A Caste Census Will Likely Worsen Division and Weaken Nationhood

It's about power sharing, not justice, and greater caste consciousness cannot end discrimination

- NITIN PAI

I want to sound a warning: a caste census not only risks diverting India away from development but could also undermine our foundational constitutional values. Instead of reducing the salience of caste in Indian society, it will reinforce it. In so doing, it goes against B.R. Ambedkar's warning on day-zero of the Indian Republic: "The castes are anti-national. In the first place because they bring about separation in social life. They are anti-national also because they generate jealousy and antipathy between caste and caste. But we must overcome all these difficulties if we wish to become a nation in reality. For fraternity can be a fact only when there is a nation. Without fraternity, equality and liberty will be no deeper than coats of paint."

Our politicians and liberal intellectuals are not being honest about the real reasons for India's caste census. Questioned at a forum last year, a prominent young leader of the opposition party blithely asked: "What's the harm in just counting?" There is abundant evidence from psychology and sociology that counting is always and everywhere political. We know from our own history that when the British started counting a century ago, caste groups mobilized to show strength in numbers. In the post-Mandal era, there are open displays of caste identities on car bumper stickers.