Caste counting: should it change?

Census Conduct and Methodology

• The first phase, house-listing, will be conducted between April to September 2026.

• The second phase, population enumeration, will be conducted in 2027.

Case Recording

• The last Census to record an individual’s caste was the 1941 Census, which was outdated due to economic constraints of the Second World War.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that caste enumeration is a step to bring the marginalized and those left behind into the mainstream.

Problems with the Questionnaires

• Questions included in the draft questionnaires for the 2021 Census may remain the same for the 2027 Census.

• Data on migration may be important to assess whether people of certain castes are more prone to migration.

• There is a need to make the Census leaner by dropping unnecessary questions.

Data Collection Methods

• Information on specific castes can be ascertained through literacy/educational levels, age at marriage, mother tongue and other languages known, status of the individual as the main worker, marginal worker or non worker, seeking/available for work, broad classification of industry/occupation of the workers, place of birth/ previous residence, and data on child birth and survival.

• Data on unemployment derived using the response to the question “whether seeking/available for work” suffers from conceptual issues and lack of attention in data collection.

• Information on ‘child births and survival’ collected in the Census suffers from serious quality issues.

• Information on migration may be of use to assess the socio-economic status of various castes.

Restructuring Census Questionnaires

• The house listing phase of the Census aims to prepare a list of all dwelling units where people are living or are likely to be living at the time of the Census.

• Questions related to housing quality, amenities, and assets owned have been asked during this phase from 1991 onwards.

• Transferring these questions from the house-list schedule to the household schedule would help link information on quality of housing, amenities, and assets to other aspects of the population easier.

• This would also help enumerators focus on listing all buildings, whether residential, partly residential, or nonresidential, along with the number of people living in them.

• Improved house-lists would help in better coverage of the Census, especially in urban areas with higher omission rates.

• The Census should provide answers to the above questions, disaggregated by caste, to identify marginalized communities and the extent of disparities between them.

• Some questions on amenities available to the household or assets owned by them may have become redundant.

• A shorter questionnaire would help the enumerator concentrate on getting more accurate responses to the questions.

• The Census has been providing caste/tribe wise data on several socio-economic variables, but it has not been used to identify the most backward castes/tribes for similar exercises that could aid policy/program formulation.