Caste census is a bad idea whose time has come. Much worse lies ahead

The Print

03-05-2025

And the caste numbers could (most likely would) become the issue that defines the 2029 national campaign.
Beyond that, it's a troublesome, electorally loaded move at this chosen time. The announcement comes in the build-up to the Bihar elections. The census may conclude just ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections.
The one good thing we can say about the Narendra Modi government's announcement to hold a caste census is that finally, after a five-year delay, the 2021 decennial census will now be held. Please note that not once since the first one in 1881 has the decennial census been delayed or cancelled, not even in 1941, when World War II was on.
Therein lies the problem. This also underlines why we think that the caste census is another one of our usual 'nobody can stop a bad idea whose time' moments. Apologies, Victor Hugo.
Why do we call it a bad idea, though? Most editorials have welcomed it. ThePrint, which I edit, has welcomed it too, if only this brings the census and data. The ruling party, having demonised it as divisive, destructive and dangerous, echoing somewhat less colourfully Modi who called it an urban Naxal idea, has now made what fighter pilots would call a 9G turn to hail it as a masterstroke. The Opposition, especially the Congress, welcomes it too, except to say that Modi stole their idea. What's the problem then?
Having butchered an immortal Victor Hugo line, let me take liberties with another beaten cliché: the devil is in the data, or what you do with it. The UPA collected data on the caste of the Indian population but did nothing with it. It didn't even release it in public.
The BJP has had this data with them for 11 years and maintained the omertà. It set up the Justice Rohini Commission to figure out what to do with the data and benefits for OBCs. Its findings were buried like a grave national secret. With a fresh census now, this for Justice G. Rohini is her labour of love lost. The fact is, for 14 years since the 2011 census, the caste data is seen as radioactive, fissile material. The new census won't produce a more benign isotope.
This, however, isn't the reason we call it a bad idea whose time has come. We take the argument forward with our three laws of bad ideas. First, somebody will follow up the bad idea with a cascade of worse ideas. Next, everybody will conspire to worsen it. And third, the first guy who brought it in will feel remorse, but will have no courage or political capital to reverse it.
I can give you a dozen examples in three minutes. Let's only think of Indira Gandhi's bank nationalisation in 1969.
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The reason we call the caste census a bad idea is because nobody has figured out what to do with the data, except Rahul Gandhi. And his idea is a straight lift from late Ram Manohar Lohia. You can be sure Rahul will now merrily snatch the baton from Modi and run for amending the Constitution to raise the 50 percent ceiling on reservations. Be sure, this will happen.
Next? What will you do with increased reservations when the government has no jobs to give. Today's headline is '1.5 crore applying for 36,000 railway jobs', and the tragedy plays out every day. The problem for young Indians isn't that there's too few reservations. It is that there are so few government jobs.
Don't wait for me to guess the next worst idea in the spiral. Enough people have floated it in the old Lohiaite socialist, and also the UPA, system. Rahul and Congress have said it. Read the AICC resolution. It made mention of reservations in private educational institutions. The proposition will expand to private sector jobs. This will happen sooner than you think.
This is not the socio-economic politics Modi had been voted for. That's why the only open, vocal and often furious criticism of the caste census has come from the BJP's most committed supporters. It won't matter. They will be like the all-sacrificing wife of the movies from five decades ago. Remember Main Tulsi Tere Angan Ki, or Mera Pati Sirf Mera Hai?
They will keep kissing their ideological mangalsutra and voting for Modi. 'At least he's keeping the Muslims in their place. And for heaven's sake, who will vote for that Pappu, or some Lallu?' Modi knows he's got that general caste base covered.
The funny fact is, to guess what Modi will do next, all you need to do is read 'that' Pappu's lips. Rahul Gandhi has lost most of the elections he's led his party in, failed to revitalise or rebuild it, and yet, he's the one setting socio-economic agenda for the all-conquering Modi.
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Modi's has been a curious case of learning from the loser. I will give you a quick list of 11 ideas Rahul proposed and Modi adopted. In all honesty, most aren't even good ideas.
We begin with caste census. Then, the NYAY which morphed into PM-Kisan, free food grain in perpetuity, then Rahul's internship promise of 'pehli naukri pakki' (first job assured) and Modi brought it in the 2024 budget.
In the first Modi government, the 'suit-boot ki sarkar' jibe persuaded Modi to bury the Land Acquisition Bill. Taxation on the rich (including dividends and capital gains) is now at European levels, perhaps to counter the 'Adani-Ambani ki sarkar' rhetoric. In the second Modi government, the farm laws met a similar fate, the free bus rides offered by Congress in Karnataka (copyright Kejriwal), has now become a standard offer with the Modi-BJP product. As with giveaways for women after Karnataka.
Rahul taunted him on PSUs. Modi government has discarded the idea of privatisation and takes great pride in its PSUs. This year's budget allocated Rs 5 trillion for further investment in PSUs. I'd go so far as to say that if Modi has taken nearly a decade picking up the thread on the first order for 36 Rafales, thank or blame Rahul for it.
Lateral entry to the civil services, a reformist move, was shelved after the Opposition raised objections to it.
This is a most incredible story of a far-out loser setting the agenda for a strong ruler.
The fact is, Rahul has nothing to lose playing the constant disruptor. Even in 2034 he will be a fit 64-year-old. Meanwhile, he is salami-slicing Modi's socio-economic politics, dragging him away from Nagpur to Lohia.
What's behind this incredible phenomenon? Could it be the fact that Rahul has been playing 'main hi aam aadmi' (only I am the common man) and it unsettles Modi. It is counter-intuitive given the privilege he comes from. But Rahul's team has made great use of YouTube and Instagram showing him with car mechanics, zardozi makers, weavers, a cobbler, farmers, truck drivers, a halwai, coolies, tailors, carpenters, potters, paint job workers, construction workers, railway trackmen. Most of them are from among the OBCs. To add the aspirational tadka he's also spent time on camera with UPSC aspirants in the capital's Mukherjee Nagar.
Does it affect Modi? A perpetual loser like Rahul, 'the' Pappu of our politics? His has been hailed as the conclusive victory of the 1989 'kamandal' over Mandal. And now he's forced to embrace Mandal. Who's resetting whose politics, winning this ideological battle?
Thirty years ago, when I first walked into the corporate headquarters of The Indian Express as its editor, I was ushered into the room of the venerable ad-wizard Alyque Padamsee. he had just been engaged as a brand consultant. The showman gestured to me to sit quietly while he heaved back and forth on his rowing machine and dictated a strategy note to his starry-eyed young assistant. 'I never reposition my brand,' he dictated, 'I always force my rival to reposition his brand.' The conversation just flashed in my head while writing this column.
Also Read: Caste census politics — what Bihar thinks today, Bihar used to think day before yesterday