The caste census
Source: By Shyamlal Yadav: The Indian Express
In the last week of July 2021, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said in response to a question in Lok Sabha: “The Government of India has decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste-wise population other than SCs and STs in Census.”
Since then, during the weekend, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his predecessor Jitan Ram Manjhi have separately demanded a caste-based census. Weeks earlier, Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale had raised the same demand.
Every Census in independent India from 1951 to 2011 has published data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but not on other castes. Before that, every Census until 1931 had data on caste.
However, in 1941, caste-based data was collected but not published. M W M Yeats, the then Census Commissioner, said a note: “There would have been no all India caste table… The time is past for this enormous and costly table as part of the central undertaking…” This was during World War II.
In the absence of such a census, there is no proper estimate for the population of OBCs, various groups within the OBCs, and others. The Mandal Commission estimated the OBC population at 52%, some other estimates have been based on National Sample Survey data, and political parties make their own estimates in states and Lok Sabha and Assembly seats during elections.
How often has the demand for a caste census been made?
It comes up before almost every Census, as records of debates and questions raised in Parliament show. The demand usually comes from among those belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC) and other deprived sections, while sections from the upper castes oppose the idea.
Besides Nitish Kumar, Manjhi and Athawale, such demands in recent days have come from BJP national secretary Pankaja Munde (in a tweet on January 24), and the Maharashtra Assembly which passed a resolution on January 8 urging the Centre to hold a caste-based Census in 2021.
On 1 April 2021, the constitutional body National Commission for Backward Classes urged the government to collect data on the population of OBCs “as part of Census of India 2021 exercise”.
A writ petition seeking caste enumeration, filed by one G Mallesh Yadav of Hyderabad, is pending in the Supreme Court, which issued notices on this on 26 February 2021 this year.
Before his latest statement, Nityanand Rai had told Rajya Sabha on 10 March 2021 too: “The Union of India after Independence decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste wise population other than SCs and STs.”
But on 31 August 2018, following a meeting chaired by then Home Minister Rajnath Singh that reviewed preparations for Census 2021, the Press Information Bureau stated in a statement: “It is also envisaged to collect data on OBC for the first time.”
When an RTI request asking for the minutes of the meeting, the Office of Registrar General of India (ORGI) responded: “Records of deliberations in ORGI prior to MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) announcement on 31 August 2018 to collect data on OBC is not maintained. There was not issued any minutes of the meeting.”
In 2010, then Law Minister Veerappa Moily wrote to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling for collection of caste/community data in Census 2011. On 1 March 2011, during a short-duration discussion in Lok Sabha, Home Minister P Chidambaram spoke of several “vexed questions”: “There is a Central list of OBCs and State-specific list of OBCs. Some States do not have a list of OBCs; some States have a list of OBCs and a sub-set called Most Backward Classes. The Registrar General has also pointed out that there are certain open-ended categories in the lists such as orphans and destitute children. Names of some castes are found in both the list of Scheduled Castes and list of OBCs. Scheduled Castes converted to Christianity or Islam are also treated differently in different States. The status of a migrant from one State to another and the status of children of inter-caste marriage, in terms of caste classification, are also vexed questions.”
Amid uproarious scenes, the then Prime Minister said: “I assure you that the Cabinet will take a decision shortly.” Later, a Group of Ministers was constituted under Finance Minister the late Pranab Mukherjee. After several rounds of deliberations, the UPA government decided to go for a full-fledged Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC).
With an approved cost of Rs 4,893.60 crore, the SECC was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development in rural areas and the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation in urban areas. The SECC data excluding caste data was finalised and published by the two ministries in 2016.
The raw caste data was handed over to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which formed an Expert Group under former NITI Aayog Vice-Chairperson Arvind Pangaria for classification and categorisation of data. It is not clear whether it submitted its report; no such report has been made public.
The report of a Parliamentary Committee on Rural Development presented to the Lok Sabha Speaker on 31 August 2016, noted about SECC: “The data has been examined and 98.87 per cent data on individuals’ caste and religion is error free. ORGI has noted incidence of errors in respect of 1, 34, 77,030 individuals out of total SECC population of 118, 64, 03,770. States have been advised to take corrective measures.” This time, the demand is that castes be enumerated as part of Census 2021 itself.
