From ‘disaster’ to ‘new development paradigm’: How Congress under Rahul Gandhi altered course on social justice

Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said that the Centre's decision is a welcome step though taken under pressure.

The Congress rushed to claim credit soon after the Centre announced that it has decided to make caste enumeration part of the upcoming census exercise which is expected to begin this year and conclude by 2026.

Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said that the Centre's decision is a welcome step though taken under pressure. Calling the caste census a "new paradigm of development", he said, "It was our vision, we are glad they have adopted it.”

However, the idea of a caste census – or even caste-based reservations – had never found favour with the Congress, including its top leaders from the Gandhi family, until Rahul Gandhi reversed the party’s stand on the issue. It’s another thing that Gandhi’s obsession with caste and everything around social justice is also new – he  only took a stance on caste census for the first time ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls when he promised a nationwide caste census and breaching the Supreme Court-mandated 50% cap on reservations in what he termed as “an artificial barrier”. Even during his tenure as the Congress chief, the caste issue never really featured on his agenda or his poll speeches and interviews.

In fact, in October 2009, Gandhi, who was then the Congress general secretary, declared that he did not believe in the caste system. "I personally don't believe in the caste system. I go to a human being's house and not a Dalit's house," he said addressing a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram.

Announcing the decision by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs on Wednesday, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that while the BJP government had taken the call to count castes in the Census, the Congress had dodged the issue in the past and used it merely as “a political tool” during its tenure at the Centre. The BJP also claimed that former Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru never wanted a caste census.

Before we look at how the Congress made a U-turn on caste after several decades and generations of its leaders later, let us first understand where the Congress, particularly Rahul Gandhi, stands on the issue of caste census and caste-based reservations today and why.

Caste Census: Rahul's long-standing demand

Stung by back-to-back defeats in the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 that saw the party being reduced to its lowest tally in the House by a resurgent BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress turned its focus to wooing back OBCs, a solid vote bank that drifted away from it in the post-Mandal era. It was in 2023 – less than a year before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls – that Rahul chose to raise the issue of a caste-based census in Parliament.

Gandhi promised a nationwide caste census and the removal of the 50% cap on reservation if his party formed the government. “Our first step would be to get a caste census in the country," the former Congress chief said. The Congress did not win the Lok Sabha election, but the Congress-led INDIA bloc did manage to spin a narrative around the BJP looking to “change the Constitution” and “end reservations”, eventually depriving the saffron party an opportunity to form a government on its own for the first time in a decade.

Having managed to double the Congress’ tally in the 2024 elections, Gandhi continued advocating for a caste census, saying the exercise will reveal the injustice meted out to Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis. He also accused the RSS and BJP of attacking the "voice of the country".

"Caste census will give justice to general (category), Dalits, Adivasis, minorities, women and all others… Caste census will make everything clear. Everyone will come to know how much power they wield and what our role is," he said, stressing on his clarion call of “jiski jitni hissedari uski utni bhagidari”, a slogan from the Mandal days that roughly translates to proportional representation based on population.

After the BJP’s victory in the 2023 state elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, taking a dig at the opposition’s caste census campaign, PM Modi said, “People tried to divide the country on caste lines during elections. For me, there are only four castes: women, youth, farmers, and the poor.”

However, Gandhi and INDIA bloc parties continued to press for a caste census with Congress-ruled Karnataka and Telangana being among the first states to conduct a caste-based survey after Bihar.

Not folly but disaster: Pandit Nehru on reservations

The British administration included caste enumeration in the Census exercises conducted every decade between 1881 and 1931. However, after Independence, the first Census was conducted in 1951. Then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru decided to discontinue caste enumeration except for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

“If we go in for reservations on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate,” Nehru said. “I am grieved to learn of how far this business of reservation has gone based on communal considerations. It has amazed me to learn that even promotions are based sometimes on communal or caste considerations. This way lies not only folly but disaster,” wrote Nehru in a letter to the chief ministers on June 27, 1961. He also called for  helping backward groups by all means, “but never at the cost of efficiency”.

Did Indira Gandhi advocate caste census?

India’s first woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi led the government for almost 16 years in two phases- January 1966 to March 1977 and January 1980 to October 1984. She faced severe backlash following her controversial imposition of Emergency in 1975. Morarji Desai became the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India and remained in the office for 856 days. He served as the fifth PM during 1977-79, leading the post-Emergency government led by the Janata Party. During his regime, the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission (SEBC), better known as the Mandal Commission, was set up in 1979. The Commission adopted a systematic approach, which included conducting surveys, gathering data, and consulting experts to identify communities that warranted reservation benefits.

On December 31, 1980, the Mandal Commission submitted its report to President N Sanjeeva Reddy.

Indira also made a strong comeback by winning the Lok Sabha election in 1980. It is alleged that she kept the Mandal panel report on the backburner. She also coined the slogan “Na jaat par na paat par, mohar lagegi haath par (Vote for Congress and not on caste and community lines)”.

‘It’s breaking up my country’: Rajiv Gandhi on Mandal Commission report in Parliament

On August 7, 1990, Prime Minister V P Singh of the National Front coalition announced the implementation of the Mandal Commission's recommendations. PM Singh told Parliament that  OBCs would be given 27 per cent reservation in central government jobs and other public sector units.

Rajiv Gandhi, then Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, made a strong case against caste being the sole criterion for deciding benefits. Rajiv termed it an attempt to divide the country on caste lines.  “…the manner in which you have implemented the Mandal Commission, to me, it is breaking up my country. Even at this late hour, there is time to pull the country back from this caste division," Rajiv told the Lok Sabhahe. He said the VP Singh government was creating a “vested interest in casteism and the country is going to pay a very heavy price for this”.

He also demanded the expansion of the ambit of reservation from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to socially and economically backward groups from other religions as well.

Congress after Rajiv Gandhi

After Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, PV Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister. While he did not lead the caste census, he oversaw the preparation of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2001, which was subsequently abandoned.

In 2010, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured the Lok Sabha that the matter of caste census would be considered in the Cabinet. A Group of Ministers was formed under then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Based on the GoM’s recommendations, the Union Cabinet decided in September 2010 on a separate Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC).

The SECC was carried out at a cost of almost Rs 4,900 crore. The data was also published by the Ministries of Rural Development and Urban Development in 2016. However, the caste data was excluded.