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Opinion Suhas Palshikar writes: Con-sensus on caste census

Government's announcement effectively postpones all serious discussion on the need to take the caste factor into consideration in policy making

We do not know when the next Census (originally due in 2020-21) will be conducted.

May 10, 2025 07:10 AM IST First published on: May 10, 2025 at 07:10 AM IST

With the Narendra Modi government conceding with poor grace the demand for caste census, the next stage in the shaping of a false consensus over “Mandal” seems imminent. The government’s decision is typical of the “dominant party syndrome” wherein such a party skilfully appropriates the more attractive plank of the Opposition, creates an environment of consensus on a politically and socially contested issue and in the process, robs that issue of its radical possibilities.

The life of “Mandal” has always been mired in controversy. The idea of a Second Backward Classes Commission came into being during a particularly non-consensual political atmosphere. The OBC leadership emerged subsequently, despite deep resistance from forward castes. The decision to implement OBC reservation was accompanied by large-scale societal and political upheavals. This churning was possible partly because the arena of competitive politics was not characterised by single-party dominance. But most political parties gradually realised that underneath the political disputes over reservation, there lay a deeper social faultline. Therefore, these parties quietly veered toward the strategy of upholding the OBC cause without actually serving it. To dilute any possibility of social justice through reservation, the idea of EWS reservation was legislated and judicially approved. That move removed the veneer of sincerity on the question of social justice.

For the past couple of years, Rahul Gandhi has been raising the pitch for a caste census and social justice. In doing so, he hoped to corner the BJP and win over the backward castes. In the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, despite Congress doing slightly better than in the last two elections, the party was unable to reap any benefit from raising the caste issue. What Congress achieved, however, was that it alerted the BJP to the dangers of obstinacy on the caste census question. The BJP had famously attacked the idea on the grounds of endangering Hindu unity and for being disruptive of the social order. But the party must have sensed the rumblings the caste census issue caused. Though that rumbling had not benefited Congress or its allies in Bihar and UP, it certainly held a threat to the Hindu umbrella the BJP had crafted. Anti-Muslim propaganda and the shrill rhetoric of Hindutva politics could bring the BJP large sections of OBCs but their material and social conditions were bound to produce jarring notes in the Hindutva symphony.

So, the BJP was bound to take up the OBC question and the caste issue more generally. On many occasions, the Prime Minister reminded his audiences of his own caste origins. The BJP also drew attention to how Congress eased out Sitaram Kesri. In other words, the BJP was not unaware that the caste-related social churning required a pro-OBC rhetoric. After some piecemeal attempts, it has now shifted gears and decided to tame the issue by appropriating it symbolically without an assurance of acting on it. There is nothing unexpected about this.

A dominant party often does two things: It steals the issues from the Opposition and dilutes the contested issues by converting them into a false consensus. The BJP has sought to do both with its decision to go ahead with the caste census. Suddenly, there appears a national consensus on conducting a caste census. This suddenly shaped consensus has triggered hope that more substantive questions about caste — atrocities, discrimination and resource asymmetry — will soon be addressed by the nation because all parties have woken up to the need for an enumeration.

However, there is another stark reality. The announcement that caste will be included in the next Census effectively postpones all serious discussion about caste being the key basis of social injustice and the need to take the caste factor into consideration in policy-making. Congress may have forgotten it, but during the UPA’s time, there was some talk of an Equal Opportunity Commission that would monitor questions related to inequalities and make recommendations about addressing those inequalities. Today, in the din of the caste census, that institutional mechanism is not even on the back burner. This is how the existence of a dominant pole in competitive politics shadows possibilities of innovative policy options.

How, then, is the BJP’s appropriation of the caste census issue likely to unfold?

One, it will push Congress into overconfidence and disinterest in the issue. As it is, there is not much certainty about how much interest the party has in the issue at the ground level. Now that the political advantage will be slim, it could well be fumbling over the matter. Robbing the Opposition of crucial issues is part of the system of dominance, and Congress will probably be the victim.

Two, we do not know when the next Census (originally due in 2020-21) will be conducted. And the devil is always in the details — what exactly will be asked; what additional caste-related data will be asked; if caste will be asked in the main Census or in a separate exercise, as the UPA did in 2011. And then, what will be the time frame for caste-occupation tables to be available for analysis and policy-making?

The announcement also means that there will not be any action on the caste data that states like Bihar, Telangana and Karnataka have collected. These issues will surely determine if we are going to have a real caste census or an eyewash.

Three, without waiting for actual numbers, will there be interest among political actors to think of pathways to social justice? Rahul Gandhi’s hissedari argument is attractive but besides being theoretically problematic, it has no answer for the ills of small communities that have no possibility of gaining any hissa (share) if the clamour for proportionality is adopted as a basis for policy.

Most importantly, under the cloak of consensus, politically and socially, two groups will be working to obstruct any efforts to radically alter current resource asymmetry — the upper castes and the more numerous communities from the backward (and scheduled) castes in every state.

It is unlikely that Congress will have the energy to counter these roadblocks and the BJP will have the will to clear the road for social justice. Therein exist the limits and con-like character of the consensus.

The writer, based in Pune, taught political science