Caste Census in India, Need, Significance and Concern

Context: The caste census is crucial to informed policy-making and inclusive development.

Caste Census in India

Background

• British India enumerated all castes in censuses from 1881 to 1931.
• Post-independence, the 1951 Census excluded caste enumeration except for SCs and STs, which have been counted in every Census since.
• In 1961, the GOI advised States to conduct their own surveys and draw up State-specific OBC lists if desired.

Significance of Caste Census

A caste Census is essential for four main reasons: social, legal, administrative, and moral imperatives.

• Social Imperative: Caste remains a foundational social construct in India.
  • Only about 5% of Indian marriages were inter-caste as of 2011-12.
  • Caste surnames, marks, and residential segregation by caste are widespread.
  • Election candidates and cabinet ministers are often chosen based on caste considerations.
• Legal Imperative: Constitutionally mandated policies of social justice, including reservations in electoral constituencies, education, and public employment, require detailed caste-wise data.
  • The Constitution uses the word ‘class’ instead of ‘caste’, but Supreme Court rulings have held caste as a criterion for defining a backward class, necessitating detailed caste-wise data for reservation policies.
• Administrative Imperative: Detailed caste-wise data is necessary to avoid wrongful inclusions/exclusions in reserved categories and to prevent dominant castes from crowding out others.
  • It is needed for sub-categorizing castes within reserved categories and determining the income/wealth criterion for the creamy layer.
• Moral Imperative: Lack of detailed caste-wise data has allowed elites among upper castes and dominant OBCs to monopolise national assets, incomes, and positions of power.

Check here: Bihar Caste Census Report

Arguments Against Caste Census

Socially Divisive

• India’s social divisions predate Census efforts by nearly 3,000 years.
• Census counts of SCs and STs since 1951 have not led to conflicts among these groups.
• The Census also enumerates religion, language, and region, which are equally divisive.

Administrative Nightmare

• Unlike race, which is fuzzy but still enumerated in many countries, there is little ambiguity about caste in India.
• The GOI has smoothly enumerated 1,234 SCs and 698 STs, so enumerating 4,000 other castes should not be problematic.

Increased Reservation Demands

• Detailed caste data would curb arbitrary demands and capricious decision-making by governments regarding reservations.

OBC Inclusion in Census

Constitutional Provisions

• The Constitution permits OBC reservations in education and public employment.
• Indra Sawhney case (1992): The Supreme Court ruled that the OBC list based on the 1931 Census should be revised periodically.

Electoral Reservations

• OBCs do not have reservations in electoral constituencies for MPs and MLAs but do in panchayats and municipalities post-73rd and 74th amendments (1993).
• For these reservations, caste-wise data on OBCs is essential.

Failure of Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011

• In 2010, Parliament unanimously called for caste to be enumerated in the 2011 Census.
• The SECC-2011 was poorly designed, yielding 46 lakh castes, and the results were never released.
• SECC-2011’s failure was due to it not being conducted under the Census Act, 1948 and the inexperience of the Rural and Urban Development Ministries in conducting such surveys.

Way Forward

Recommendations:

• Amend the Census Act, 1948 to make caste enumeration mandatory.
• Conduct the caste Census under the Census Commissioner with specific questions added to the questionnaire.
• Enlist sociological/anthropological experts to create a draft list of castes, publish it for public feedback, and provide the final list to enumerators.
• Use internet-enabled devices preloaded with caste details to simplify the enumeration process.

Judicial Review:

• States should move the apex Court to review its 2021 judgement dismissing Maharashtra’s plea for OBC enumeration in the Census.
• It is crucial to have accurate caste data for implementing OBC and EWS reservations.

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