BJP skates on thin ice on Census

After a lot of initial hesitation, the Bharatiya Janata Party led Central government has decided to go ahead with the Caste Census, a demand which the Congress has been making for the past several years.

- PANKAJ VOHRA

In doing so, the Saffron Brigade could have gotten into dangerous territory that could eventually harm its interests.

It is evident that the decision to go ahead with the caste census has been taken keeping the forthcoming Bihar Assembly elections in mind.

The Saffron Brigade's detractors say that it could also be because, the ruling dispensation wishes to divert attention from the colossal intelligence failure which led to the massacre of innocents in Pahalgam last month.

Whatever may be the factor, the BJP seems to have walked into a trap which could prove to be counter-productive if all does not go well.

The idea of Caste census is completely political but is, in the estimation of many analysts, against the core ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.

The Sangh has always been for unifying the Hindus and this action would lead to their division on the basis of communities, which would overall weaken the basic objective of consolidating the Hindus under one platform.

The Congress has been demanding a Caste census purely out of its new-found belief that it is a weapon that would lead to the dilution of the Hindutva agenda, and as it did in 1991 when Vishwanath Pratap Singh introduced the Mandal Commission, empower certain sections which have been marginalized over the years.

It should be recalled that when Mandal Commission was implemented by the then government, it had a serious fallout which led to the end of VP Singh whose action was solely based on his own political survival.