Politics over caste census returns

What can be seen as bringing to limelight the politics surrounding caste census in poll season, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has made fresh noise about a caste-based census by calling for an all-party meeting next week.

“Many parties have agreed to the date. But we must have the consent of all parties for holding the meeting on any particular date,” the chief minister, who leads the NDA government in the state, told reporters in Patna. He was responding to queries about reports that such a meeting had been called on May 27.

There have been reports that a state-specific survey will be conducted after taking inputs at the all-party meeting.

The Chief Minister, who had led an all-party delegation from Bihar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressed confidence that all parties in the state will back the proposed move before clearance is given by the Cabinet. The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, could still find it difficult to take a categorical position about it.

Even the Congress has been weighing its options.

Also read: The Bihar census matrix and BJP's unease

On July 20, 2021, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai, in a written reply in Lok Sabha, had said that the central government “has decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste-wise population other than SCs and STs in census”. The reply had also noted that the Maharashtra and Odisha governments had requested the Centre to collect caste details in the forthcoming census.

The last caste census was carried out in 1931.

Ahead of state elections in six states, in September 2021 the Congress had set up a panel, headed by senior party leader M Veerappa Moily, to study caste census. Salman Khurshid, Mohan Prakash, R P N Singh and P L Puniya (from Uttar Pradesh) and Kuldeep Bishnoi and party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi are members of the committee. Of this, Kurmi leader R P N Singh later joined the BJP.

In Uttar Pradesh—which, at 80, has the largest number of Lok Sabha constituencies—Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have already supported the caste census.

In Bihar, which sends 40 members to the Lok Sabha, both houses of state legislature have twice passed resolutions favouring a caste census. NDA ally JDU and main Opposition RJD have common cause on this issue.

In the state, the dynamics of OBC politics is such that even though the BJP has never openly backed the caste census, it is refraining from directly opposing it.

Last week former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi took to Twitter claiming that his party has always been in support of a caste census and that the Modi government had expressed inability to conduct it due to practical problems in implementation.

While Congress leadership in Bihar took time and vouched "full support" to Nitish Kumar on the move in January this year, Leader of Opposition in Karnataka Assembly Siddaramaiah had made a strong pitch last year for a nationwide caste-based census and had gone to the extent of demanding that it should be carried out once every 10 years.