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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The tools for counting -Sonalde Desai

The tools for counting -Sonalde Desai

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published Published on Jun 25, 2018   modified Modified on Jun 25, 2018
-The Hindu

It’s time to debate the modalities of the next Census, given the earlier confusion over caste data.

As the 2011 Census approached, demands for inclusion of data on caste in Census reached a crescendo. P. Chidambaram, the Union Home Minister at the time, was opposed to collecting caste data and blocked it by claiming that it was logistically impossible for the Census, but caste information could be collected via the planned Below Poverty Line (BPL) Census, later renamed the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC). Hasty inclusion of the caste question in the SECC has resulted in largely unusable data. The government tasked former NITI Aayog chairman Arvind Panagariya to look into this, but the effort has stalled. Consequently, if we want information regarding the size and characteristics of various castes in India, we must continue to look to the Census of 1931.

It is hard to imagine that the 2021 Census will not face another slew of demands for collection of caste data. It also seems likely that once again we will be unprepared for a full caste census. If we really want to collect data on caste in India and not let the discourse about Indian society be shaped by the political exigencies of colonial India, the time to plan is now.

An ongoing argument

Should we collect data on caste? Some would argue that the simple act of asking about caste creates a chasm within society. Part of this resistance comes from reaction to the preoccupation of colonial administrators-turned-arm-chair anthropologists who saw caste as the defining feature of Indian society. Colonial Censuses, beginning with the first Census in 1871, included questions about caste and used these data to divide and conquer India by first privileging Brahmins as interpreters of Indian culture and then targeting them as the roots of caste-based oppression and inequality.

G.S. Ghurye, the early 20th century pioneer of Indian sociology, reacted sharply by identifying this passion for classification as the source of anti-Brahmin movements. Veena Das, doyenne of modern Indian anthropology, also notes that the colonial Censuses via the process of recording caste generated a conception of community as a homogeneous and classifiable community and thereby influenced the processes of political representation. Consequently, post-Independence Censuses have shied away from including questions about caste.

The challenge for modern India lies in figuring out whether caste-based political mobilisation and strong sentiments for or against reservations would disappear just because we choose not to collect statistics about caste. Patels, Gujjars, Jats and Marathas do not seem to care about the lack of Census data as they demand reservations. Nor has the caste cauldron of Karnataka elections calmed because we can only roughly estimate the size of the Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities.

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The Hindu, 25 June, 2018, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-tools-for-counting/article24247791.ece?homepage=true


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