‘Saying Caste Census Will Take Place Not Enough’: Opp Keeps up Pressure After BJP’s U-Turn

New Delhi: A week after the Union government announced that caste enumeration data will be included in the next decadal census, questions remain around its implementation with no timelines announced for its rollout. 

Opposition parties have pointed to the sharp reversal from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) stated position during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when it had called the demand for a caste census “an attempt to divide society”. 

However, the BJP is not only looking to gain in the upcoming Bihar elections by upending the opposition’s long standing demand of a caste census but also hoping that the decision will pay dividends in the successive state elections. 

The saffron party wants to make up for the losses it suffered on the back of the INDIA alliance’s call for a caste census and building of a social coalition in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. 

Opposition parties however say that it is not enough to simply announce that a caste census will take place.

'Just the government's agreement not enough'

While announcing the Union cabinet’s decision to include caste enumeration data with the next population census a week ago, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw accused the Congress and the opposition INDIA alliance of having used the demand for a caste census as a “political tool”, 

Union home minister Amit Shah too accused the Congress and its allies of opposing caste census for decades, “playing politics” over it and said that the cabinet’s decision “will empower all economically and socially backward classes, promote inclusion and pave new paths for the progress of the deprived. 

But neither of them, or any government representative since, has provided any timeline for when the much delayed population census (that was to be conducted in 2021) and the accompanying caste count will be conducted.

Also read: Will the Modi Government Carry Out the Caste Census or Will it Remain an Eyewash?

“It is not enough to announce the caste census alone. We are alert. We will ensure this is done in a scientific manner,” said Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Kumar Jha to The Wire.

“The government brought the women reservation bill, but it is dependent on census and then delimitation. There are many things that this government is placing in a rhetorical basket, which is not enough. Just the government's agreement is not the destination, there are many milestones to cross now and we will do so by staying alert. We will keep telling the government that these figures are not to be kept in cold storage but must be used to ensure equality socially, economically, politically and in the private sector.”

'This is just the first step, we want dates'

In the last week, while the BJP has sought to show that the decision to announce the caste census shows its commitment to social justice, opposition parties have said that it was their pressure on the Narendra Modi-led government that led the BJP to yield.

With the BJP now bowing to their long standing demand, the opposition has stopped short of questioning the government’s intention behind the announcement and instead focused on building pressure on the road ahead.

Hours after the government’s announcement, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in a press conference said that while the party welcomed the move, the question now was on the dates for its implementation.

“It does not matter why they took the decision. We have been fighting for very long [on the caste census]. We are happy. We welcome it. We want to ask the government when the process will be completed. We want dates,” said Gandhi.

Calling it a new “paradigm of development” Gandhi said that the need is to go beyond the caste census and demanded the removal of the 50% cap on reservations and implementation of Article 15(5) which provides reservations in private educational institutions.

Also read: How a Caste Census Can Lead Us Towards a Casteless India

Opposition leaders said that while the BJP has taken the “first step” by announcing the caste census, the party’s history of opposition to reservations shows its lack of inclination towards [its] implementation.

“BJP has done the first step. They also had a caste survey in Bihar. What has it done with that data? What are the schemes that have been announced using that data? What is the new planning that BJP-JD(U) have done with that data? If they are only doing the caste census to take the sting out of the demand led by Rahul Gandhi then they are doing a great disservice,” Gurdeep Singh Sappal, permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and aide to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge told The Wire.

Concerns remain whether the BJP will succeed in taking ownership over both Mandal and Kamandal politics with the move in a bid to thwart the opposition's gains following the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. 

It was in Uttar Pradesh, that the BJP suffered its worst defeat in a decade after the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party centred its campaign around ‘PDA’ (Pichhda (OBC), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities) in an attempt to grow out of its perception as an ‘MY’ (Muslim-Yadav) party. 

In Bihar, the Tejashwi Yadav-led RJD stitched together a social coalition by allying with the Left and the Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP) and repositioned his ‘MY’ party as a ‘MY-BAAP’ (Backwards and Dalits), Agdaa (forwards), Aadhi Abaadi (women) and poor – party.

What comes after the caste census?

Sappal said that the caste census cannot be “confined to Mandal versus Kamandal”  and needs to be seen from the perspective of “overall development”.

“Elections may come and go. Issue is what you do after winning elections. That is what we did in Telangana after winning elections we did the (caste) survey and brought policies. BJP might be doing this for Bihar elections but people in Bihar will also ask why did the caste survey in Bihar not lead to affirmative action or planning like new development policies like the Telangana government,” said Sappal. 

“The natural question is what [comes] after the caste census? That is why we want to ask the BJP what will you do with the caste census data? This is a simplistic take on politics that just by announcing the caste census they have got a headway or some advantage over the INDIA alliance. More questions will follow now.”

The 2023 Bihar caste census, conducted by the Janata Dal (United) in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), had caused a political storm in the state. The JD(U)-RJD government passed crucial amendments in the state assembly to breach the Supreme Court mandated 50% ceiling on reservations. 

