28 May,2010

Caste, creed and census
The census is not just a count of the country’s population; it is an essential tool of governance and planning for development. With the process for the 2011 Census of India already underway, a number of people’s representatives cutting across party lines have demanded that caste be included as a category of enumeration in the coming census. This has thrown up a huge controversy, with different political forces expressing different opinions on the issue.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was initially vocal in support of including caste in the census, after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) strongly opposed it, the party has preferred to say no more on the subject. Other backward caste formations like Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party (SP) and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) naturally want caste included. In the ruling Congress, opinion is divided down the middle, but many of the UPA allies are pushing for caste to be included.
Proponents say that since caste is part and parcel of the structure of Indian society, there is nothing wrong in getting a more accurate picture of the caste composition of India through the census. The problem is, caste as a category was last used in the 1931 Census of India. After independence, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru were not in favour of giving caste too much prominence, as the scheduled castes and tribes had been given reservations that were expected to end caste-based inequalities within 10 years. Consequently, from the very first post-independence census in 1951 onwards, enumeration of castes was discarded as a category, except in the case of scheduled castes.
In the ’90s and after, however, reservations were extended to the ‘Other Backward Castes’ in education and jobs. And the politicians who represent people of these castes are the ones demanding the inclusion of caste in the census. It appears they want to know whether the 27 per cent quota in jobs and education given to OBCs is sufficient or not.
India is rapidly urbanising, and caste distinctions are much less acutely felt in the cities, so India Inc has registered its strong opposition to inclusion of caste in the census. However, it would surprise many to know that the ongoing census in the United States of America (USA) – arguably the most ‘advanced’ nation in the world – has a detailed section on race, origin and ethnicity. In fact, the addition of the word ‘negro’ as an alternative description of African Americans raised a minor controversy in the country. Interestingly, one of the race/ethnic categories in the ongoing US census is ‘Asian-Indian’, recognising that Indians are now a significant minority in that country.
Problems can and do arise in census issues, especially when they are used for political mobilisation. We in Goa are all aware that our ‘Marathivadis’ used to campaign among Hindus, before every census, urging them to record their mother tongue as ‘Marathi’ and not ‘Konkani’. That their campaigns never succeeded is another matter. But it shows the dangers of making the census a political issue.
Collecting caste-based data itself will be a major challenge, as it has not been attempted after 1931. Besides, it could encourage respondents to deliberately misrepresent facts, because they know that the data is likely to be used to decide reservation policies. Mobilisation around caste identities in the census can have dangerous consequences. Not only will it lead to distorted data, we face the possibilities of increased social tensions and large scale disruptions – as we saw in Rajasthan in 2008 – from agitations to claim caste-based benefits.
However, if all political forces reach a consensus to avoid all campaigns before and during the census, caste enumeration will merely give us the numbers, enabling a more accurate picture of caste numbers in the country. And if the government ensures that the right use is made of such statistics, it could be a useful exercise overall.