After census gazette, Shivraj says Centre may consider ST status for Nonias

Business Standard

a day ago

On Monday, after the government notified conducting the next Census in 2027, which will include caste enumeration, statements from political parties of all ideological and spatial hues indicated that the exercise and its findings would lead to intense political contestation.
In Patna, the capital of poll-bound Bihar, Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan participated in the centenary celebrations of martyr Buddhu Nonia, which the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s top leadership and a large number of followers and members of the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) Nonia community attended.
Chouhan, according to a Press Information Bureau (PIB) press release, said the event coincided with Union Minister Amit Shah announcing the dates for the caste-based census. He said the government at the Centre would, once the Census data is published, consider the Nonia community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status if it bears out that 95 per cent of the community is extremely poor.
The Nonia community is present in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and, according to Bihar's caste survey of 2022, comprises 1.9 per cent of the state's population. Alluding to the BJP's EBC outreach ahead of the Assembly polls in Bihar, Chouhan said the Nonia samaj must also support those who have taken up its cause.
Earlier in the day, 16 years after the last Census in 2011, the government issued a gazette notification for conducting India's 16th Census, which will include caste enumeration, in 2027. The Census will be carried out with a reference date of 1 October 2026 in snow-bound areas like Ladakh, and 1 March 2027 in the rest of the country, the notification said.
The exercise is estimated to cost the government over Rs 13,000 crore and will be conducted by nearly 3.4 million enumerators and supervisors and 130,000 Census functionaries armed with digital devices. Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed preparations for the Census with Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, and other senior officials in New Delhi on Sunday.
This is the 16th Census since the exercise began and the eighth after Independence, a government statement said. According to Article 246 of the Constitution, the Census is a subject listed at 69 in the Union List in the Seventh Schedule. In the upcoming Census, caste enumeration will also be done — the first such exercise since Independence.
The training process for enumerators is likely to start in October 2025. Citizens will answer around three dozen questions ranging from whether they use a telephone or internet connection; to their vehicles, the cereals they consume, source of water, house type, and whether the head of the household is a woman, SC or ST.
Terming the notification on the 16th Census a 'damp squib', Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh on Monday said it was silent on the inclusion of caste in the exercise and asked whether this was another 'U-turn' by the government. He also suggested that the Centre adopt the Telangana model not just for caste enumeration but also for releasing detailed data on socio-economic parameters, caste-wise.
Later in the day, Ramesh said that if one looks at history, it would be very uncomfortable for the Sangh Parivar, including the BJP, which withdrew support to the V P Singh government on the Mandal Commission issue in 1990 and started the 'Kamandal agitation'.
Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav accused the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government of indulging in 'politics of appeasement' by issuing a fresh list of OBC communities that included a large number of Muslim castes. He criticised the Congress for always betraying the OBCs, pointing to the Karnataka government's decision to junk an earlier caste count and go for a fresh enumeration.
On the Congress urging the Centre to adopt the 'Telangana model' for caste enumeration and socio-economic data collection during the nationwide Census, Bhupender Yadav asked why the Congress did not follow the same model in Karnataka. Congress' inner contradictions had been exposed, he said, adding that the party had no real commitment to social justice and merely resorted to such political gimmicks for electoral purposes.
In West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asserted in the state Assembly that her government was working to safeguard the interests of SCs, STs, backward castes and Muslims, in line with Supreme Court and High Court directives on social welfare.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday clarified that his government's upcoming socio-educational and caste survey is fundamentally different from the Centre's caste Census. 'The Centre is only doing a caste Census, while we are undertaking a comprehensive socio-educational and caste survey. The distinction is important,' he said.
In Lucknow, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Monday referred to the doubts over the state government's figure of the number of people killed during the stampede at the Mahakumbh earlier this year. 'Those who can lie about such holy work can lie about any statistics. So, we have to be careful about the voters' list. The Census is also going to happen soon. All of us have to be careful about that. We do not know what figures the government will give, because nobody trusts the statistics of the BJP,' Akhilesh Yadav said.