DON'T COUNT ON CASTE

THE PATNA HC HAS RULED THAT THE STATE DOES NOT HAVE THE LEGISLATIVE COMPETENCE TO CONDUCT A CASTE SURVEY

- Amitabh Srivastava

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s ambitious caste survey has hit a serious legal roadblock. On May 4, the Patna High Court put an interim stay on the state government’s ongoing caste-wise enumeration of its population just 10 days before the May 15 deadline for all its field work to be wrapped up. The first round of the survey was carried out between January 7 and 21; the second had started on April 15 and nearly 80 per cent of the data is said to be in. Describing the survey as an attempt at a census the exclusive domain of Parliament—the court said the state does not have the legislative competence to conduct it. The 2011 census had collected caste data but its results were never revealed. The present state data—collected under 17 heads, one being caste’-—has been similarly ordered to be preserved, secured and not be shared.

The high court stay may have far-reaching political implications, spilling way beyond Bihar. As the state government was inching closer to the finish line, other opponents of the BJP, including Rahul Gandhi (Congress), M.K. Stalin (DMK) and Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) had joined the chorus backing the exercise. Caste enumeration, the next logical step for Mandal politics, had emerged as a tool to counter the BJP’s strategy of unifying splintered backward communities under the larger Hindutva umbrella. The stay has put the brakes, albeit temporarily, on the Opposition’s pitch.