Caste in census

At a time when every politician claims to fight against the evils of the caste system, the move to include caste8217; as a subject for enumeration in the 2001 census of India is bound to generate controversy. Specially against the backdrop of the government8217;s calculated decision to abandon the practice of collecting data on caste during census operations for several decades now. The fear that such a step would fan the caste wars raging in different parts of the country is certainly not unfounded. For a democratic country which aims at abolishing the system of perpetuating the deprivation of others on the basis of their birth, it would appear to be a retrograde step. Instead of abolishing the regime of castes, it will only reinforce it. Collecting all manner of census data on castes and sub-castes will make the country unnecessarily caste-conscious. This truly does not behove a modern nation embarking on a new millennium.

Ever since the Mandal commission report became a political reality, some politicians havebeen persistently demanding that the Indian census operations should resume collecting data on other backward classes OBCs. They have a vested interest in perpetuating the caste divisions in the country as it helps them in political mobilisation. Unfortunately, the government has succumbed to their pressure. Needless to say, caste cannot be banished by merely eliminating it from the census questionnaire. This can only be achieved through a prolonged social reformation. But it cannot be denied that the country has made considerable progress in ridding the caste-fixation that its people once suffered from. Today, the middle classes are no longer guided by caste considerations in their daily life. In fact, many people find questions probing their caste origins utterly offensive. Small wonder that most educational institutions have already done away with the practice of collecting information about the caste of their students. It is worth recalling that there was no organised protest against the non-inclusionof caste in the previous census operations. Therefore resuming the practice of asking caste-related questions by census enumerators amounts to putting the clock back. At a time when the country is getting ready to enter the 21st century, it does not redound to its credit that every citizen has to answer questions about his or her caste background. Many of them might not even know in what caste they were born.

The decision has been taken on the specious plea that the implementation of the Mandal commission has made enumeration on the basis of caste imperative. The number of people of a certain caste is not important in determining whether that particular caste should be entitled to reservation. What is important is whether the caste is backward or not, which cannot be determined through census operations. There are other ways in which the backwardness or forwardness of the people can be determined. Now that caste has been allowed to get into the census details, there is the danger of every caste andsub-caste demanding reservations commensurate to its population. All this will open a Pandora8217;s box. The government will, therefore, do well to review the decision and not let caste figure in the census operations.