Caste census still in the distance, road to it marked by hurdles, twists and turns, politics

The BJP, conscious of the political upheaval flowing from such a census, has stood against the demand – which in turn is a contrast from its position while in Opposition at the Centre.

Here is what has transpired so far:

May 2010

About to complete its first year in office after returning to power for a second term, the UPA-II government led by Manmohan Singh was taken by surprise when the Samajwadi Party, RJD and JD(U) began mounting pressure on it to hold a caste headcount along with the 2011 decadal Census. Of the three, SP and RJD were supporting the UPA government.

The Congress and BJP, then the main Opposition party, did not have a clear-cut position on caste census, although a section of the OBC leaders within these parties — then Law Minister M Veerappa Moily in the Congress and late Gopinath Munde in the BJP, for example — were in favour of a OBC headcount.

The Home Ministry under P Chidambaram took the position that the Census exercise involved merely a headcount and including caste in the list of its questions would yield inaccurate results, owing to logistical problems.

“Population Census is not the ideal instrument for collection of details on caste. The operational difficulties are so many that there is a grave danger that the basic integrity of the Census data may be compromised and the fundamental population count itself could get distorted,” the Home Ministry told the Cabinet.

But the Hindi heartland parties – with OBCs as their main voter base — persisted with their demand. For these parties, caste census was a way to rekindle their OBC politics — long after Mandal had catapulted them to national centrestage. The issue resulted in disruption of Parliament during the Budget Session.

Correspondingly, the SP, RJD and JD(U) vociferously opposed the women’s reservation Bill, which had been passed by the Rajya Sabha in March that year amid acrimonious scenes, as they demanded that there first be a quota within this quota. For heartland parties looking for ways to resurrect their OBC politics, demanding caste and community quota within the women’s reservation Bill, and an OBC headcount, made the perfect combination.

Under pressure, the government agreed to a debate on caste census in Parliament, though some ministers remained opposed. An informal Cabinet meeting held in the first week of May saw Moily and his Cabinet colleagues like Jaipal Reddy, Farooq Abdullah, Dayanidhi Maran and Vayalar Ravi supporting a caste census, while Anand Sharma and Pawan Kumar Bansal supported the Home Ministry’s contention.

Seeking to broadbase its support beyond Hindutva, the BJP, however, had by then veered around to favouring a caste census.

Over May 6 and 7, 2010, a discussion was held in Parliament on the issue. While it reflected the divisions within the party, a majority of the leaders who spoke, including those from the BJP, favoured a caste census.

This prompted the government to review its stand. “I am aware of the views of members belonging to all sections of the House. I assure you that the Cabinet will take a decision shortly,” PM Manmohan Singh told the Lok Sabha.

The Home Ministry, which was opposed to a caste-based census, also nuanced its position and argued that a caste-based headcount can be done — but only after tabulation of Census figures — during the biometric capture phase, when photographing, fingerprinting and iris mapping of citizens for the National Population Register (NPR) would be done.

On May 27, the UPA government finally referred the contentious issue to a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The GoM too was sharply divided, and ended up seeking the opinion of all political parties. Most of the parties including the BJP backed a caste-based headcount.

The GoM’s question to the political parties was: “Whether caste should be canvassed in the ongoing census/NPR exercise?”. And that, “if the answer is in the affirmative, whether your party agrees that the caste of the respondent should be canvassed in such a manner and at such a stage that it does not affect the integrity of the headcount (Census)?”

The BJP reply sent by then Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj read: “The BJP had already clarified its stand in the Lok Sabha. The party reiterates that caste can be canvassed in the ongoing census/NPR exercise. We agree that caste should be canvassed in such a manner and at such a stage so that it does not affect the integrity of the head count (Census).”

September 2010

Finally, that month, the Union Cabinet decided to hold a caste headcount.

A government statement said: “‘Caste’ of all persons as returned by them would be canvassed. The caste enumeration would be conducted as a separate exercise from the month of June 2011 and completed in a phased manner by September 2011 after the Population Enumeration phase (to be conducted in February-March 2011) of Census 2011 is over.

Hence, the first caste-wise enumeration after Independence was cleared. The last Census when caste-wise data had been collected, tabulated and published in detail was the 1931 Census.

June 2011

The Ministry of Rural Development, then headed by Jairam Ramesh, began the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC). The study of socio-economic status of close to 25 crore rural and urban households had three components, divided under three separate authorities but under the overall coordination of the Department of Rural Development.

Census in rural areas was conducted by the Rural Development Ministry, while the study in urban areas was held under the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. Overall, the caste census was under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs: Registrar General of India (RGI) and Census Commissioner of India.

But the enumeration of households and tabulation of the data were plagued by delays, and missed multiple deadlines. And so, while the enumeration was completed by the end of 2012, the final data was nowhere near ready till the end of 2013.

In April 2013, Ramesh said: “The enumeration has been completed in all states and it is now in the claims and objections stage. Gram sabhas will have 82 days for this and the government hopes the list would be ready by early September.

A UPA minister told The Indian Express that the provisional data was ready by September-October 2013, but with general elections due soon, a call was taken to let the next government release the data.

The UPA lost power in the May 2014 polls, with the Modi-led NDA government coming to power.

July 2014

Two months later, the Modi government told the Lok Sabha that completion of the SECC operations will take at least three more months. It said that the first stages of the exercise — enumeration, supervision, and verification and correction – had been completed by most states and Union territories, and what was left was draft list publication, claims and objections, and final list publication.

In December 2014, the government again told the Lok Sabha that the SECC exercise would take at least three-four more months. The previous month, it had said that draft lists had been published in 412 districts in 30 states/UTs, and final lists in 91 districts of 10 states/UTs.

July 2015

The Modi government released provisional data from the SECC for rural India. It said it was not releasing the caste data enumerated in the SECC as it was not finalised.

In July 2016, the government told the Lok Sabha in a written reply that it “had directed the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner to process the caste data and hand over the details of the castes / tribe returned in the enumeration to the proposed Expert Group to be constituted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to classify these caste/tribe returns”.

It said “an Expert Group to classify and categorise the Caste returns has been constituted by the Government under the Chairmanship of Shri Arvind Panagariya, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog”.

March 2018

The government told the Lok Sabha that “certain errors have been observed during the processing of caste data”. In a written reply to a question on the SECC, the Home Ministry repeated that “the caste data has been handed over to the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner for processing, whereafter it is to be submitted to the Expert Group to be formed under the Chairmanship of Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, for classification and categorization.”

It again reiterated that “certain errors have been observed during the processing of caste data (and).”

In August 2018, Vijay Goel, the then Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation, told the Rajya Sabha that the processing of caste data was taking time due to certain design issues at the stage of data collection. Interestingly, the reply said the planned expert group was not set up.

March 2021

In reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, the Home Ministry said: “The raw caste data was provided to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for classification and categorisation… As informed by (the ministry), there is no proposal to release the caste data at this stage.”

In September 2021, the government — in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court — effectively ruled out holding a caste census that year, saying such an exercise “would not be feasible” and that “exclusion of information regarding any other caste”, apart from SCs and STs, “from the purview of census is a conscious policy decision”.

As for the SECC, the affidavit said there were “technical flaws” in data collection. It said the exercise had thrown up 46 lakh different castes, and that “the total numbers cannot be exponentially high to this extent”. The Centre said that an analysis of the data showed “that the caste enumeration… was fraught with mistakes and inaccuracies” and “is not reliable”.