The big count has begun.
When the most populous country in the world, 1.47 billion and counting, embarks on a census it’s always big news. India’s census, always a mammoth undertaking, has a few firsts this time.
Smartphone app that upload the data in real time. Self enumeration portals.
And for the first time since 1931 the census will count caste.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata.
Caste is nothing new. The scheme by which society is divided in Hinduism has been the subject of much discussion and debate. But counting caste is relatively new says psephologist and politician Yogendra Yadav of the Swaraj India party.
YY1: Caste census began as a part of colonial enterprise as indeed the census began as a colonial enterprise
After quelling a national uprising against them in 1857 the British wanted to find the divisions in Indian society that would help them divide and rule.
YY2: And because they thought, okay, in this country there is this peculiar thing called caste. So let us start counting it.
And they kept counting till 1931. The 1941 census also recorded caste. But because of World War II the data was never compiled. India became independent in 1947. The government stopped the caste census because they wanted to minimise social division and hierarchy.
But they didn’t stop counting ALL castes says Yadav.
YY3: Ever since 1951, in every single census of India, not only have they asked this question do you belong to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe or not? But they've also asked a follow up question. So what is your caste? And it has been recorded
Scheduled castes and tribes, the so-called backward and deprived groups, fall under the Indian government’s affirmative action schemes. But in 1991 the government expanded that to include other groups under the umbrella of OBC or Other Backward Castes who they felt also deserved reservation. But noone was actually counting them.
YY4: I must say, it's one of the most absurd things anywhere in the world that you have an elaborate mechanism of affirmative action without knowing the the numbers, and you have as you would know, there are debates. Someone says OBC is are 52%, someone says no, they are only 37%. Someone says 44. I mean, this is this is unacceptable.
Now the question is should India count just scheduled castes and other backward castes or all castes? Anand Teltumbde, the author of the Caste COn-census, says we don’t need a caste census to tell us about the skewed distribution of wealth and resources in a country like India.
AT1: My point is that is that really unknown today to us, that the why not instead concentrate on the upper caste, that they are just about 15% and what is required is progressively their participation should come down to 15%
Yadav agrees we don’t need a caste census to tell us these things. But he says a census is not just a headcount.
YY5:Census is an x ray. It's an MRI.
YY6: reason why someone like me wants to know about the wants to have census data. Is that census would tell you, and only the census can tell you the socio economic and educational profile of each of the Jatis and each of the caste groups , not merely at the national level, not merely at the state level, but down to the level of every single village.
But Teltumbde is doubtful a caste census will do much except create more political squabbles about quotas as different groups lobby politicians for a piece of the pie.
AT2: Even these so-called reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. It needs to be seen that they have not succeeded. The benefits keep on accruing to the relatively advanced people among them.
Yadav says thats exactly why we need census data.
YY7:One common question is, oh, my God, in the name of OBC. A few castes have captured the reservations. Fair enough. That's a legitimate question. We need to have answers. How do we get answers? The answer is caste, census.
But for that both agree a census cannot just map the under-privileged.
YY8: Because in order to understand this privileges in any society, you must understand the structure of privileges . And, uh, and the real privilege of the privileged in any society is to keep their privileges under the wrap . That's truly a mark of being privileged. And caste census is one thing that can begin to do unmasking.
And so the counting begins.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW