Aayushi BansalAIR 7 · CSE 2024 · 247 wordsTheir whole copy
Opening · a definition
Caste Census refers to enumerating caste and possibly sub castes of each social group across the social hierarchy. Currently it is done only for Scheduled Castes (and STs) and is being demanded for both upper castes and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) based on caste.
Body · points
Necessity of the time
- Caste census will help identify the actual population of each caste group. This will enable suitable proportion of resource allocation like reservation.
- Judging education, health and other development indicators of each caste can help gauge the efficacy of affirmative action.
- One can further analyse the issue of benefits being hogged by few sub castes. -> Justice Rohini Commission to understand sub classification of OBCs.
- For some, caste census also acts as an avenue for social mobility like in past, people prefer to register caste as per choice.
Divisive exercise
- Caste census can act as a reinforcer of social identity reminding one of one's caste and its relation to one's class and status.
It can further accentuate more demands for reservation, fuelling identity politics and substantialisation of caste.
Census acts as a source of mobilisation as seen in recent politics around it.
It can further lead to fragmentation into numerous sub castes as seen in Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011. This will further divide society.
Close · a summary
Census based on caste is a double edged sword. It is used to collect demographic data of the entire population but has sociological implications.