No drop-down menu, caste census format to be open-ended

Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said enumerators will simply ask people to state their caste and record the answer verbatim, without attempting to classify surnames, sub-castes or other responses into broader caste categories.

Population enumeration, along with the caste census, will be conducted across the country in February next year. However, in hilly and snow-bound areas, the exercise will begin from September 1 this year to avoid difficulties during the winter months.

“It has been finally decided that no dropdown menu or any other means will be used for caste enumeration. People have to just state their caste and the same will be recorded as it is. Enumerators are not supposed to categorise any surname or sub-caste in a caste category. Things will be recorded verbatim,” a senior MHA official said.

The decision comes after the RGI considered using a drop-down menu drawing from the Central and State lists of castes, particularly for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). The Census already uses a drop-down menu for recording notified Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities.

The “open-ended question on caste” method was exactly how the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was conducted. The exercise failed to produce usable caste data largely because of poor data quality, the absence of a standardized caste registry and flaws in operational design. Since respondents could self-report caste names without verification, the exercise generated an administrative nightmare.

The final dataset contained nearly 46.7 lakh distinct caste names, compared with the 4,147 castes recorded in the last comprehensive caste census in 1931. The Union government eventually withheld the raw caste data.

“Yes, it is true that an open-ended question will likely produce 2011-like results. But what can we do? We have always maintained that a caste census is fraught with possibilities of producing poor data because of the complexities involved. But the Opposition has been demanding it for political reasons. We have accepted it. Let them deal with the final data,” a Union Minister said.

The government, however, maintains that an open-ended response is the only way to conduct the exercise without the State itself becoming an arbiter of caste identities.

Under the proposed system, an enumerator will record what a respondent says rather than determine whether the answer corresponds to a recognised caste, sub-caste or category.

“Census is not a verification exercise, only a recording exercise. It does not ask for evidence against your claims. If a Brahmin claims he is a Yadav, the enumerator is not going to ask for his caste certificate. Creating a dropdown menu thus will create a situation of state participation in unreliable data,” the MHA official said.

The decision also addresses a concern raised by the RSS and sections of the Sangh Parivar over the use of existing Central and State caste lists. They had argued that relying on such lists could further entrench what they view as a caste architecture institutionalised under British rule.

The choice of an open-ended format, however, leaves the government with the problem that had complicated the 2011 exercise: how to convert millions of individual responses into reliable, standardised caste data without appearing to determine or alter what respondents have reported.