Postcards from Nagpur

Any attempt to put the Hindutva genie back in its bottle will require at the very least sustained and determined opposition to it

I remember once sitting in a room as Pranab Mukherjee, then a cabinet minister in the United Progressive Alliance, explained his government’s plan to conduct a socio-economic caste census (SECC). Many in that room were concerned about the SECC; they variously thought it would solidify caste barriers, or under-count the underprivileged, and so on. I expected Mukherjee to take on these objections and explain why they were wrong. Instead we were treated to a lengthy explanation of the history of counting caste under the Indian (and British Indian) state, an exposition dripping with facts and anecdotes that Mukherjee produced solely