The Union government has sprung a surprise by clearing the inclusion of caste enumeration in the long-awaited census. BJP leaders had been equivocal about it, sometimes stridently opposing it and at others sounding supportive.
But the Congress had been clear in calling for such enumeration, with its state governments in Telangana and Karnataka bringing the issue to the fore in recent months.
So, coming as it does months before the Bihar assembly election, where NDA constituent Janata Dal (United) has already conducted such a survey, the BJP has pulled a major poll plank from under the opposition.
But the timing of the announcement amid the ongoing tensions with Pakistan prompts the question, ‘Why now?’ Such a decision is far too consequential to be timed for a short-term consideration like redirecting the nation’s attention, but the question still begs for an answer.
In a country increasingly dependent on welfare schemes for the marginalised, a fresh caste enumeration has been due for a long time. Such numbers were last published in 1931; the caste data from the 1941 census and a socio-economic survey done in 2011 have not yet been made public. So there is merit in conducting such a count this time.
No wonder a number of leaders across political divides have welcomed the Centre’s decision. It needs to be heeded that even if the census is officially notified soon, it will take at least another half year to prepare for it, before beginning to conduct the enumeration exercise. So the fresh numbers will not be available before either the 2025 assembly election in Bihar or those in Tamil Nadu and Kerala in 2026.
All governments will be mindful of the hurdles in what comes next—first in conducting the count and then in acting on the new numbers. Will the government and the opposition work together to relax the 50 percent cap on reservations imposed by the Supreme Court? The top court has repeatedly affirmed the quota cap given in the Indra Sawhney case.
In that judgement, the court had ruled that social and educational backwardness must be considered. Then there will be the question of delimitation. Meanwhile, all parties would do well not to make the census a tool to foment disharmony. For this, the onus lies on the opposition as well as the government.