Ace demographer condemns caste-based census

The caste census being done by the government as part of the overall exercise to understand the country’s demography is a retrograde step. It would bring issues of caste and casteism to the forefront, said India’s best known demographer, Ashish Bose, honorary professor at the Institute of Economic Growth here.

It was Bose who in the 1980s coined the term BIMARU states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh).

He said politicians intent on building vote banks on the basis of caste want data on the caste composition in their constituencies. “But, my believe is not much benefit will come to them, as by the time this exercise is completed, the 2014 general elections will be already over,” Bose said, while delivering the sixth Sumitra Chishti Memorial Lecture on Thursday.

“There is convincing evidence in numerous census reports produced by the British administrators that the British played up religion, caste and language to divide people,” Bose said.

However, in the first census of independent India, then census commissioner R A Gopalaswami, under the guidance of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and home minister Vallabhai Patel dropped the question altogether.

“Surprisingly, in 2011, Manmohan Singh, a modern man, under pressure from caste lobbies, agreed to conduct a caste census …. This is a most unfortunate development and I condemn it,” Bose said. He added the fact that this caste census will be conducted after the normal census makes it all the more wrong.

“It seems the census commissioner (C Chandramouli) was bulldozed into accepting the decision of two cabinet meetings to conduct a caste census after the 2011 census operations were over,” Bose said, adding that the contention being made, that such a exercise will help in identifying the creamy and non-creamy layer among lower castes, was wrong. For, the Indian census never asks questions on an individual’s income.

Elaborating, Bose said Question no 21 of the 2011 census only asks if you are seeking or available for work, which will give a sense of total unemployment in the country.

He said it’s not that nothing is good with the 2011 census. Developments such as publication of census questionnaire in 18 Indian languages apart from English, collection of census data from each household and obtaining the signature or thumb impression of a literate head of the household are measures which would help improve the accuracy of the data.

“As the present Census Commissioner tells me, no enumerator can anymore sit under a tree and fill up census forms to minimise his work,” Bose said. Adding that the annual health survey introduced with the census is also a welcome step.

Dwelling on his years of experience as a demographer, Bose said population stabilisation was not possible in India unless things improved significantly in the BIMARU states.