Caste Census Debate: Should Every Community’s Identity Be Counted?

Some intellectually blinkered voices want the Government of India to dictate to people what their caste is, even though caste is a self-declared identity of a community, which the Indian Constitution, too, recognises.

The process of verification was introduced for reservation purposes only, to prevent others from fraudulently claiming benefits. Verification must not be confused with caste determination.

Communities have always determined their own identity. The government’s role is class or category determination, not caste determination.

Intellectual players like Yogendra Yadav appear worried that if people freely state their caste, the number could swell to 45 lakh, as in 2011. This, they fear, would make it harder for them to run their caste-discourse shops.

People like Yadav seem to want to hand the public a pre-approved list of castes from which citizens must choose. In effect, they cast themselves as Brahma, deciding which caste is valid and which is not.

Yadav’s argument that a figure of 45 lakh is too large to yield anything useful is a specious one.

Anyone who has put in serious work in mathematics and statistics would know that when conclusions are drawn from a census covering 150 crore people, an additional dataset of 45 lakh entries can certainly be analysed and classified.

Yadav is free to take the help of AI if he finds the numbers daunting.

Reservation and Representation

Several castes engaged in caste politics pressure other communities to abandon their own identity and come under their umbrella. It has been an enduring tendency of caste communities to seek advancement at the expense of others.

Whether the number of castes is ten thousand or ten lakh, reservation and other benefits are not meant for any single caste.

Reservation is to be granted on a class or category basis. The entire case for a caste census rests on the need to review reservation.

When benefits are to be distributed class-wise, why should the counting of castes be dictated? Is it so that the identities of communities with smaller numbers can simply be erased?

The country has a right to know how the people of India identify themselves by caste and how many people belong to each.

The government’s job is only to place those castes into appropriate categories.

Just as a thousand castes can be grouped under one category, ten thousand can be grouped just as easily.

Some have argued that lessons should be drawn from Bihar’s caste survey.

If Bihar bulldozed the identities of smaller-numbered communities, should the Government of India follow the same path?

During Bihar’s caste census, descendants of the Mughals demanded that their caste be recorded as Mughal. The Bihar government refused.

Why should the descendants of the Mughals not have the right to have their numbers counted separately?

Why should they be compelled to register themselves as Sheikh, Syed, Pathan or Surjapuri?

Simply because large numbers give Yogendra Yadav anxiety?

The dynasty that ruled from the Delhi throne for three centuries does not even deserve a separate count today?

Complete Caste Data

When a caste census is being conducted for the first time after Partition, the complete data on caste must come out into the open.

The country has a right to know how many castes exist and what their numbers are.

After that, deciding how to group them into categories is the work of scholars and administrators. If they cannot manage it, they can hire an international agency.

If Yadav’s authoritarian mindset prevails, tomorrow he will hand out a list of religions and insist that people fill in only one of four columns because counting more becomes inconvenient.

In Bihar itself, the present government is forcing Bhumihar Brahmins to call themselves only Bhumihar.

In other words, the government will dictate what caste a person may claim as their own.

A complete caste census is necessary so that the country can see which communities are producing children at what rate in order to increase their political weight in a democracy.

By comparing figures with the 1931 caste census, every community will be able to judge how much its political weight has declined because of the government-imposed ‘hum do, hamare do’ policy.

The government should record every self-declared caste identity without imposing artificial limits.

Classification into categories for policy purposes can follow.

Suppressing the identities of smaller communities in the name of administrative convenience is neither constitutional nor democratic.

Also Read: Mann Ki Baat: PM Modi Praises Odisha Woman’s Forest Conservation Efforts