6 min readSep 12, 2026 11:03 PM IST
First published on: Sep 6, 2026 at 02:16 PM IST
A report in this newspaper (‘Note on meeting over caste census rewritten after Ministry pushback’, IE, September 3) about the alleged “miscommunication” between the Registrar General of India (RGI) office (which conducts the census) and the Ministry of Social Justice (MoSJ) (which maintains lists of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes), suggest that the curious case of the caste census just got curiouser. After an abrupt about-turn on this issue before the 2024 elections, the Modi government first postponed the census beyond reasonable limits (doubtless because of the impending delimitation), then unveiled a thinly disguised attempt to sabotage the effort through an “open-ended” question on caste, rather than using drop-down lists along with an “Others” option for unlisted caste names. The excuse given then was that caste lists were not available. It is now clear that this was never true, and that the MoSJ had in fact offered to supply the RGI with the SC and OBC lists. This takes to new heights the attempts made by governments to avoid, prevent or sabotage the caste count. The Congress did it in 2011, and now the BJP is doing it even more blatantly.
Since the 2001 census, every proposal to count caste has attracted immediate and insistent opposition. Different opponents are motivated by different interests, including some who sincerely believe that it is against the larger goal of transcending caste. But the most vocal and effective opposition seems to be inspired by straightforward self-interest, or more appropriately, caste- and class-interests. Of course, those who argue for the caste census are also pursuing interests of some kind, and these too may be related to caste and class. The division of opinion on this question seems to be decided by the overriding perception that the counting of caste is linked to benefits of some kind that governments may potentially provide to particular groups.
The interesting thing, however, is that some benefits are only too visible — reservation is the prime example — while others may be even more consequential and yet remain invisible. Since most people jump to the conclusion that a caste census is somehow about reservations, it follows that those against reservations would oppose the counting of caste, and vice versa. It is no surprise, therefore, that the anti-reservation organisation Youth for Equality was the primary petitioner against the Bihar caste survey, or that the Akhila Karnataka Brahmana Mahasabha petitioned against a similar survey in Karnataka. Equally understandable is the opposition of dominant caste groups who are prominent beneficiaries of reservation, who fear that a caste count will lead to a loss or reduction in their share. Hence we find the Akhila Bharata Veerashiva Lingayat Mahasabha and the Rajya Vokkaliga Sangha of Karnataka petitioning the Karnataka High Court to stay the 2025 caste survey. Unsurprisingly, in both Bihar and Karnataka, the petitioners invoked every possible legal argument against caste surveys, including those that had already been rejected by the Supreme Court or had been superseded by constitutional amendments such as the 105th Amendment.
While the reservation for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in 2019 — effectively for the upper castes — may have softened attitudes a little, beneficiaries of reservation have long been the objects of resentful contempt from the so-called “General Category”. For the elite in this category, who occupy the highest echelons of our society, surveys of this kind cause an even more visceral sense of outrage. It is as though being asked their caste demeans them by implicating them in something connected to reservations. That is why some celebrities — tech magnates, film stars and other rich, famous and powerful people — disdainfully dissociate themselves from such surveys.
Since elected governments must indulge the rich and powerful, but also seek votes from the vast mass of people who are neither, they pretend to count caste while ensuring that it actually isn’t. But the spectrum of positions on a caste census is a truncated one because it assumes that benefits from the state are of only one kind, like reservations. This one-sided perspective ignores a vast array of benefits showered by the state upon those who count but are never counted.
The euphemistically named “Non-Performing Assets” (NPAs) are perhaps the best documented instance of such benefits, most of which remain undocumented. Despite a 2015 Supreme Court ruling authorising the release of information under the Right to Information Act on “willful defaulters” owing large sums to public sector banks, both the banks and the Reserve Bank of India have steadfastly refused to provide details on loans written off. In 2024, the RBI issued the Wilful Defaulters and Large Defaulters Directions, which require individual banks to list on their websites the instances of default where suits have been filed. But no information (other than aggregate amounts) is provided on loans written off, despite repeated requests by RTI activists. The most recent instance is the Bank of Baroda’s refusal to name defaulters on loans totalling Rs 35,715 crore (from 2020-21 to 2025-26) that have been written off with only 28 per cent average recovery.
The caste census and NPAs seem to have little in common with each other, but an otherwise aggressively surveillance-oriented state seems similarly reluctant to collect or release data in both instances. This suggests that the reluctance stems from the same root cause: An unwillingness to make privilege publicly visible. The real reason for undermining the caste census could be an aversion to counting the privileged and highlighting inequalities. Curiously enough, neither a caste census nor a defaulters’ list would reveal anything about the privileged that we do not already know in a general way. But an official and public count or list is resisted because it violates an implicit right: The right of the privileged to control their own social visibility.
Deshpande is a retired academic based in Bengaluru. Views are personal
An official and public count or list is resisted because it violates an implicit right: The right of the privileged to control their own social visibility. 
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