Need for Caste Census in India
October 17, 2023
Need for Caste Census in India
A caste-based census gathers data on economic status and other caste-related information of every Indian family, both in rural and urban areas to help the authorities define deprivation indicators and map inequalities at a broader level. This data helps better policy-making by identifying both disadvantaged and privileged sections of society. Many political parties feel that the present reservation being based on the last caste census conducted in 1931 does not reflect the correct numbers.
Need for Caste Census
- Data for Targeted Policy: The census plays an important function in approximating the social experience of backward castes to a concrete number. Scholars like Sudipta Kaviraj, Arjun Appadurai have argued about the constitutive role of official statistical records. According to them, official statistical records not only help reflect reality but also play a dominant role in creating it.
- Equitable Resource Allocation: A caste-based census would do away with the fuzziness and fluidity around the non-dominant castes within the OBCs and will provide a substantial data reflecting the social reality of every marginalized groups.
- Revealing superior socio economic position of Upper Castes: The caste-based census would make visible what Satish Despande calls “the most powerful and most pampered minority: the upper caste”. It would make visible how the upper caste is still gate-keeping the OBCs, SCs and STs from academic ventures by rendering them “not fit” for admissions in higher education, teaching positions as well as administrative jobs.
- Only three percent of the total teaching positions in the 23 IITs in India are occupied by persons from the marginalized communities shows the generational privileges reaped by upper caste intelligentsia.
- Shared Relative Deprivation: Caste census also plays a significant role in helping the deprived and the marginalised castes to further discover that they are not alone in facing the social injustice. These socially deprived caste groups acquire such a cognitive ability of judging sameness and distinction through the circulation of the census report.
- Exposing Economic Inequalities of Lower Castes: The caste-based census would expose the impact of the systemic deprivation of the caste structure. The wealth distribution in our nation is a direct outcome of the historic presence of caste.
- According to a 2018 research study titled “Wealth Ownership and Inequality in India: A Socio-Religious Analysis” conducted by Savitribai Phule Pune University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, upper caste Hindus own around 41 percent of the national assets; OBCs own 31 percent while Scheduled Castes (Dalits, formerly known as “Untouchables”) and Scheduled Tribes (Indigenous Communities) own 7.6 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. Thus it becomes important to have concrete and accurate data to comprehend the socio-economic precarity of various caste groups.
- Modifying Reservation Policies: The caste-based census data would become instrumental in understanding the achievements and shortcomings of the reservation policies by bringing the massive gap between economic and social capital acquisition within and between the general category as well as the reserved sections to the fore. The census would also help probe into the effectiveness and efficiency of the parameters of socio-economic and educational backwardness for the OBCs.
Why Caste Census would not help Backward Castes
- V K Natraj questions the purpose of determining the number of citizens from the backward classes as the state is no longer the leading employer in the country, thus would be of little help in formulating government policy.
- Sudarshan also argues that caste census should be done at grassroot level as numbers from local levels, not a national census, would help administrators work out more effective strategies.
- Opponents insist that such a census would be a divisive initiative that would fuel the assertion of caste-based identities, leading to acrimony and conflict.
- Political Manipulation: There is a concern that caste-based data could be exploited for political purposes, leading to vote bank politics and manipulation of electoral outcomes.
The caste census does provide grounds on which the social indexing of a nation can be based. The nation needs to have social confidence and ethical stamina to confront caste realities and try and make sincere efforts to overcome them. The caste census has to be perceived in terms of revealing social ills rather than as a problem by itself.
