Fri May 02 02:38:19 UTC 2025: **India Faces Herculean Task in Upcoming Caste Census**
NEW DELHI – The Indian government’s decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming census has sparked concerns among leading anthropologists and population scientists. The primary hurdle, they argue, is the creation of a comprehensive list of all castes and communities in India. No such all-encompassing registry currently exists beyond the constitutional lists for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
The 1931 census, the last to enumerate castes, recorded over 4,147 different castes and sub-castes. However, even this extensive count is outdated. Currently, there are over 3,651 OBCs, 1,170 SCs, and 850 STs, with many groups appearing across multiple states. The Anthropological Survey of India’s “People of India” volumes offer another dataset, listing 4,635 communities, but this too is incomplete.
Professor Ram B. Bhagat, a former head of migration and urban studies, highlights the need for a preliminary step: creating a comprehensive list through consultations with academics, community representatives, and the public. He points to the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), which yielded over 46 lakh different entries due to a lack of a definitive list, leading to inflated numbers.
The challenge is compounded by the dynamic nature of caste, with new groups emerging and existing ones evolving. Linguistic variations and regional differences in naming conventions further complicate the process. The 1931 census itself acknowledged these complexities, noting evolving identities and regional variations in classification.
Professor Bhagat emphasizes the crucial need for public notification and discussion of any proposed caste list, suggesting a regionally disaggregated approach. The process, he adds, should learn from the experiences of states like Bihar which have undertaken similar exercises. The upcoming census, therefore, faces a significant challenge in accurately capturing the complex and evolving landscape of caste in contemporary India.
First Piper 