In April 2025, the Modi authorities made a dramatic U-turn and introduced that it will depend caste in India’s subsequent census. On the time, it made positive to take potshots at its predecessor, the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance authorities, for not together with caste within the 2011 census.
“Most political events advisable conducting a caste census,” the Cupboard had snidely famous in a press release then. “Regardless of this, the earlier authorities opted for a survey as a substitute of a caste census, often known as the Socio-Financial and Caste Census.”
A yr later, nonetheless, the Modi authorities has disclosed that it’ll comply with the identical technique for counting caste that was utilized by Manmohan Singh’s administration. This has triggered allegations of sabotage, on condition that the information collected in 2011 was seen to be so defective that it was by no means launched.
Scroll spoke to analysts, activists and politicians who advocate for a caste census to grasp why these fees have surfaced. Most of them described the chosen methodology for counting caste as a flawed one. They questioned the Modi authorities’s name to stay to the 2011 mannequin when states comparable to Bihar and Telangana have, lately, carried out caste surveys which they take into account to be extra sturdy.
Some critics have even argued that the caste information collected on this census can be ineffective. However others have been hopeful that researchers will nonetheless be capable of clear it up and work with it.
On September 21, 2021, the Modi Govt had filed an affidavit within the Supreme Court docket categorically rejecting the plea for a caste census.
Nevertheless, Para 12 (d) within the affidavit says the next: “There was no registry of caste ready previous to the conduct of 2011 Census. It might… pic.twitter.com/gHdPZSMiQw
— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) August 18, 2026
‘Designed to fail’
The inhabitants enumeration part of the census, throughout which enumerators go door-to-door accumulating information from people, will start in snowbound components of north India subsequent month. This would be the first time since 1931 that caste can be counted as a part of the train.
To take action, enumerators will first ask respondents whether or not or not they belong to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe after which ask them to state their caste. Individuals may even have the choice to say that they don’t have any caste or that they don’t want to declare their caste, The Hindu has reported.
Critics argue that having an open-ended query on caste results in an unlimited vary of responses that make any significant evaluation almost unimaginable. The 2011 survey, which too had an open-ended query on caste, reportedly threw up an astounding 46 lakh entries.
Sociologist Satish Deshpande, who has written extensively on caste and has been advocating for counting it for the reason that 2001 census, referred to as this a “deliberate failure”.
“Variations of spellings alone will account for tens of 1000’s of entries,” he mentioned. “It’s fairly tragic {that a} deliberate try is being made to stop usable information from popping out.”
Along with spelling errors, an open-ended query about caste can also be more likely to result in members of the identical group figuring out themselves utilizing totally different caste names. In a news conference on August 17, Anil Jaihind, chairperson of the Congress occasion’s Different Backward Lessons division, illustrated this utilizing the instance of carpenters from his house state of Haryana.
“Some from this caste determine themselves as Badhais, whereas others favor Jangid,” he mentioned. “But others in the identical caste group go by Jangda, Khati, Dhiman, Suthar, Tarkhan, Ramgarhia and Vishwakarma.”
Counting India: That is the primary in a particular Scroll sequence monitoring the census, being held after 15 years.
The choice to an open-ended query, Deshpande advised, was to have a drop-down checklist of caste names which have been already out there with the state. Respondents may selected their caste from it. For many who don’t discover their caste on this checklist, an “Different” choice may very well be included, the sociologist added. These selecting “Different” may state their caste in response to a follow-up query.
“This information can then be rationalised on the regional degree by forming skilled committees, as is completed for the language, faith and occupation information collected within the census,” he advisable.
Within the absence of a drop-down checklist, although, this evaluation should be completed for all responses. Activist-politician Yogendra Yadav contended that the design of the census was a transparent signal that the Modi authorities lacked the “political will” to depend caste.
“After they don’t even have the political will for placing collectively a drop-down checklist, how will they discover the political will to analyse the findings?” he requested. “The entire level is to make the information ineffective. It’s designed to fail.”
