New Delhi : The demand by the Opposition and a key ally adds to increasing pressure on the government to take a call on the controversial issue
Opposition parties and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) member Janata Dal (United) have asked the parliamentary committee on welfare of other backward classes (OBCs) to discuss the caste census, people aware of the matter said on Thursday, marking a major push for a contentious issue that was a central narratives in the recently concluded general elections.
According to functionaries cited above, the 30-member panel is likely to call Union home ministry officials to enquire about the decadal census and if there was any plan to conduct a caste census. (PTI)
According to functionaries cited above, the 30-member panel – headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker Ganesh Singh – is likely to call Union home ministry officials to enquire about the decadal census and if there was any plan to conduct a caste census. The demand by the Opposition and a key ally adds to increasing pressure on the government to take a call on the controversial issue.
The emphasis on formally discussing caste census in a House panel comes in the context of opposition parties such as the Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal making it one of the issues in the summer’s national election; the Bharatiya Janata Party has not articulated its stand on the issue.
Lok Sabha’s Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has also repeatedly called for a caste census, pointing out the low representation of marginalised castes in the decision-making process and top bureaucracy. The issue is believed to be one of the reasons why a chunk of the OBC and Dalit vote moved away from the BJP and towards the Opposition in the general elections.
According to functionaries cited above, in the first meeting of the reconstituted panel for OBC welfare on Thursday, DMK lawmaker TR Baalu is reported to have raised the issue and said the caste census should be a subject for discussion in this panel.
The OBC panel had met to decide the agenda for the year.
After Baalu, another Opposition leader pitched for the caste census before Congress leader Manickam Tagore is learnt to have said it was the right time to discuss the caste census and that the issue should be definitely a part of the agenda of the panel, said the functionaries.
Tagore is also learnt to have suggested that the panel should raise the issue and check with the home ministry because there are reports suggesting the ministry will start work on the much-delayed decadal census soon.
According to people familiar with the details, JD(U) lawmaker Giridhari Yadav is also said to have pointed out that the caste census is very important for the party. Party chief and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was the chief architect of the caste survey in the state in 2023 when the JD(U) was in alliance with the RJD and Congress. Even after joining the NDA, the party has been in favour of the exercise and pushed its ally BJP to take a stand on the issue. In 2021, Kumar led an all-party delegation that met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to push for caste-based enumeration.
“The JD(U) was consistently in favour of the caste census to allow the government to get a clearer picture about whether disadvantaged groups have benefited from quotas in government jobs and education,” said a JD(U) leader on the condition of anonymity.
The leader added that his party wanted the Union government to take a leaf from how the state helped Mahadalits, the most deprived category among the scheduled castes, by implementing affirmative action. JD(U)’s Kumar defined a new category of extreme backward classes or EBCs.
Another top NDA ally, the Lok Janshakti Party, has also been in favour of a caste census. LJP leader and Union minister Chirag Paswan on Sunday said the caste census would give the government information about the proportion in the population of various castes so that it could figure out the proper allocation for schemes.
According to functionaries cited above, the panel is likely to meet home ministry officials, although this may not happen immediately.
People close to Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee said the lawmaker didn’t speak on the caste census but said that a commission should review the different classes included in the central list of backward classes and make necessary changes. He argued that such a review was done 15 years ago and that it was time for a fresh review to be undertaken as lots of changes had taken place in the last 15 years.
Banerjee also sought to review the current creamy layer exclusion limit, which stands at an annual income of ₹8 lakh.
Counting caste has always been a contentious issue in India. British-era censuses counted caste in minute detail but the last one to enumerate all castes was conducted in 1931. Independent India abolished the practice and subsequent censuses only counted scheduled castes and tribes. Though unofficial estimates exist, especially of the numerical strength of backward groups, there is no official count.
In 2011, the central government announced that alongside the regular census, a socioeconomic and caste census would also be conducted. But the caste data was never made public and the government later told Parliament that methodological infirmities had held up an accurate analysis of the data.
The 2023 caste survey in Bihar physically counted castes for the first time in independent India. The exercise revealed that the extremely backward classes and OBCs together made up 63.13% of the state’s population while SCs were 19.65%, STs 1.68%, and upper castes 15.52%.
Based on the survey, the Bihar assembly unanimously passed the Bihar Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services Amendment Bill and the Bihar Reservation (Admission In Educational Institutions) Amendment Bill, 2023 to increase the reservation quota from 50% to 65%, leaving 35% for the general category. That law was later stayed by the Patna high court.
(Courtesy : The Hindustan Times)
