Caste and Census

On Gandhi Jayanti last year, the government of Bihar declared the results of the caste census in the form of certain tables showing population data, which, however, were not authenticated by any government functionaries. The government neither published it under an official notification nor was it published under an Office Memorandum. To date, Bihar has not disclosed the methodology adopted for capturing the caste data for their caste-based survey

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The Union Government has finally yielded to the demands of various pressure groups for conducting a caste census side by side with the next normal census operation (2021) as and when it is held. The latest announcement about the next census (The Statesman, May 1) is the outcome of these demands. Announcing the government decision and Cabinet nod on conducting the next census, the Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that this shall be the first caste census in independent India.

Two notable unusual aspects regarding the time of this announcement are a) there is hardly one month left for the Bihar Assembly elections and incidentally, Bihar happens to be the first state to conduct a caste-based survey in the country, and b) it took the government more than seven years' time to finalise what it announced in 2018. Earlier, in 2021, the government categorically reported to the Supreme Court that conducting a caste census is an administratively difficult process as it is prone to errors. Depending on this plea of the Union government, the Apex Court dismissed a petition filed by the Maharashtra Government on giving direction to the government to conduct a caste census.

Conducting a census at every ten-year interval is a constitutional obligation of the Government of India, which helps not only in updating the country's baseline data system in almost all spheres but also helps the government in taking appropriate policy decisions. The 17th Census, which was supposed to be conducted in the year 2021 initially, was kept in abeyance due to the precarious situation prevailing in the country generated by the spread of Covid-19. But even thereafter, the government did not appear keen to conduct Census 2021.