Also read: What Does Telangana’s Survey Reveal About Caste Structures Among Muslims?

The amendments followed the caste survey in Bihar, which showed that 65% of Bihar’s population belonged to these four marginalised groups but had abysmal representation in government jobs and educational institutions. 

In June 2024, the Patna high court set aside the Bihar government’s decision to breach the ceiling on reservations. The case is now being heard in the Supreme Court. The move to conduct the census was heavily criticised by the BJP even though its local unit had provided support to it.

Jha said that it was then deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav who had convinced chief minister Nitish Kumar – who was then part of the INDIA alliance before returning to the NDA ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections – for the caste census.

“Despite this roadblocks were placed, including at the level of the solicitor general (Tushar Mehta) who made an intervention to stop the Bihar caste survey,” said Jha referring to Mehta’s submission in the Supreme Court that such a survey may have “ramification” and the Union government should be allowed to file a response.

“Issues cannot be taken away like this. These are issues of social churning, deepening of democracy. One such decision taken under pressure cannot change authorship. This is a win of Bahujan society cutting across political parties and no political party sitting in the centre can claim credit for it. Only the Bahujan society can claim credit for it.”

The JD(U) on the other hand, having returned to the NDA fold since the Bihar caste survey, said that such a survey was not conducted during the successive RJD governments under Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar or the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.

“If the constitution allows states to do caste surveys, there were many years under Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar or under the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh but they did not do so,”  said Rajeev Ranjan Prasad, JD(U) national spokesperson to The Wire.

“One decision relating to the reservations following the caste survey in Bihar is in the Supreme Court. And the other decision was to give Rs 2 lakh to one member of 94 lakh families. RJD are saying they got this done. But in the Bihar assembly, all parties supported the caste survey in 2019 and 2020 when the NDA was in government. In 2021, it was an NDA government that met the prime minister in an all-party delegation. When the caste survey work started we were in government with RJD. Their only role is that they did not stop our work in their 17-month government,” Prasad said.

BJP claims it is not a U-turn

The BJP, which ran the 2024 election campaign against the caste census demand by the opposition, termed it as an attempt to “divide society”. BJP leaders led by Prime minister Modi himself equated the demand as one by “urban naxal thought”. 

Ahead of the elections, Modi also gave it a communal colour and accused the Congress of “redistributing mangalsutras, gold, land and property of mothers and sisters”. 

The decision now is a policy pivot. It is also a significant departure from the foundational tenets of the Hindutva ideology and the BJP-RSS’s longstanding stance on caste and social engineering that aspires to unify Hindus under a single ethno-national identity, minimising historical divisions such as caste.

Prasad said that the Union government’s decision should not be looked at as a U-turn and instead pointed to two statements made by Shah in the last year.

“On record, two statements are important in which Amit Shah said that caste census may be conducted. One was last year, when Shah talked about the caste census in an interview with a daily and did not disagree with it. One month ago, while speaking on Times Now, he said that once modalities are worked out, we will talk about it. So this has not been sudden,” he said.

The budget allocation in FY 25-26 of Rs 574 crore for the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner this year – a mere 6.5% of the projected cost of conducting the census, shows that the census is unlikely to be conducted this year. 

The population census was initially delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but is yet to be conducted four years on. This is the first time in its 150-year history that the decennial census has been delayed. 

With no timeline proposed for the caste census, questions remain whether the government will implement this decision at all. With the Bihar assembly elections due this year, the BJP and its alliance partners are looking to gain from the announcement of the caste census itself while claiming that a survey has already been conducted in Bihar.

“Whenever the next census is conducted the caste census will also be done. So there should not be any confusion about this,” said Prasad. “From our end it is clear that the Congress and its allies did not get it done. We should not link it with elections because we have been asking for one nation one election, then such questions won't be raised. In Bihar caste survey is already done so this decision has not been taken with Bihar elections in mind," he added.

BJP cannot have the pie and eat it too

Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, where elections are due in 2027. The BJP was reduced to its lowest tally in a decade in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, winning only 33 seats against the SP-Congress’s 43 of the total 80 seats. This win was largely attributed to the social coalition engineered by Akhilesh Yadav, which helped his party gain more seats from PDA.

“There is infighting within the BJP which will only deepen now. BJP will have to establish that the promises it made to the upper castes and the way in which it favoured them to maintain their dominance, was it done seriously or was it a joke? BJP has confused its core voter by taking a U-turn. BJP cannot have the pie and eat it too,” said SP spokesperson Udaiveer Singh.

“They won’t gain from this because they have no clarity on the issue. We have maintained that the caste census is not enough in itself. On the basis of its results, politics should be reshaped accordingly, which will lead to an egalitarian society. The opposition's agenda has been established further, and our demand for representation on the basis of social justice has been strengthened. The BJP by taking a U-turn has accepted its moral defeat.”