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Question 12 of 15 · Constitutional & Statutory Bodies
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The First Backward Classes Commission (1953) was chaired by:

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Answer: Option D — Kaka Kalelkar

Detailed Solution

The First Backward Classes Commission, appointed on 29 January 1953, was chaired by Kaka Kalelkar, so it is also called the "Kaka Kalelkar Commission".

About the First Backward Classes Commission:

  • It was appointed by the President under Article 340 of the Constitution, during the government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
  • It was asked to determine the criteria for identifying socially and educationally backward classes and to recommend steps to improve their conditions.
  • It submitted its report on 30 March 1955.
  • It identified 2,399 castes or communities as backward, of which 837 were classified as "most backward".

It recommended measures such as:

  • Treating caste as a criterion for backwardness.
  • Reservation in government jobs and educational institutions.
  • Reforms in land, education and the economy to help backward classes.

Outcome:

The chairman himself expressed doubts about using caste as the main criterion, in a letter attached to the report.

The Central Government did not accept the report, saying that it had not applied objective tests to identify backward classes. It left the identification of backward classes to the states.

As a result, several states set up their own backward classes commissions and introduced reservations.

About Kaka Kalelkar:

  • His full name was Dattatreya Balkrishna Kalelkar (1885-1981).
  • He was born in Satara, Maharashtra.
  • He was a Gandhian, freedom fighter, educationist and writer in Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi.
  • He was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and taught at Gujarat Vidyapith in Ahmedabad.
  • He was a member of the Rajya Sabha (1952-1964).
  • He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Gujarati literature (1965) and the Padma Vibhushan (1964).
  • He was a great promoter of Hindi (Hindustani) as a national language.

Why not the other options?

  • ✗P. Mandal chaired the Second Backward Classes Commission (1979).
  • ✗R. Ambedkar was the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution.
  • ✗Govind Ballabh Pant was the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and later Union Home Minister.

Quick tip

Remember: First Backward Classes Commission = Kaka Kalelkar (1953; report 1955; 2,399 backward castes; rejected by the Centre); Second = B. P. Mandal (1979); both under Article 340.

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Constitutional & Statutory Bodies — Preparation

This question tests your understanding of Constitutional & Statutory Bodies, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.

This topic covers bodies set up under the Constitution, such as the Election Commission, UPSC, Finance Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General and the national commissions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and statutory or executive bodies such as NITI Aayog, the NHRC, the CVC, the CBI and Lokpal. Questions often ask whether a body is constitutional or not, which article creates it, who appoints its head and for how long. For example, the CAG is appointed under Article 148, the Finance Commission under Article 280, and NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission in 2015 by an executive resolution. Practise the constitutional and statutory bodies questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.

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