Caste Census: Unclear scope, Congress bats for Telangana framework

New Delhi: Amid little clarity over what details the first caste census in independent India will collect, Congress is pitching for the union government to adopt the framework of the party-led Telangana government’s caste survey that collected 74 points of information by posing 55 questions on quota benefits availed, outstanding loans, and entrepreneurial history.

While announcing that caste enumeration will be conducted along with the decennial Census, the government has not provided clarity on whether the caste count will be limited to OBCs, SCs, and STs alone or whether it would include those of the general category as well. It has also not provided information on the timeline and how it intends to prepare the list of castes and whether it would include lists maintained by states.

While the last Caste Census was held in 1931 before India attained independence, the country had attempted to count castes through a Socio-Economic and Caste Census in 2011, but not under the mandate of the Census Act, 1948. The caste figures were not published, with the government saying data needed cleaning, and later abandoning the exercise in 2015.

With the Caste Census becoming a talking point in the past few years, states like Bihar, Odisha and Telangana conducted caste surveys in the past three years, while Karnataka did one in 2015, the report of which is yet to be made public.

Telangana’s ‘Socio Economic Education Employment Political and Caste Survey’ posed 55 questions seeking information on 74 points and it included details like whether one involved in a traditional occupation has ever contracted occupation-related diseases, details of income tax paid, annual turnover if an entrepreneur, and benefits from quota policy in education and jobs.

It has also collected details of whether they had been a public representative or held positions in corporations, board, cooperative society and NGOs among others. Medium of study, the kind of land ownership, source of irrigation and government schemes availed were also part of the questionnaire.

Data of 214 castes was collected in Bihar by posing 17 questions, which included their socio-economic status, while Odisha, which only collected details on caste, posed eight. The 2015 Karnataka survey posed 55 questions even as various caste groups are questioning the methodology of the survey.

The 2011 SECC had two questionnaires – one for rural areas where 37 questions were posed and another for urban areas where 32 were raised. Information was collected at the level of the individual and household on occupation, education, disability, religion, employment, income and source of income, assets, housing, consumer durables and nondurables and land.

In a resolution adopted at the Congress Working Committee meeting on Friday, the party had said that the design of the caste survey in Telangana was developed through a “consultative and transparent process with the active involvement” of civil society, social scientists and community leaders.

Insisting that it is an “effective and inclusive framework that the Government of India must emulate”, the resolution said that rather than being a closed bureaucratic exercise, it was open to public inputs and scrutiny and strongly urged the union government to adopt a similar approach for the national caste census.

“We offer our full support in helping the government shape a credible, scientific, and participatory model. We are ready to collaborate on designing a framework that reflects the values of consultation, accountability, and inclusiveness,” it added.