OBC groups say Centre’s rationale for not using OBC lists in caste Census is ‘fundamentally flawed’

The argument that Different Backward Lessons (OBC) lists can’t be used for caste enumeration as a result of they listing “courses, not castes” is “basically flawed”, associations representing the pursuits of OBC communities mentioned on Friday (September 4, 2026), a day after The Hindu reported that this was a part of the rationale for the Union authorities to not draw caste names and codify them from the available Central and State OBC lists for the caste enumeration element of the 2027 Census.

The OBC teams have mentioned that if present OBC lists have been insufficient or had inconsistencies for the aim of caste enumeration, the federal government ought to ideally use consultants to attract and rationalise the caste names from these lists and never “drop them altogether”.

The federal government’s justification for not counting on the OBC lists got here at the same time as associations representing these communities and senior Opposition leaders equivalent to Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi have questioned the utility of utilizing the “open-column” methodology to enumerate all castes other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. One of many principal arguments that has traditionally pushed the demand for a caste Census has been the necessity to enumerate the inhabitants of OBCs throughout the nation, a determine that has solely been estimated in India to this point, primarily based on the caste Census knowledge from 1931.

On Friday, the All India OBC College students’ Affiliation mentioned, “If the Authorities recognises these communities as OBCs for reservation and different affirmative-action measures, it can’t immediately disregard their caste identities in terms of amassing inhabitants knowledge… The aim of a Census is to precisely seize the social realities of India, to not keep away from caste enumeration on the premise of a man-made distinction between ‘class’ and ‘caste’.”

V. Srinivas Goud, who’s a former Minister within the Telangana Authorities, a pacesetter of the TRS, and the Nationwide Chairperson of the OBC Public Representatives Discussion board, added that such justifications from the Union authorities add to the notion that they’d agreed to enumerate castes with no “actual intention” of doing it correctly.

T. Chiranjeevulu, a retired IAS officer and the Chairman of the Backwards Lessons Mental Discussion board, additionally concurred, arguing that the Authorities’s refusal to codify all present caste names and enumerate the populations of caste teams (as they often do for SCs and STs) was supposed to “cowl up the misdeeds” of the justification they’d used for bringing within the Economically Weaker Part reservations.

“We all know that when EWS was launched, the federal government tried to estimate that the non-SC/ST/OBC inhabitants was about 35%-40%. This authorities is aware of that if OBC populations are enumerated scientifically as a part of a rigorous caste Census, their preliminary concept of the EWS inhabitants would show to be an overestimation, and that’s the reason they don’t seem to be honest concerning the caste enumeration within the 2027 Census,” Mr. Chiranjeevulu advised The Hindu.

Of their assertion countering the argument of the federal government on why it didn’t use the OBC lists for the 2027 Census train, the AIOBCSA mentioned this logic turns into “much more questionable when certificates and official data routinely establish communities by their particular social and caste identities. Even EWS certificates establish the beneficiary via prescribed social/class standards, demonstrating that administrative classification and social id can coexist”.

Additional, the AIOBCSA added, “If the present OBC lists are thought of insufficient or comprise inconsistencies, the reply is to not drop them altogether. The Authorities ought to undertake correct session, standardise nomenclature, assign distinctive codes to castes/communities, and be sure that each caste is precisely enumerated.”

Representatives of the AIOBCSA, led by nationwide president G. Kiran Kumar, had earlier this week additionally met with Chief of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and mentioned a number of points affecting OBC communities in India, together with the difficulty of the way in which the Authorities is continuing with its caste enumeration methodology.