The Indian government will collect caste details in its next population census in a policy U-turn that could have sweeping socioeconomic and political ramifications.
Information minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced on Wednesday that the census would count the populations of each of the hundreds of castes and subcastes in the world’s most populous country, without revealing when the exercise might be held.
The once-a-decade population survey was due in 2021 but was delayed first by the Covid pandemic and then logistical hurdles.
India last collected caste data under the national census in 1931 during British colonial rule. Despite repeated calls from opposition parties and activists, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government had resisted updating this demographic data, arguing that it would deepen social divisions.
More than two-thirds of India’s over 1.4 billion people are estimated to be on the lower rungs of an archaic social hierarchy that grades Hindus by birth. It is not yet clear whether the caste census will focus only on the majority religion of Hinduism, or include Islam, Christianity and Sikhism, which in India are equally tainted by casteism and the caste system.
What is the caste system and why is the census important?
The caste system is a rigid social stratification system that dates back thousands of years and is still critical in Indian life and politics, with those at the bottom rung routinely discriminated against.
There are hundreds of castes and subcastes in the country, largely based on family occupation. The nearly 200 million Dalits, formerly known as “Untouchables”, are on the lowest rung of the hierarchy and often targeted for discrimination, even though India abolished untouchability in 1955.
Since independence in 1947, India has only listed Dalits and the indigenous tribals – referred to as scheduled castes and tribes, respectively – separately under the census. Everyone else’s caste has been marked as “general”.
Federal and state governments provide a certain number of spaces to members of the historically marginalised lower castes in colleges, government jobs and legislative bodies, including the parliament.
Supporters of the caste census stress the need for more precise data on those deserving of government assistance while critics say caste has no place in a country with ambitions of becoming a world power.
A new count will help tailor affirmative action plans better as the current quotas are based on decades-old data. The current plans, analysts fear, are not sufficient for what are known as backward castes given their share in the population.
The decision to include caste enumeration in the census is a major about-turn by the Modi government. Less than a year ago, Mr Modi had called a caste census a sign of the “far left” thinking of opposition parties.
After the decision was announced, however, Mr Modi’s chief lieutenant, home minister Amit Shah, called it “historic”.
“This decision will empower all economically and socially backward sections,” Mr Shah said.
The announcement of the inclusion of caste in the census comes ahead of elections in the eastern state of Bihar. Caste is a key political issue in the state, where an alliance including Mr Modi’s BJP is seeking to retain power.
“Several states have conducted surveys to enumerate caste, some states have done this well, others have done this purely from a political angle, in a non-transparent way,” Mr Vaishnaw told a cabinet briefing.
He argued that including caste details in the census would ensure greater transparency in the process than relying on individual surveys conducted by states.
Last year, the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana announced they would undertake caste surveys while Bihar had released a caste census in 2022.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition, had repeatedly demanded a socioeconomic caste census and backed a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on quotas for backward castes in government jobs and education.
“The aim of the caste census is not to just know about the count of various castes but their participation in the country’s wealth as well,” Mr Gandhi said last year.
He welcomed the Modi government’s decision. “We see the caste census as a new paradigm of development,” he said. “We are going to push this paradigm one way or the other.”
Critics of the caste census claim it will be socially polarising and lead to an increased demand for reservation.
India currently caps overall caste-based reservation at 50 per cent, of which the Other Backward Classes – several rungs of lower and intermediate castes that haven’t been officially counted for decades – alone take 27 per cent.
