Caste Politics and Census

Rave reviews have been received over Life Watch’s exclusive article “Unconstitutionally Yours!” highlighting the non-inclusion of caste and religion columns from the ongoing exercise of Census 2011. This is to be remembered that the Government had agreed to include a OBC column in this year’s sensex after a gap of 79 years after high-pressure lobbying by OBC satraps and angry outbursts against the Government by three Yadavs, viz. Mulayam, Laloo and Sharad. Despite agreeing, half-hearted results have led to no results.
The fact that despite the Government agreeing and going ahead with the Census exercise, the pros and cons of including caste in the ongoing census exercise are still being debated in the Group of Ministers (GoM) meet reveal the inherent unwillingness to include it, whatever be the motive.
In one such meet held recently, a presentation was given by the office of the Registrar General of India on the pros and cons of including caste in the ongoing census exercise.
Both, RGI Chandramouli and PG Dhar Chakravarthy, gave a presentation to the GoM on the issue. Sources confirm that RGI officials made it clear that it was a difficult feat logistically to include caste in the Census and that this could be done only in the second phase of the exercise. Some members of the GoM even went back to the history to prove their point—that even the last caste-based census in 1931 was flawed. “In West Bengal alone 1,38,000 people had declared themselves to be casteless,” they said.
Significantly, law minister M. Veerappa Moily continues to remain a great supporter of including caste in the Census.
Unfortunately, behind the hue and cry raised over including caste in the Census, the other important issue raised by Life Watch (see June 1-15 issue) of removal of religion and mother tongue column, which used to be there in the census forms till last census, has been silently ignored.