Caste census needed, but with a plan

The Patna High Court recently passed a judgement going against the JDU-RJD Bihar government, and stayed the on-going caste-based census. This decision is a consequence of several petitioners seeking specific relief. The court was able to pass stay orders because a petitioner coming from the transgender community expressed the community’s dissatisfaction when ‘transgender’ was listed as a caste in the census.

The court also directed the government not to disclose any data collected so far. The Bihar coalition government has challenged this interim stay in the Supreme Court. However, Bihar is not the only state propounding the census on the basis of caste. Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Odisha have also pledged support for the same. Caste-based census has both proponents and opponents with their own reasons.

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A caste-based census literally means the collection of primary data about people’s castes, the employment and educational level, etc., everything associated with one’s caste.

The proponents primarily believe that caste plays a significant role in societal inequality. There is already vast data of the SC/ST/OBCs comprising around 70% of the population, while their representation in high-profile jobs, positions of power and influence only comes to 30% at best. Even in wealth acquisition calculated per capita across these major caste-divisions, there is glaring inequality, which has only widened since 2002. This gap of representation shows a lack of measures needed to bring the underprivileged and backward castes forward and ensure fair, proportionate representation in educational institutions, scholarships, jobs, etc. Therefore, it is important to understand the underlying historical and societal advantages that have helped the upper castes stay ahead of others, and vice versa. This will help formulate better policies and enable the government and other stakeholders to identify and correct the fallacies of the present caste-based reservation policies and beat the argument of misuse forwarded by the anti-reservation faction.

The BJP government at the Centre opposes such a socio-economic census based on caste; one reason being their concern about disturbing the ‘Hindu unity’. When the SC took up the matter in 2021, the central government forwarded several arguments against a caste-based census, including logistical, operational and administrative reasons. One of the concerns is also the discrepancy in spellings of various castes, which brought to light conflicting data. According to the 2011 survey, there were 494 and 4,28,677 SC, ST, and OBC castes according to the Centre and the state of Maharashtra respectively.

The Maharashtra caste survey highlighted a blunder: that there are more than four lakh castes consisting of not more than 100 people. So, while there were 4,200 (approx.) castes according to the 1931 census, the 2011 census showed more than 46 lakh. This exponential spike in the number of castes has no credible explanation and calls to question the efficacy of volunteers-officers who conduct the census. The questionnaire and the research model also need to be prepared accordingly, which were not been done. The recommended procedure of finalising and field-testing a questionnaire was found lacking. The central government cites these logistical setbacks to argue against the caste-based census.

While Bihar can argue that they are merely conducting a “survey” and not a “census,” the nature and structure of the exercise is definitely contingent on caste.

Another legal impediment is there being no constitutional mandate for a Registrar General and Census Commissioner to provide census data for the OBCs, as is the norm for SCs and STs. However, the recent interim stay by the Patna High Court was in furtherance of concerns of data integrity, security, the mass appropriation of funds by the state government, as well as the legality of policy-making undertaken by a state, for a subject specifically listed under the Union List under article 246 of the Constitution.

Hence, while a caste-based census would aid better understanding of the present dynamics and policy-making of caste, there are challenges that must be addressed before executing an exercise as elaborate as census​.

(Narayan is an advocate & constitutional Expert. Suman is a scholar at National Law University, New Delhi.)