Caste based Census

As quoted by P Chidambaram, “Caste is a divisive factor and we are nowhere near establishing a casteless society”. Caste seems to have become an integral part of our society. Even when we want to, our leaders and elected representatives do not want us to distance ourselves from caste. The newly proposed caste based census is proof of our politicians forcing casteism onto us.

The last caste based census was done in 1931 and the practice had been abandoned since then, the exception being the collection of SC/ST data. The idea behind the abandonment was to eliminate casteism. Today, the government has brought back a practice that was gotten rid of nearly 80 years ago.

Currently, our government only classifies people under General and SC/ST groups while collecting census information. From now on, OBC will also be added. Meaning, the officials will have to collect and analyze data concerning nearly 6000 castes and 65000 sub-castes. This will undoubtedly add huge overhead with regards to time required to collect the data and the costs associated with it.

However, census officials will mark the collected data as official without verifying the correctness of a person’s statement regarding his caste giving plenty of scope for inflated OBC figures. Inflated OBC figures would certainly bring in the demand for an increase in OBC reservations from the politicians. Meaning, the 50% cap on reservations mandated by the Supreme Court could be breached. Ironically, all this would be based on unverified data which would bear an official stamp.

Few have stated that this data is required by the ministry of welfare to monitor the implementation of the welfare programs for the betterment of OBCs. But the disturbing factor is that the request for a caste based census has come from the political parties and the caste based census records would act as permanent databases for our politicians vote bank politics.

I firmly believe that the government should act to weaken the caste system in our society ultimately leading to a no-caste and a no-reservation society. But the caste based census is a step in exactly the opposite direction.