Sunanda K.Datta-Ray | Will Caste Remain a Crutch for India’s Political Class? Reflections

No one questions the first part of the information and broadcasting minister’s claim that a caste census “will strengthen the social and economic structure of our society”. Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw’s addition “whi-le the nation continues to progress” is, however, debatable: the emergence of yet more billionaires at each count cannot constitute national progress in a land where the majority suffers from all manner of deprivation. The Socio-Economic Caste Census's finding of more than 46 lakh castes also exposed the ignorance in which Indians remain steeped even in this supposedly digital age.

Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power. Caste is identity. There has been no general caste census since 1931. Yet, as the Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray once wittily observed, Indians “don’t cast their vote; they vote their caste”. This in itself may not destroy democracy. The damage is done by self-proclaimed democrats who exploit caste commonalty to manipulate the electoral process to further their own interests. Vote banks don't need independent men of character and principle.

In Uttar Pradesh’s 2022 Assembly election, for instance, 205 out of the 403 winning candidates (51 per cent of the total) admitted that criminal cases were pending against them. The accused constituted 36 per cent (143 out of 402) in the state's 2017 Assembly election, and 39 per cent earlier. In fact, the participation of such men has been steadily going up as the traditional Hindu hierarchy has been absorbed into the modern power structure of India’s most populous (17 per cent) and certainly the politically most consequential state.

Inevitably, this means that certain classes and groups have achieved a prominence that might otherwise have eluded them. They are not necessarily the best educated (on the contrary, education might even be a disadvantage in the power game) but being blest with specialised skills, they are often among the richest, especially in the countryside where they can exert considerable authority. In Bihar, adjoining Uttar Pradesh, the higher castes in the villages — describing themselves as “Forward Castes” — at one time demanded easy access to firearms for protection against the so-called Other Backward Castes on whom the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Comm-ission, set up in 1979 with B.P. Mandal as chairman, had focused.

The previous Kalelkar Commission had in 1955 identified 2,399 groups as backward, labelling 837 of them “most backward”. The Mandal report claimed that OBCs comprised 52 per cent of the country’s population and were expected to constitute 41 per cent in 2006 when the National Sample Survey took place. There is substantial debate over the community’s exact strength; but many agree that the number of OBCs is higher than the figures quoted by either the Mandal Commission or the National Sample Survey.

Not that the purpose of a census is only to enumerate the number of OBCs and list the privileges to which they feel entitled. If that were the sole reason, a census will degenerate into another protracted argument over whether the 50 per cent ceiling on reservations is justified, and whether or not private educational institutions and even, as Lalu Prasad Yadav’s son, Tejashwi Yadav, seems to demand, private sector employers, should be forced to set aside reserved quotas.

Some of the Prime Minister’s critics may not be off the mark in accusing Narendra Modi of belatedly agreeing to a caste census (although without setting a date or divulging any details) only with the Bihar Assembly elections due later this year in mind. Others like Siddaramaiah, Chief Minister of Karnataka, charge him with stealing the Congress Party’s clothes. He showed no interest in the project when Bihar’s Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, of the Janata Dal (United), who is now an ally of the Prime Minister's ruling BJP, carried out his own caste survey in 2023. He was then a leading light in the Opposition INDIA bloc. The survey revealed that although 63 per cent of Bihar's more than 130 million people were scattered among 214 castes, all these groups fell in the OBC or Extremely Backward Classes categories.

The survey had an amusing sequel. Around 40 women in a red-light area of Bihar's Arwal district claimed an unknown man called Roopchand as their husband. Some also said that Roopchand was the name of their father or son. When questioned, it emer-ged that the mysterious Roopchand didn’t exist. Roopchand is the word for money commonly used by villagers in Arwal district.

But caste is no laughing matter. Priding himself on being anointed as a Congressman by Mrs Sonia Gandhi herself at a huge rally in the Bengaluru Palace, Mr Siddaramaiah claims that his Karnataka census “gathered data on the social, economic and educational status of all communities”.

The Karnataka government claims to have spent over Rs 150 crore on the survey covering more than 11.21 million families and 36 million people by engaging approximately 103,889 enumerators and supervisors. The door-to-door information that they collected and the resultant data were “compiled and analysed in a scientific manner”.

Prime Minister Modi is being pressed to adopt as his model a third such census in the also Congress-run state of Telangana whose Chief Minister, Revanth Reddy, claims that the Prime Minister’s decision “proved that what Telangana does today, India will follow tomorrow”. He, too, rubs salt in the BJP’s wound by stressing that this is a “proud moment” for the Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, who has been demanding a caste census for years and whose vision has now become official policy.

Telangana’s survey sho-wing that the BCs account for 56.33 per cent of the population, resulted in two bills providing for 42 per cent reservations. These await the Centre’s approval.

What has been lost sight of amidst all this political wrangling is that reservations were meant to be a temporary measure to help the under-privileged overcome the handicaps of birth. Instead, it has created a vested interest in backwardness and turned quotas into a crutch. Worst of all, it has created a prosperous “creamy layer” that treats benefits as an entitlement.

The need today is to brush all that aside and return to the simplicity of the Kolkata girl who has reportedly renounced her giveaway surname and acknowledges “humanity” as her only religion. But there can be no such cleansing so long as politicians need votes to acquire and hold on to power.

Caste is India’s biggest vote bank.

The writer is a senior journalist, columnist and author