The recent release of the findings of the Bihar Caste-based Survey-2022 has led to clamour among several political parties in Tamil Nadu for a similar exercise. However, it is interesting to note that the southern State was perhaps the only one in the 1980s to undertake such an exercise, through what was then called the Tamil Nadu Second Backward Classes Commission, also known by the name of the commission’s chairman, J.A. Ambasankar, a former civil servant. Just as the circumstances in which the commission was constituted, its findings were also controversial, if not more. In fact, despite receiving the panel’s report in February 1985, the government did not make it public immediately. Also, at the end of the commission’s tenure, the chairman found himself in minority, as 14 of the 21 members differed from him and presented what was titled a “majority members’ recommendation”.
