Govt notifies Census 2027, Cong questions 'silence' on caste enumeration

Centre may consider ST status for Bihar's Nonia community if caste census data shows widespread poverty, Shivraj Chouhan says amid intensifying caste politics

The Centre on Monday notified conducting the next Census in 2027, a massive exercise which the government had said will include caste enumeration, even as political parties of all hues indicated that the exercise and its findings would lead to intense political contestation.

 

The last census was held in 2011.

 

The census will be carried out with a reference date of October 1, 2026 in the snow-bound areas like Ladakh and March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country, the notification said.

 

The exercise is estimated to cost the exchequer over Rs 13,000 crore, and will be conducted by nearly 3.4 million enumerators and supervisors and 130,000 census functionaries armed with digital devices.

 

 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparation for the Census with Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, and other senior officials here on Sunday.

 

According to Article 246 of the Constitution, the Census is a subject listed at 69 in the Union List in the Seventh Schedule. In the upcoming Census, caste enumeration will also be done, the first such exercise since Independence.

 

The training process for enumerators is likely to start in October 2025. Citizens will answer around three dozen questions ranging from whether they use a telephone, internet connection and the likes; their vehicles, the cereals they consume, water source, house type, whether the head of the household is a woman, an SC or ST.

 

Meanwhile, terming the notification on the 16th Census as a “damp squib”, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said it was “silent on the inclusion of caste” in the exercise and asked whether this is another “U-turn” by the government.

 

He also suggested that the Centre must adopt the Telangana model for not just caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socio-economic parameters caste-wise.

 

Later in the day, Ramesh said that if one looks at history it would be very uncomfortable for the Sangh Parivar, including the BJP, which withdrew support to the VP Singh government on the Mandal Commission issue in 1990, and started the ‘Kamandal agitation’. 

 

Meanwhile in Patna, the capital of poll-bound Bihar, Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan participated in the centenary celebrations of martyr Buddhu Nonia.

 

Chouhan said that the government at the Centre would, once the Census data is published, consider the Nonia community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status if it comes out that 95 per cent of the community is extremely poor.

 

The Nonia community is present in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and according to Bihar’s caste survey of 2022, comprises 1.9 per cent of the state’s population.

 

Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Union minister Bhupendra Yadav accused the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government of indulging in “politics of appeasement” by issuing a fresh list of OBC communities that has included a large number of Muslim castes.

 

He criticised the Congress for always betraying the OBCs pointing to the Karnataka government’s decision to junk an earlier caste count and go for a fresh enumeration.

 

On the Congress asking the Centre to adopt the “Telangana model” for not just caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socio-economic parameters during the nationwide census, Yadav asked why the Congress did not follow the same practice in Karnataka.

 

Congress’ inner contradictions have been exposed as the party has no real commitment to social justice and resorts to such political gimmicks for electoral purposes, he said.

 

In West Bengal, Chief Minister Banerjee asserted in the state assembly that her government was working to safeguard the interests of SCs, STs, backward castes, and Muslims, in line with the Supreme Court and High Court directives on social welfare.

 

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also clarified that his government’s upcoming socio-educational and caste survey is fundamentally different from the Centre’s caste census.

 

“The Centre is only doing a caste census, while we are undertaking a comprehensive socio-educational and caste survey. The distinction is important,” he said.