Quota wars
For a lot of activists, this isn’t only a downside of shoddy information assortment, however a query of social justice for the Different Backward Lessons.
They fear that this census won’t mirror the group’s precise share within the inhabitants as a result of it doesn’t recognise them as a definite class. As talked about earlier, enumerators will solely ask respondents whether or not they belong to the Scheduled Castes or the Scheduled Tribes, and never the Different Backward Lessons.
In 1980, the Mandal Fee had estimated that the Different Backward Lessons made up 52% of India’s inhabitants. That’s the reason some Opposition events have lengthy held that the present 27% quota for them in authorities jobs and academic establishments is insufficient.
The Congress, too, has come round to this view lately with its chief, Rahul Gandhi, promising to take away the Supreme Court’s 50% cap on reservations if voted to energy. However doing so would require irrefutable information to get previous judicial scrutiny, activists say.
“The Supreme Court docket retains asking for data,” complained Sushil Gautam, an Ambedkarite activist from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. “The information doesn’t exist as a result of a correct caste census has by no means been completed. And so legal guidelines favouring the OBCs usually are not enacted regardless that they vote for the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering in massive numbers.”
Gautam went as far as to allege that the BJP was by no means honest about conducting a caste census. It had made a U-turn on the difficulty, he claimed, solely as a result of it had its eyes set on Bihar, the place Meeting elections have been held in November.
The state had already carried out a caste survey, which established that the Different Backward Lessons accounted for over 63% of its inhabitants. To win the favour of such a considerable section of the citizens in Bihar, the saffron occasion felt compelled to say that it will maintain a nationwide caste census, Gautam advised. A number of spokespersons from the BJP declined to reply Scroll’s questions for this story.
May the supposedly defective design of the census result in political backlash from the Different Backward Lessons? Jaihind of the Congress occasion was sure that it will. The Opposition outfit plans to launch “a programme” to take this concern to voters quickly, he informed Scroll.
Activists from the group, nonetheless, have been much less optimistic. “If the Different Backward Lessons have been just like the Dalits, they might have hit the streets and compelled the federal government’s hand,” mentioned Dharmendra Kushwah, a Gwalior-based lawyer and a core committee member of the OBC Mahasabha. “This group is quick asleep, or relatively intoxicated. It doesn’t care about rights.”
In his view, the Modi authorities had “betrayed” the Different Backward Lessons by not treating them at par with the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes within the census. The open-ended caste query will “make it onerous” for individuals to attract conclusions from the census, he alleged.
Enter AI
Arduous isn’t the identical as unimaginable, although, if Praveen Chakravarty, a Rajya Sabha MP from the Congress, have been to be believed. The previous funding banker heads the grand previous occasion’s information analytics division and served as convenor of an 11-member committee of experts that studied the Telangana caste survey information.
Whereas Chakravarty, too, agreed that drop-down lists of castes helped produce “structured” information, he contended that their absence wouldn’t fully foreclose the potential for evaluation.
“For instance, in case you declared your caste as ‘Rajput’ and one other particular person mentioned ‘Rejput’, synthetic intelligence as we speak would say that these two are the identical,” he defined. “However again in 2011, they might have been counted as two totally different castes. So sure, it’s a nasty thought to go away it open, however not as dangerous because it was in 2011.”
Deshpande, the sociologist, additionally acknowledged that cleansing up the information was doable, however would wish a whole lot of work. A totally open-ended caste query with no drop-down checklist “multiplies the work that we have now to do”, he complained. For him, nonetheless, the caste census had much less to do with information and extra to do with the political will for social justice in India, or the dearth thereof.
“You would say that it is a repeat of 2011,” he rued. “Clearly, it is a deliberate undermining by the federal government of the federal government’s personal programme. These are options, not bugs. They inform you the caste-marked character of governance.”
