Interrogating the caste census

The Government of India has agreed to authorise the census operation to collect caste data, after an interval of 80 years.

Those who argued that this should not be done as part of the census but conducted separately through the Backward Classes Commission lost the argument. In a sense, this step is a logical one derived from the increasing role of identity politics in our elections, based on the first-past-the-post system. The politicians who are interested in the caste census data are not as interested in advancing the living standards and the status of the traditionally disadvantaged as they are in organising them into vote banks. The census data will be a powerful tool in their hands. This step will help consolidate the first-past-the-post system of elections and enable a significant section of our parliamentarians to be elected with a minority of votes polled in their favour and the majority of the constituency voting against them. Consequently they are not likely to have the democratic culture to respect the majority in the House and are likely to indulge in gimmickries designed to attract the attention of their core constituencies. This is the position today and with the legitimising of caste-based politics through the collection of census data, the culture of disruptions in Parliament is likely to be perpetuated.
Caste is not peculiar to India. It is prevalent in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Conversion to Islam and Christianity or Buddhism does not erase caste identity. In spite of the claims of Islam and Christianity that all believers are equal, the caste advantages and disadvantages continue to be perpetuated even after conversion. Therefore, the demand that caste reservation should be extended to the converts to Islam and Christianity. This demand has already been accepted and judicially approved. In such circumstances it is only logical that caste data for the census should cover all religions and not be restricted to those calling themselves Hindus. It is presumed the government’s instructions to the census authorities will implement this requirement. In due course this will lead to the reservations being operated on the basis of caste, without reference to religion. It will be interesting to watch whether such a development in India will lead to similar demands in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
One wonders whether this rushed decision will give rise to new problems. It has been asserted by the government that this data will not be subjected to analysis. Is that proposition realistic? Caste is a very complex subject. A particular caste having the same name can be an upper caste in one state, a backward caste in another state and a most backward caste in a third state. Vesting the data with the sanctity of the census operation is bound to raise issues of quotas within reservations based on the relative strengths of castes. If the politician’s interest was in the uplift of the traditionally disadvantaged, that could have been done by criteria-based affirmative action. But his real purpose is votebank politics and not the welfare of the masses. It is not going to be easy to escape the tensions that this casteism-strengthening exercise is likely to unleash. Such legitimisation of casteism will strengthen, for instance, the hands of reactionary and obscurantist khap panchayats. We see the pernicious hold of a casteist mindset in instances where parents murder their own children for crossing caste boundaries in choosing their spouses.
Our Constitution-makers did not anticipate that caste would end up being strengthened by the kind of electoral process they instituted. Our freedom fighters looked forward to a casteless society. There were movements in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and elsewhere for the eradication of caste. Now even those who championed caste eradication earlier have been seduced by caste vote-bank politics and are contributing to the perpetuation of such identities to derive political mileage. Strange are the ways of untethered democratic politics corrupted by the first-past-the-post system!
At the same time this census data collection provides a unique opportunity to all Indians who would like to see a casteless India to assert their views and make this a referendum on caste endorsement. Every Indian who would like to eradicate caste should enroll in the census as belonging to the Indian caste.
Here is an opportunity for progressive civil society to assert itself. It is likely that those sections of the population which have benefited from reservation and have followed leaderships who depend on caste politics will enthusiastically register their caste identities. But as the casteists have gained, let the resistance to casteism also advance. It may take many censuses before the majority of Indians are willing to renounce this millenia-old institution. As India urbanises and develops, casteism and caste-based politics will lose significance.
Ultimately India will have to promote a social and economic criteria-based affirmative action progamme which will drown the caste-linked educational and job reservations. Electoral reforms which will require a candidate to poll 50 per cent plus of votes cast in a second round to get elected are also needed. All that will take time. Meanwhile, let us start with this census and let all those who want a casteless India for our children and grandchildren register Indian against the caste column, when the census enumerator turns up at our doors.