Outlook Business Desk
In a significant policy shift, the Indian government has approved the inclusion of caste enumeration in the forthcoming national census, aiming to gather comprehensive data on various caste groups.
A caste census is when the government collects information about people’s caste during the national population count. It helps understand the social and economic conditions of different caste groups.
During British rule, caste was recorded in every census from 1881 to 1931. After India became independent in 1951, this stopped—except for counting Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
The government decided to bring back caste counting because more people are asking for fair policies and equal representation to reduce caste-based inequality.
The last attempt at collecting caste data was the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), which aimed to assess households’ socio-economic conditions alongside caste information.
Comprehensive caste data can inform affirmative action policies, helping to address socio-economic inequalities and ensure fair distribution of resources among various caste groups
The caste census is meant to support social justice, but some people worry it could deepen caste divisions and increase identity-based politics.
Doing a caste census is challenging because it’s hard to record so many different caste names correctly and handle the huge amount of data collected from people across the country.