Caste-based Census in the Current Scenario
Written By: Mr Kunal Kumar
Introduction
“When class is somewhat strictly hereditary, we may call it a caste” defined by C.M. Cooley. India is the world’s biggest majority rule government, yet notwithstanding this, it has been exposed to a crowd of discussions inferable from the rank framework. The caste system is as relevant today & it has become a fundamental part of Indian culture. The Indian Census is the soundest wellspring of data on data on size, conveyance, and financial, segment, and different attributes of the nation’s populace.
It gives significant data to arranging and detailing approaches for Central and State Governments and is generally utilized by National and International Agencies, Scholars, financial specialists, industrialists, and some more. There have been developing requests for a station evaluation with the overall statistics in 2022 since Justice G Rohini-drove commission presented a draft proposition suggesting a sub-categorization of the booking for the Other Backward Classes (OBC).
Recorrido Of Caste Census in India
In India, Caste is a social reality that decides one’s societal position and the restrictions of social relations, and furthermore openings for progression in the existence of a person.
Pre-Independence Era
This Era data was then used to divide and conquer India. It previously favoured Brahmins as mediators of Indian culture and afterwards designated them as the foundation of standing-based mistreatment and imbalance root of caste-based inequality. During the 20th century, this categorization bought blood baths in the street by the name of anti-Brahmin Movements.
- The first census of 1872 included the questions about caste. The censuses of 1872 and 1881 primarily attempted to classify people according to the Varna system.
- In 1891 census, subclass in major caste was brought in.
- In 1901 census, caste of two community namely Hindus and Jains were recorded and if there should be an occurrence of other religion name of clan or race were recorded
- In 1921 census, the category of oppressed classes was utilized first time.
- In 1931 census, an entry of ‘caste tribe or race was provided in Column eight of the general schedule provided for
- Mandal commission utilizes the information to 1931 statistics to characterize the models for OBC caste in India.
- The commission embraced 11 standards which could be gathered under three significant headings: social, educational and economic in order to distinguish OBCs.
- In 1941, Second World War begins so census was not completely done and information was not delivered.
- From the outset of 1872, there was never a proper meaning of the statistics for caste, race or clan. The recorded subtleties changed in each statistic from 1872 to 1941.
Post Independence Era
In post-independence India, caste was considered superfluous. It was assumed that caste counting would additionally make divisions so caste census was inactive since 1951.
But Caste census of SC/ST proceeds as there were legal arrangements in the constitution to give reservation.
In the 2011 census, caste was not incorporated due to logistical reasons despite huge demand Although, caste information was collected later through Socio-Economic and Caste Census, 2011.
What approximately about the Socio-Economic Caste Census of 2011?
The Ministry of Rural Development of the Government of India initiated the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in June 2011 through a comprehensive door-to-door survey across the nation. This is the first comprehensive exercise of its kind in rural and urban India. It is also expected to generate information on household-related social and economic indicators across the nation.
SECC, 2011 has the following three goals:
- Allow families to be classified according to their socioeconomic status. The state government can then prepare a list of families living below the poverty line.
- Provide real information to calculate the country’s population by caste.
- Provide real information about the socio-economic status and educational status of different castes and parts of the population.
The 2011 socioeconomic census of castes was a large-scale effort to collect data on the socio-economic conditions of various communities. It consists of two parts: a survey of rural and urban households and the classification of these households according to predetermined parameters, and a census of castes. But only detailed information on the economic conditions of urban and rural residents was released. Caste data has not been published so far. However, while the exact cause remains to be discovered, this data is believed to be politically sensitive as well. Afraid of facing dominant and powerful castes, they may find that their estimated strength in the population is not as high as claimed, which may be a major reason.
Has there been analysis of along with caste in the Census?
The foremost contention contrary to taking position specifics of individuals is that it will in general disseminate casteism in the society. J.H. Hutton, the Census Commissioner in 1931, takes note of that on the occasion of each subsequential census since 1901, some analysis had been raised about taking any expression of the truth of caste. “It has been affirmed that the mere act of labelling persons as belonging to a caste tends to fragile the system framework,” he penned down. Notwithstanding, he dismisses the analysis, contending that there isn’t anything inaccurate in recording a reality, and overlooking its reality would be ostrich-like.
Is the Caste data census relevant in modern-day Indian Society?
Although the caste system is very old-fashioned and traditional, it still has a certain meaning in modern Indian society. Even though there is a lot of increment in economic growth, disposable income but Indian culture is still very rooted in tradition and religion. The caste data census will help in framing a layout for the downtrodden section of the society.
