NEW DELHI: In a politically tactical move, with an eye on upcoming Bihar assembly elections, the Centre on Wednesday announced its decision to include caste enumeration in the forthcoming census exercise in a “transparent” manner.
Opposition parties, including the Congress, have been demanding a nationwide caste census, making it a major election issue, and some states like Bihar, Telangana and Karnataka have conducted such surveys.
The decision relating to the caste census was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as the census comes under the purview of the Centre but some states have done caste enumeration in the name of surveys, Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
Alleging that the states ruled by opposition parties have done caste surveys for political reasons, the Minister said, now it was Modi government’s resolve to transparently include caste enumeration in the forthcoming pan-India census exercise. The allegations were in reference to surveys conducted in Congress-ruled Telangana and Karnataka.
The census exercise was to commence in April 2020 but got delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Vaishnaw slammed the Congress party for “opposing” the caste census, claiming that the former Prime Minister, late Manmohan Singh, had said in 2010 that “the matter of caste census should be considered in the Cabinet”. He went on to add: “A group of ministers was formed to consider the subject. Most of the political parties have recommended a caste census.”
“It is well understood that Congress and its INDI alliance partners have used the caste census only as a political tool. Some states have conducted surveys to enumerate castes. While some states have done this well, some others conducted such surveys only from a political angle in a non-transparent way,” the Minister said, adding that such exercises created doubts in society.
“To ensure that our social fabric is not disturbed by politics, caste enumeration should be included in the census instead of surveys,” he noted, while saying that as per Article 246 of the Constitution of India, the subject of Census is listed at number 69 in the Union List of the Seventh Schedule, making it a Union subject.
“Taking the concerns into account, and to ensure that the social fabric remains intact, the government has decided that caste enumeration should be conducted transparently as part of the official Census, rather than through fragmented state-level surveys. This move is aimed at strengthening the social and economic foundations of the country while continuing its path of development,” the Minister said.
