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Indian Express
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
From Census of nearly a century ago, a roadmap — and a note of caution
The government's surprise announcement of a caste census as part of the upcoming population enumeration exercise may have dented the Opposition's campaign but the experience of John Henry Hutton, an anthropologist-civil servant from nearly a century ago, frames the challenge on the road ahead. Those were the heady days of Mahatma Gandhi's civil disobedience movement. Hutton, a Yorkshire-born, Oxford-trained officer who as Census Commissioner of India conducted the 1931 Census, the last to tabulate data on caste, writes with a hint of annoyance that the exercise 'had the misfortune to coincide with a wave of non-cooperation, and the march of Mr. Gandhi and his contrabandistas…'. Hutton, who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1909 and served for the greater part of his career in the Naga hills writing two voluminous monographs on Naga ethnography, brought to his census office his experience as an anthropologist. On the complexities of counting caste, his census report, laced with insight and wit, refers to former census chief Sir Herbert Risley, whose formulation of the caste system as a racial hierarchy in the 1901 Census laid the basis for subsequent surveys and policies on caste. 'All subsequent census officers in India must have cursed the day when it occurred to Sir Herbert Risley… to attempt to draw up a list of castes according to their rank in society. He failed, but the results of his attempt are almost as troublesome as if he had succeeded, for every census gives rise to a pestiferous deluge of representations, accompanied by highly problematic histories, asking for recognition of some alleged fact or hypothesis of which the census as a department is not legally competent to judge…' he wrote in the section titled 'The Return of Caste'. Saying that doing away with caste entries 'would be viewed with relief by census officers', Hutton wrote, 'Experience at this census has shown very clearly the difficulty of getting a correct return of caste and likewise the difficulty of interpreting it for census purposes.' Among the many challenges the census officials faced as they asked people to identify their caste was 'misrepresentation' and people used the data collection exercise to jostle for a higher spot on the social order. The census also offered examples of multiple castes consolidating into a single caste for bolstering their numbers or claiming a new social status. 'The best instance of such a tendency to consolidate a number of castes into one group is to be found in the grazier castes which aim at combining under the term 'Yadava' the Ahirs, Goalas, Gopis, Idaiyans and perhaps some other castes of milkmen, a movement already effective in 1921,' the report said. It also noted that 'carpenters, smiths, goldsmiths and some others of similar occupations desired in various parts of India to be returned by a common denomination such as Vishwakarma or Jangida, usually desiring to add a descriptive noun implying that they belonged to one of the highest Varnas of Hinduism, either Brahman or Rajput… Of the two, Brahman was usually desired at this census though in some cases a caste which had applied in one province to be Brahman asked in another to be called Rajput and there are several instances at this census of castes claiming to be Brahman who claimed to be Rajput ten years ago.' The census explained these as attempts either at upward mobility, a 'desire to rise in the social estimation of other people', or 'a desire for the backing of a large community in order to count for more in political life'. Despite the complexities the exercise involved, the anthropologist in Hutton recorded the social benefits of counting caste. Addressing the criticism 'for taking any note at all of the fact of caste', he wrote, 'It has been alleged that the mere act of labelling persons belonging to a caste tends to perpetuate the system… It is, however, difficult to see why the record of a fact that actually exists should tend to stabilize that existence. It is just as easy to argue and with at least as much truth, that it is impossible to get rid of any institution by ignoring its existence like the proverbial ostrich… Indeed the treatment of caste at the 1931 census may claim to make a definite, if minute, contribution to Indian unity.' Recent scholarship, including Nicholas B Dirks's Castes of Mind (2001), has, however, argued that under colonialism, caste became a 'single term capable of naming… subsuming India's diverse forms' and that census operations such as Hutton's reinvented and essentialised caste – rather than simply capturing what was already there. Hutton's report quotes from the Government of India's instructions on counting the 'depressed classes' (defined as 'castes, contact with whom entails purification on the part of high caste Hindus'). In these instructions are both a roadmap and a forewarning for what lies ahead. 'It will be necessary to have a list of castes to be included in depressed classes and all provinces are asked to frame a list applicable to the province. There are very great difficulties in framing a list of this kind and there are insuperable difficulties in framing a list of depressed classes which will be applicable to India as a whole,' read the instructions that were issued to various Superintendents of Census Operations. Hutton's prediction that, with time, there will be other ways to represent demographic data — beyond caste and religion – is open to debate to this day. 'The time will no doubt come when occupation will serve the purpose at present served by religion and caste in presenting demographic data, but that time is not yet, and at the present moment their barriers have not so far decayed that their social importance cannot be ignored for public purposes, though progress in this direction may well prove much than one anticipates,' he had said. The following Census, in 1941, though caste details were collected, it was dropped from the final tabulation. Hutton's successor, M Y M Yeatts, a Scott whose term as Census Commissioner coincided with limitations imposed by World War II, wrote, 'The time is past for this enormous and costly table as part of the central undertaking and I share Dr. Hutton's views expressed ten years ago. With so constricted a financial position and with so many fields awaiting an entry there is no justification for spending lakhs on this detail.' In the 1951 Census, in a newly Independent India shaped by the ideals of equality and secularism, the government led by Jawaharlal Nehru decided there would be no caste enumeration. Hutton, meanwhile, tapped into his experience to write Caste in India, considered an authoritative source on the subject. He retired from the Indian Civil Service in 1936 and moved to Britain, where he continued his academic work and was elected to the William Wyse Chair of Social Anthropology in Cambridge, then among the most prestigious academic positions in British anthropology. He died at his home in Wales on May 23, 1968 – over two decades before the Mandal Commission reshaped the salience of caste in society and politics.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Give Kemi time – her plan is starting to work