- Our political framework and courts are still utilizing caste information from 1931 statistics. This doesn’t address the change and prerequisite of present time
- The data has become obsolete due to rushed consideration of the caste question in the SECC
- Caste data will assist in recognizing different backward and downtrodden classes of society.
- It will give accurate data with respect to the financial condition and education status of different strata.
- It would help the government for recognizable proof of recipients for different financial government assistance plans
- In light of that, Government can assess the performance of its past plans/approaches and update them in like manner
- It would help in understanding the adjustment in society and provide assistance in providing a better framework for the inclusion/exclusion of deprived society.
- Without accurate information on the thousands of jatis (castes) and upjatis (sub-castes), it is difficult to speculate on the accuracy of hierarchy-based political choices.
- Therefore, it is become the need of an hour which shows the accurate reflection of society.
What is the issue?
The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs r recently stated that as a policy issue, the government has decided not to calculate the population by caste in the census, rather than by Schedule caste / Schedule Tribe. However, the requests for the caste-based census are continuing to come from different parts of the country. Since then, during the weekend, Hon’ble Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his predecessor Jitan Ram Manjhi have independently demanded a caste-based census. Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale had raised the same interest.
Should the census ask about necessity instead of caste?
The joint leader of Janta Dal and Bihar CM Nitesh Kumar will give priority to the caste-based census. In 2019-2020, the Bihar State Assembly joined to support the caste census. The joint government of JDU and BJP in Bihar will exert greater pressure on the central government on this issue. By Dr The Ved Pratap Kaushik movement “MERI JATI HINDUSTANI” was launched in 2010. At that time, none of the aforementioned parties opposed the movement. At that time, the government of Dr Manmohan Singh was eager to implement a Caste-based census. Then the activist movement humbly approached Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of Congress.
She accepted his request and ordered the public cessation of the caste-based census. At that time, Gujrat CM Narendra Modi also supported the “MERI JATI HINDUSTANI” movement. When he became Prime Minister of India, he also stopped publishing the caste population-based Census. In the above scene, who can say that Sonia Ji and Modi Ji are against poverty, backwardness, and poverty? Now, the public representatives made this request again to carry out a caste census. So, what steps should the government take? Now if a caste census is carried out and representatives of different political parties/societies give reasons, then the OBC count increases.
In order to increase the percentage, the government is obliged to provide more reservations in government jobs. The Constitution of India represents 50% of the reservation by birth. If the current situation does not propose a reservation, what will happen? In government jobs, only 500 to 700 will exceed. The 80.9 billion disadvantaged people will not benefit. We must establish that social system to alleviate poverty and quality of life.
The requirement of the day is a caste-less society. This does not mean surrendering the obstacles of SC, ST, OBC to the mercy of God. We must provide them with a favourable environment so that they can live a comfortable life. If these facilities are not provided to them at birth but upon the criteria of need.
What are the crevices within the existing caste data?
Dr J.N Hutton once wrote that due to thousands of castes, lakhs of sub-castes, and millions of recreant people, it is impossible to conduct a caste-based census perfectly. There is a central listing of the OBC and a State Govt-specific listing of the OBC. Some states do not have an OBC listing. Some states have a subset called OBC Lists and Most Backward Classes.
There are certain open-ended categories within the records such as vagrants and destitute children. Names of a few castes are found in both the list of Scheduled Castes and the list of OBCs. Schedule castes that switch to Christianity or Islam are also treated differently in completely different states. The status of a vagrant from one State to another and the status of children of inter-caste relational unions, in terms of caste classification, are too disagreeable.
Authors Opinion
If we want India to become a strong country, then reservations should be excluded from the constitutional list, and reservations up to 70-75% should be provided in the field of education and medical facilities for BPL, then we will see unprecedented results that have not happened in the last 70 years.
The government must look beyond caste and work for the betterment of the illiterate, marginalized, and impoverished sections of the population. The government should prioritize economic division, education, and health. Different institutions, villages, Mohalla/wards based on cases should be stopped. From now on, even the indication of the cast-based regiment in the army should be changed, then our country will definitely touch new heights and achieve new successes.
References
‘Census In Colonial India and The Birth of Caste’ (Economic and Political Weekly, 2021, <https://www.epw.in/journal/2011/33/special-articles/census-colonial-india-and-birth-caste.html (Visited on 28 July 2021)
‘Socio-Economic Caste Census-2011’ (Secc.gov.in, 2021), https://secc.gov.in/reportlistContent (Visited on 27 July 2021) (Repository.library.brown.edu, 2021), https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:386309/PDF/ (Visited on 26 July 2021)
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