Caste census casts questions on job creation

New Indian Express

03-05-2025

All economics, it is said, is about politics. And all politics is grounded in economics—effectively about public policies to enable access to opportunities.
This week, the Modi government announced the enumeration of caste in the forthcoming census. Typically, public discourse is riveted on the whataboutery of when who was for it and who was against. Beyond the claims and counterclaims, the inclusion of caste in the census underlines the omnipotence of caste in India's political matrix. It also underlines the chasm between the need for sustainable incomes and India's status rising in a decade from the 11th to the fifth largest economy in the world.
The measure of aggregate progress in the past decade hides the stratification across India. The political geography of India's economy illustrates this divergence. India's per capita income is Rs 2.15 lakh. Karnataka tops the list with Rs 3.80 lakh and Bihar trails with Rs 66,828; within Bihar, the district of Sheohar has a per capita income of Rs 19,561. As Nobel laureate Angus Deaton observed, 'averages are no consolation for those left behind'.
It is not surprising that the move to enumerate caste originated from Bihar, or that the initiative is timed for the forthcoming polls. Bihar is home to around 12 crore of India's 142-crore population, and at Rs 10.97 lakh crore, accounts for barely 3 percent of India's GDP of Rs 331.03 lakh crore. The distance between Karnataka and Bihar, or between Bengaluru and Sheohar, is about empowerment and employment.
The political class has presented the caste census as a panacea for an inclusive reservation system. Quota warriors cite the Rohini Commission's findings to point out that '97 percent of the reserved jobs and seats have gone to 25 percent of OBC sub-castes'. Arguably, the formula of reservation must be backed by data. The caste census will at best a template for inclusion, not expansion in job creation. The momentum of public opinion backing the move clearly casts questions on job creation.
Take the IT services sector, which is one of the largest white collar employers. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, in its March 2025 report, cited data to note that 'there is an unusual decline in placements in IITs and IIITs between 2021-22 and 2023-24'. A TeamLease peport in October estimated that only 10 percent of engineering graduates would secure jobs this year. Indeed, another survey, published in March 2025, revealed that 83 percent of engineering graduates have no jobs.