Congress Leaders Oppose Caste Census Methodology

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi have written a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing their opposition to the proposed methodology for caste enumeration in the upcoming Census.

The Congress leaders have described the government's open-ended format for recording caste details as 'misleading' and warned that it could result in fragmented and unreliable data. Under the proposed methodology, enumerators would record the caste name exactly as provided by respondents, without a prescribed list or standardised options.

Kharge and Gandhi argued that this approach could create serious inconsistencies because the same caste may be known by different names, spellings, sub-castes or regional variations across the country. They pointed out that such variations could result in the same community being recorded under multiple entries, making the final data difficult to consolidate and analyse.

The Congress has raised particular concerns over the impact of the methodology on the enumeration of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), most backward communities and other socially disadvantaged groups. The leaders reportedly pointed out that the questionnaire does not explicitly include the term 'Backward Class', raising concerns over how the overall OBC population would be accurately identified and counted.

The Congress leaders also argued that inaccurate caste figures could have wider implications for government policy, including education, employment, welfare schemes and social justice programmes. They drew a comparison with difficulties associated with the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census, where variations in caste names and classifications reportedly complicated the process of consolidating the data.

Kharge and Gandhi have called for the existing questionnaire to be scrapped and replaced with a fresh format prepared after consultations with political parties, experts and the public. They proposed creating a verified drop-down list of castes based on existing government lists, including those relating to Socially and Educationally Backward Classes, along with inputs from institutions such as the Anthropological Survey of India.

The Congress has also pointed to caste surveys conducted in Bihar and Telangana as possible models for standardised enumeration. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also criticised the government's approach, describing the current exercise as a 'whitewash'.

The controversy surrounding the caste census methodology has significant implications for the country's social and economic policies. The accuracy of the data collected during the census will play a crucial role in shaping the government's welfare schemes and social justice programmes. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the methodology used for caste enumeration is robust and reliable.