Caste census: India’s affirmative action policy is based on 90+ years old data

India set to surpass China as world's most populous nation this month: UN

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is the latest to join the band of politicians and activists advocating caste census. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government has so far stonewalled all pleas and comes across as definitely averse to the idea. Before we delve into the ostensible reasons for the reluctance, a quick look at the genesis and history of the census in India.

The census exercise was launched by the colonial government for various stated (and unstated) reasons in the realm of social engineering for their strategy of governance during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Sociologist Michael Mann in his book South Asia’s Modern History avowed that the census exercise was more telling of the administrative needs of the British than of the social reality for the people of British India.

Genesis of Caste Census 

The first census results came to the fore in 1872. Subsequent to that the censuses have been conducted in India with almost unwavering regularity every ten years. These data were of immense use to the British in formulating policies, planning strategies and going in for social engineering which is a highly complex exercise and more often than not completely unintended results are the outcome of such stratagems. During the 1941 census, however, it was decided to merge the different caste groups under a single monolithic category – Hindu. Mercifully, most of the major religious groups were retained as in the earlier decadal censuses. One must hasten to add here that some ethnic groups that had an independent standing and were enumerated as such in the earlier censuses were merged under Hindus and the apparent reason given was these groups visited Hindu temples. This was a completely arbitrary decision as many religious groups like the Parsis, Jains and Christians did not lose their distinct religious identity in spite of the fact that many among them do pay obeisance at Hindu temples.

From 1941 onwards, all the decadal censuses followed the pattern established during the 1941 census and the various caste groups that included the chathur varna castes, that is in the vertical hierarchy, and the various jatis, in the horizontal axis were lumped together as Hindus. While we do not have much information about the reasons for abandoning the enumeration of castes from the 1941 census, one supposed reason proffered is that Britain was in the throes of the Second World War and felt that following the earlier practice and carrying out the caste census would be a very costly exercise in terms of administration and finance.

Outdated Understanding

So, the data that we have for all castes as well as the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) is from the 1931 census.  The population of the OBCs at that time was about 52 percent of the total population of India. The OBCs are castes that are placed between the three top varnas (Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas) and the Dalits (SCs) and Adivasis (STs). The Mandal Commission report (1980) recommended reservations of 27 percent for the OBCs for jobs in central government and public sector undertakings.

Reluctance to rely on data that is almost a hundred years old is the reason for the current clamour for a caste census. A similar demand had been articulated during the reign of the UPA government and it did accede to the demand by conducting the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) along with the 2011 census. Though the caste data was with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the NDA government that unseated the UPA in 2014 never made the data public, pleading that there were many flaws and that it was not in the public interest to reveal the data.

India’s demography has indeed undergone changes during the last 90 years. Now, India has overtaken China to become the most populous country in the world and authentic data is the need of the hour. While we are aware of the changes in terms of religious groups, we are almost in the dark about the castes. Not only the population of the OBCs but also of the other castes and religious groups would show the changes. So, it is inevitable that to do justice to India’s affirmative action policy and to fine-tune it, we have to go in for the caste census.

What’s Concealed is Vital

While the then Union home minister Rajnath Singh in August 2018 announced that during the Census 2021, data on the OBCs would be collected, the central government reversed course in September 2021. Then, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment said that it is not feasible to collect information on Backward Class of Citizens (BCC) in the forthcoming census.

Collecting caste-based data may involve more time and effort and hence may further delay the decadal Census. But these aspects have to be weighed against the likely gains that could be obtained.

In an article for The Wire, Harish S Wankhede contends that a caste census will enable us not only to have precise data as regards the share of the OBCs in the general population but will also reveal how sectors of power like the “judiciary, educational institutions and the media, are controlled and monopolised by the social elites, giving the Dalit-Bahujan groups just a minuscule presence”. The caste census will also show us the extent of the presence of the OBCs in various institutions of the state and if it is commensurate with their actual population.

It is also pertinent to point out that Bihar has taken the lead and is well into the second phase of the caste census. Some other opposition-ruled states may too soon join the fray and the central government may, probably, get provoked to follow suit.

MA Kalam, a social anthropologist, is visiting Professor, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.