources and opportunities.