BJP stole Rahul's thunder with caste census. But there are other advantages too

India Today

02-05-2025

The National Democratic Alliance government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to have stolen the thunder of principal Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi ahead of the crucial Bihar Assembly elections by announcing the first nationwide caste census in about 100 years.Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's casual announcement at the end of a Cabinet briefing that the upcoming census would include an enumeration of different castes across the country took the Opposition completely off guard. Many, however, were quick to claim credit for 'forcing' the Modi government to agree to accept and implement their demand.advertisementClaims aplentyEven as Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav insisted that it was a '100 per cent victory for PDA' — an abbreviation that the party uses for OBCs, Dalits, and minorities — as the Bharatiya Janata Party yielded to its pressure on caste census. Rahul Gandhi at a special presser said plainly: 'It is our vision which they have adopted.'
While there is no denying that Rahul Gandhi has been most vocal in the last two years demanding a caste census, even brazenly advocating, 'jitni aabadi, utna haq', the ruling BJP taunted him, saying that his party, from the time of his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru's prime ministership, had opposed reservation and 'deprived' the poor and marginalised sections of society of any sort of benefits.Modi followed Nehru, partlyBJP spokespersons often quote Nehru's unequivocal statement from 1961: 'If we go for reservation on a communal or caste basis, we swamp the bright and able citizens from government service and will remain a second-rate or third-rate country.' It is difficult to argue with Nehru's modernist viewpoint, and perhaps, until recently, Modi too shared similar sentiments. During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he repeatedly mocked the demand for a caste census, saying he only recognised 'four castes, that of the poor, women, youth and the farmers,' indicating that he was against going back in time.advertisementBut, after the unexpected setback of returning to power in 2024 without a clear majority, he appears to have become more conscious of present-day realpolitik and the need to address the aspirations of the common man across the caste spectrum.Notably, Modi held a two-hour-long meeting with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh supremo Mohan Bhagwat on Tuesday, as part of their newfound bonhomie, before the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs met on Wednesday and decided on incorporating the caste enumeration in the census, likely to be held early next year.Part of a grand designThe fact that the Modi-led NDA government is working to a 'grand design' in its third successive term is evidenced by the buzz around undertaking a more ambitious delimitation of the constituencies of Lok Sabha and the state assemblies after a census based on new population figures. There is also the possibility of dovetailing the 33 per cent Women's Reservation Act, already passed by the Parliament, perhaps to go with the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.Coming back to the caste census, the BJP has started tom-tomming that the Congress never 'cared' for the lower strata of society, as the caste census, which the British introduced in 1881 and continued without a break till 1931, was given up by independent India under the Congress regimes. The first post-independence census in 1951 and the subsequent ones (also involving non-Congress governments) enumerated only the numbers of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which enjoyed reservation under the Constitution.advertisementBJP leaders also point out that the United Progressive Alliance government under Dr Manmohan Singh conducted a socio-economic caste census during the 2011 census, whose findings 'were never formally released due to embarrassing questions surrounding data accuracy and consistency.'The survey mentioned the total number of castes in the country at 46 lakh as against a mere 4,147 castes in the 1931 census. For instance, tabulators found that in response to a question to 'name your caste', people mentioned 'Gupta', 'Agarwal' etc. where, ideally, they all should have come under the category of 'Baniyas.'A 'code of castes' directoryTo avoid such confusion in the upcoming census, according to official sources, the operation will be fully digitised and a code of directory distinguishing different castes will be provided as 'a drop-down' and the respondents will be required to tick the category they belong to.There is also a proposal to 'pre-test' a select population base to iron out any glitches before the final count. The first part of the census will concentrate on the basic details of gender, age, education, employment, income, assets, type of houses, ownership and so on, while the caste census, including the government benefits availed or not availed, will be done in the second phase.advertisementAccording to a senior official, 'Even as the number of government benefits and schemes targeting the underprivileged sections of society has multiplied over the years, we were finding it difficult to reach the right people due to faulty data or unavailability of reliable information. Once the caste survey is completed, we will be able to reach out to the socially and economically deprived sections of people in a more effective manner.'The BJP under Modi has systematically cajoled and cultivated the most oppressed among OBCs and minorities like Pasmanda Muslims, Christians, and Jains to counter the influence and power of the more 'privileged and dominant' OBCs. The census figures, whenever available, could be used to consolidate its vote bank vis-a-vis its political opponents.As the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies and their numbers, 'frozen' in 1976, is due for a review, the caste census could provide another 'weapon' in the hands of the BJP and its allies. Though the redrawing of boundaries will be done by the Delimitation Commission to be set up by the Centre after the census, with the caste numbers on hand, the ruling coalition could do slight manoeuvring here and there to gain some advantages.(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Tune InMust Watch