Which caste count goals are most important?

• The British first started counting India’s population in 1881, including caste data.

• The last time caste data was published was from the 1931 census, which counted 4,147 castes and sub-castes.

• The government avoided the question of caste in the census after India gained Independence, only counting Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCs/STs).

• The 1931 census data was the basis for reservation efforts, with the Mandal Commission’s recommendation for a 27% quota for OBCs in education and government jobs.

• The Union Ministry of Rural Development initiated a different kind of caste counting exercise in 2011, aiming to use the data for research, policy making, and development and welfare schemes.

• The SECC left caste questions open-ended, leading to the counting of more than 46 lakh different castes.

• At least three states have conducted caste censuses, with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar leading the effort in 2023, finding OBCs and Extremely Backward Classes (EBCs) accounted for more than 63% of the state’s population.

• The demand for a caste census has been a major plank of the Opposition’s poll campaigns, with the BJP-led government’s decision surprising.

• The Bihar caste survey set off a political tinderbox that carried over into the 2024 general election campaign.

• The decision to conduct a caste count “steals the thunder” from the Opposition’s campaign just ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections, where it is sure to become a poll issue.

• The next step will be to draft a code directory of castes to be used in the Census.

• The process of listing castes is a thorny political question due to differing OBC lists, linguistic and regional diversity in caste names, splitting of castes into sub-castes over time, and disagreements on whether specific castes fit into SC, OBC, or general categories.