India to include citizens' castes in its delayed population census

WHILE tensions with Pakistan has been hogging the limelight, the India's cabinet on Wednesday (30) made a surprise decision to include citizens' caste details in its population census.

Interestingly, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has been opposing the caste census, a key plank of the opposition parties, and through this dramatic change, it hopes to wrest the initiative in the forthcoming elections in various states.

However, the information minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, did not announce when the census would begin.

Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi welcomed the government's "sudden" decision after "11 years of opposing it", but demanded that it should come up with a definite timeline.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav termed the government's decision to conduct a caste-based census as a "100 per cent victory" for the opposition parties.

The once-in-a-decade population survey, originally due in 2021, has been delayed by the pandemic and technical and logistical hurdles.

The caste system, a social hierarchy that dates back thousands of years, is critical in Indian life and politics.

There are scores of caste-based political parties and many state institutions must offer quotas to lower castes for employment and college places.

Supporters have stressed the need for data on those deserving of government assistance, while critics say caste has no place in a country with ambitions of becoming a major world power.

The announcement of the inclusion of caste details in the census comes months ahead of elections in the eastern state of Bihar, where caste is a key political issue.

"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," Vaishnaw told a cabinet briefing.

He said including caste details in the census would ensure transparency in the process, rather than relying on individual surveys conducted by states.

India recorded its castes for the first time in 80 years in 2011 but the data was not made public as there were concerns about its accuracy.

Last year two southern states, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, announced that they would undertake caste surveys, while the northern state of Bihar released a caste census in 2022.

Rahul Gandhi has demanded a socio-economic caste census and said they would back 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," Gandhi said last year.

The current quotas are based on decades-old caste data and some analysts fear that new data could show a higher number of backward castes, leading to demands for raising the cap on quotas. (Agencies)