Telangana's caste count creates a new conundrum

In the sun-baked expanse of Mahabubnagar district in Telangana, November brings a trickle of relief. Morning mist clings to trees and crop fields. By mid-morning, though, the winter whispers retreat before the assertive sun, and the landscape shimmers in heat.

- Srinivasa Rao Apparasu and Dhrubo Jyoti

HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: In the sun-baked expanse of Mahabubnagar district in Telangana, November brings a trickle of relief. Morning mist clings to trees and crop fields. By mid-morning, though, the winter whispers retreat before the assertive sun, and the landscape shimmers in heat. It makes N Jogaiah Babu's morning trudges to the field easier. His village is a jumble of modest single-story houses, their walls a patchwork of limestone wash and broken bricks, lining narrow alleys that wind like dusty ribbons.

An agricultural labourer with a smattering of land holdings, Babu doesn't walk back from the fields till the sun is searing overhead. But one late November day, the mobile phone in his pocket started buzzing even before noon. It was his wife, telling him that government enumerators were at his mud door, asking questions for what they described as a caste survey.

Flustered by the barrage of questions about their annual incomes, bank account details, agricultural land holdings, outstanding loans and personal property, Varalakshmi dialled Babu.

His first response was reticence. Standing in his bunched-up soiled dhoti and a shirt, Babu was loathe to part with details about his newly purchased television set and cable connection—made conspicuous by the dish antennas sprouting like metal flowers from his sloping clay-tiled roof—or the smartphone peeking from his breast pocket. "I didn't understand why he wanted to know all these details. I was not going to part with details that I had not told even my relatives," Babu said.

The green shoots of prosperity were due to an IT job that his elder son had secured months before, but the 54-year-old didn't want to invite the wrath of the gods by flaunting his good fortune. There was also a more practical reason. "I wasn't sure if our welfare benefits and ration cards would get affected. Why should we take any risks, especially when there were no benefits with answering the questions?" he asked.