Explained | Caste-based census in India: Why is there a growing demand?

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s party Janata Dal (United) is an ally of the BJP in the state and is in favour of caste-based census. (File image of PM Modi with CM Nitish Kumar)

On August 23, an 11-member delegation led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss their demand of a caste-based census raising again the long-pending demand of counting the Other Backward Classes (OBC) population of India.

Since 1941, every census published in India had data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but it did not include the population of OBCs.

So far, the Union government’s stand has been that the caste should not be made part of the census. In a response to a question in Lok Sabha during the Monsoon Session of Parliament that ended on August 11, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said that the government had decided not to enumerate caste-wise population other than SCs and STs in Census.

READ: Grateful to PM Modi for listening to us, now he has to take a decision on caste census: Nitish Kumar

Since then many political parties, including Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have been pushing for a caste-based census.

MoneyControl explains why is there a demand what is caste census and why is there a growing demand for counting the OBC population?

What is the caste census?

Caste census means inclusion of caste-wise tabulation of India’s population in the Census exercise held one in ten years.

From 1951 to 2011, every census in India has published the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, comprising the Dalits and the Adivasis, along with the gamut of data including religions, languages, socio-economic status, etc. It, however, has never counted OBC’s, the lower and intermediate castes which roughly constitute about 52 percent of the country’s population. All castes other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are marked in the general category.

Why is there a demand for an OBC census?

The demand to include caste in census is long-pending. It arises from the fact that there is no documented data on OBC population in India. The demand usually comes up every time in the run up to the census exercise. The argument for the demand is that since the census already documents huge amounts of data including religions, languages, socio-economic status and Dalits and Adivasis, why not count OBCs too.

Also, read: How Nitish Kumar-led caste census ante could be tricky for PM Narendra Modi before UP polls

Also because OBCs, that count for a little over half of the country’s populations, are the targets of many welfare schemes and other affirmative action programmes such as reservations in government jobs and education.

Why have successive governments opposed OBC Census?

In a response to a question in Lok Sabha during the Monsoon Session of Parliament that ended on August 11, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said that “The government of India has decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste-wise population other than SCs and STs in Census.” In 2018, the then Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said that Census 2021 will include a caste count, but the government seems to be reluctant to do it.

Experts have said that the BJP has been reluctant about the caste census, perhaps, because of the fear that the numbers about OBCs might provide a new issue to the regional parties to mount pressure on the Centre for an OBC quota in central government jobs and educational institutions.

“It might result in a situation of Mandal II, giving a new lease of life to many regional parties which otherwise are struggling to find a positive agenda to challenge the BJP that has dominated Indian electoral politics for the last one decade,” Sanjay Kumar, Professor and Co-Director of Lokniti, a Research Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies wrote in a recent article in the Indian Express.

What was the Congress government’s stand?

The BJP is not the first ruling party at the Centre to rebuff an OBC count. The successive Congress-led governments have also shied away from it. The UPA-II government led by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh conceded to the overwhelming demand of a caste-based census and conducted a separate socio-economic and caste census (SECC) in 2011.

What happened to the SECC data?

The SECC was conducted at an approved cost of Rs 4,893.60 crore by the Ministry of Rural Development in rural areas and the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation in urban areas. However, that data has not been made publicly available by the Centre.

Also, read: Decoding the caste-based census, and its implications for Indian politics

In a reply in Parliament in March, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said in the Parliament that the raw caste data from SECC 2011 has been provided to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for classification and categorisation. But, the Minister said, there is no proposal to classify and categorise the raw caste data."

OBC data will help political parties to create a new vote bank

What are the political implications of Caste census?

The OBC data, if available, will help political parties to create a new vote bank among the socially and economically deprived sections in OBCs. So far, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been able to carve such a vote-bank for his party, the Janata Dal (United) in Bihar. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is said to have been able to bring the upper castes and socially deprived OBCs together for electoral benefits. Political analysts have said that BJP remains a popular choice among OBC voters during general elections but not so much in assembly elections.

Ahead of the scheduled Census 2021, many political parties have come together demanding a caste-based census. BJP allies such as JD-U, Apna Dal and Republican Party of India (RPI) are also part of the demand. Opposition parties such as the Congress (INC), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) are also demanding that the exercise should be held.

Has India ever counted its OBC population?

Not since independence. When the British conducted the Census, it included data on castes till 1931. In 1941, the caste count was excluded reportedly because of administrative and financial issues with England involved in World War II. Thus the count of OBCs is, therefore, available for 1931, when their share of the population was found to be about 52 percent.