As she strives to rebuild the Conservative Party from the ground up, Kemi Badenoch is now taking flak from all sides. Her duels with Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions have not yet earnt her the plaudits her supporters had hoped for. Worse still, some Tories are already gunning for the Leader of the Opposition after just 100 days in office. They must be mad to do so. Do these social media flibbertigibbets lack an attention span long enough to grasp that it was precisely this kind of behaviour that caused the party to be keelhauled at the last election? None of this would have surprised Margaret Thatcher, who deposed Ted Heath as Tory leader fifty years ago this week. She, too, was accused of being flat-footed at the despatch box, of getting the tone wrong and being outmaneuvered by the Labour PMs Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. Yet Mrs T took no notice of the 'naysayers' or the 'moaning minnies', as she called them. Nor will Mrs B, who is made of the same stuff as the Iron Lady. For the truth is that, largely unremarked by a mainly hostile media, Kemi is making rapid progress in the monumental task that she has set herself. For the first time in two generations, this leader is not chasing ephemeral soundbites, but is rethinking the foundations of Conservatism. To this end she has assembled the broadest-based Shadow Cabinet possible and enlisted some of the brightest minds in the kingdom. She has elevated to the Lords the former Oxford Regius Professor Nigel Biggar, champion of academic freedom and scourge of those who would pervert the course of history. Joining him on the red benches is Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union and defender of all those cancelled for standing up to wokish bullying. Mrs Thatcher was an Oxford-trained chemist who learnt early on that one must trust evidence, not authority. Her family had taken in a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. Like her, Kemi Badenoch knows exactly what it is like to be intimidated by a monolithic state. Under a military dictatorship in Nigeria, where this British-born computer scientist grew up, life was ruled by fear. As leader, Kemi has refused to let herself be rushed on policy. But she has struck the right, tough-minded note on the biggest issue of the day: immigration. She knows that Nigel Farage is snapping at her heels, but Reform has nothing but negativity to offer. Meanwhile, Labour's laughably named Border Security Bill will actually make it easier for illegal migrants to stay in the UK. By contrast, Kemi will step up the pressure on the Government this week by calling for a radical reform of the period required for Indefinite Leave to Remain. It should be ten years, not five, she says, and the conditions should be much stricter. Migrants should have to prove that their household is a net contributor and that they have no criminal record. 'Our country is not a dormitory,' she declares. 'It's our home.' As someone who first met Kemi soon after she became an MP eight years ago, I can say with confidence that she is one of the most patriotic people I know. She loves this country with a passion that is as infectious as it has been absent from our politics for years. It is impossible to imagine Mrs Badenoch paying an enormous bribe to a Chinese satellite to take over a British territory such as the Chagos Islands. Mrs B, like Mrs T before her, is the kind of leader who emerges once in a generation. Ignore the polls: no general election is in prospect. Kemi's mood music may not yet be to everybody's taste, but in three or four years' time it will have built up to an almighty crescendo. A land of hope and glory? Under Kemi – and only her – it's credible. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.


Telegraph
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Give Kemi time – her plan is starting to work
As she strives to rebuild the Worse still, some Tories are already gunning for the Leader of the Opposition None of this would have surprised Yet Mrs T took no notice of the 'naysayers' or the 'moaning minnies', as she called them. Nor will Mrs B, who is made of the same stuff as the Iron Lady. For the truth is that, largely unremarked by a mainly hostile media, Kemi is making rapid progress in the monumental task that she has set herself. For the first time in two generations, this leader is not chasing ephemeral soundbites, but is rethinking the foundations of Conservatism. To this end she has assembled the broadest-based Shadow Cabinet possible and enlisted some of the brightest minds in the kingdom. She has elevated to the Lords the Mrs Thatcher was an Oxford-trained chemist who learnt early on that one must trust evidence, not authority. Her family had taken in a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. Like her, Kemi Badenoch knows exactly what it is like to be intimidated by a monolithic state. Under a military dictatorship in Nigeria, where this British-born computer scientist grew up, life was ruled by fear. As leader, Kemi has refused to let herself be rushed on policy. But she has struck the right, tough-minded note on the biggest issue of the day: immigration. She knows that Nigel Farage By contrast, Kemi will step up the pressure on the Government this week by calling for a radical reform of the period required for Indefinite Leave to Remain. It should be ten years, not five, she says, and the conditions should be much stricter. Migrants should have to prove that their household is a net contributor and that they have no criminal record. 'Our country is not a dormitory,' she declares. 'It's our home.' As someone who first met Kemi soon after she became an MP eight years ago, I can say with confidence that she is one of the most patriotic people I know. She loves this country with a passion that is as infectious as it has been absent from our politics for years. It is impossible to imagine Mrs Badenoch paying an enormous bribe to a Chinese satellite to take over a British territory Mrs B, like Mrs T before her, is the kind of leader who emerges once in a generation. Ignore the polls: no general election is in prospect. Kemi's mood music may not yet be to everybody's taste, but in three or four years' time it will have built up to an almighty crescendo. A land of hope and glory? Under Kemi – and only her – it's credible.