Making Sense of the Caste Census
In Focus: Bihar compiles caste date
By Pranav Agarwal
All issues of caste in India are accompanied by two standard, boiler-plate arguments. The first goes something like:
Caste is a foundational evil of Indian society. For millennia, the upper castes have oppressed and excluded the lower castes. The effect of such relentless discrimination is obvious. Why is it that people from the lower caste don’t make it to high paying jobs or prestigious universities? We must do something to change this! That is the only way we can get to a caste-free society.
The other, equally vehement, goes:
India’s fundamental problem is that nobody can see beyond their caste. We must forget about our caste identities and only see ourselves as Indians. After so many years, how have caste-specific measures changed anything? In fact, they only breed resentment between castes! These are tactics to divide people. Only by removing any caste-based measures can we get to a caste-free society.
On 2nd October, the Bihar Government released the first of its findings from an extensive, year-long caste survey. Over much of the last year, 2.64 lakh enumerators have reportedly visited 29 million households, gathering data on people’s caste and socio-economic status. Upon the report’s release, the same tired polemics were dug out, wiped of their cobwebs, and flung back in the public domain. They followed predictable trajectories, as all such arguments do. Alas, they barely capture the importance of this survey.
Until 1931, the British-Indian Government enumerated the castes of the people it surveyed in its decadal censuses. The subsequent census - in 1941 - was severely marred by the second World War. With a complete enumeration of caste-wise data proving difficult, various caste groups were merged into a monolithic category: ‘Hindu’. All censuses since list out numbers of those from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs), but not those of other caste groups.
In recent decades, many have raised the demand that such data be enumerated once again. These demands almost came to fruition in 2011, when, along with the decadal census, the Government undertook its first ever Socio Economic and Caste Census. Raw caste data from the survey was handed over to the NITI Aayog for analysis. It remains there, and has never been released to the public.
Without such information, we lack the means to understand the true caste composition of India. The country has gone through substantial social change over the last century, with different castes getting to different rungs of the socio-economic ladder. We do not have firm data to understand these changes. We work blind. Our policy is based on guesswork.
Bihar’s caste survey has two important ramifications. It is, as many have noted, an important political tool. More important than that, however, is the information it does and does not give us.
The Political Salience of the Survey
Bihar’s caste survey, commentators insist, tells us something new about its caste make-up. It authoritatively establishes the numbers of those in the ‘other backward classes’ (OBCs): at a combined 63% of the state’s population.
Currently, 33% of university seats and government jobs in Bihar are reserved for the ‘other backward classes’, including an 18% quota for those deemed to lie in the ‘extremely backward castes’. This, though higher than the 27% reservations offered to OBCs centrally, is well short of their share in the state’s population.
With the survey’s release, Bihar’s ruling coalition is feeling around for room to increase reservations for OBCs. An old Kanshi Ram slogan is making the rounds once again: “Jitni jiski sankhya bhaari, uski utni hissedaari.” What one’s numbers are, that is their share.
If this push draws directly from the caste survey, however, the reason for this is not immediately obvious. While the caste survey brings granularity to our understanding of Bihar’s caste composition, its headline figures – 63% of Bihar falling under the OBC umbrella – should hardly be a surprise. NSSO data from 2011-12, for instance, estimates that 62.6% of Bihar’s population is OBC. In fact, the population share of key castes has hardly budged over the last century.
What has changed, then?
For one, Lok Sabha elections approach. Caste has always had deep political resonance in the sub-continent, and reservations frequently bring it to a boil. The question of reservations for OBCs, in particular, lit up the political landscape of much of the 90s. Back then, questions of caste equity (the “Mandal” camp) ground against the unity of Hindus as a political constituency (the “Kamandal” camp). The salience of the Mandal-Kamandal divide, the opposition wagers, has likely survived the dominance of Hindutva over the last decade.
That said, constraints on scaling up OBC reservation don’t come from the BJP – they come from the Supreme Court. In 1962, the court had looked at whether reservations of 68% were feasible, under the constitutional scheme, in medical or technical colleges. Although the constitution does not specify explicit limits on reservations, the court read in a 50% ceiling. To it, reservations were an exception to the norm of formal equality. Were they to cross 50%, they would nullify equality itself.
This 50% limit has persisted since, as a soft, flexible rule. It is not applied rigidly, but all the same, it governs reservations in the country. This is the obstacle Bihar faces. With a reservation of 16% for Scheduled Castes and 1% for Scheduled Tribes, it has no room to offer reservations beyond 33%.
Or, well, it didn’t… until last November.
When the Central Government brought in 10% reservations for Economically Weaker Sections of society in 2019, aggregate reservations at the Centre touched 60%. Opponents took the measure to the Supreme Court, with its breach of the 50% ceiling a key ground for their challenge. The Supreme Court, however, side-stepped the ceiling, noting at length that it was not inviolable. In extraordinary situations, the cap could be breached. How extraordinary they must be, the court did not mention.
If a cap could be breached for EWS reservations, however, it may well be breached for OBC reservations. Not automatically. Not without laying groundwork. But if the ceiling is not sacrosanct, political entrepreneurs will test its limits.
For the proposition that the 50% ceiling was flexible, the court relied heavily on its ruling in NM Thomas. Interestingly, NM Thomas noted:
Suppose for instance a State has a large number of backward classes of citizens which constitute 80% of the population and the Government, in order to give them proper representation, reserves 80% of the jobs for them, can it be said that the percentage of 139 reservation is bad and violates the permissible limits of clause (4) of Article 16?
This is precisely Bihar’s claim. SCs, STs and OBCs together make for ~85% of its population. Should it not, then, be able to scale reservations up to 85%? This is likely to be the case that Bihar’s ruling coalition shall make over the coming weeks.
What the survey actually tells us
In a media machinery that is hyper-sensitive to political intrigue as the Lok Sabha elections close in, we risk losing sight of a crucial point. A caste survey is merely that – a data enumeration exercise. It does not inherently have political relevance. Its relevance is still being constructed, live, in public view.
Information, however, does not merely exist to serve political ends. The purpose of the caste survey is to inform; the politics of it is ancillary. The caste survey should be judged primarily on what it tells us about the lives of Bihar’s 130 million denizens. For much of India, one’s caste identity is a fundamental fact of life. How this caste identity shapes lives is crucial information. It can tell us how to think of social problems. It can inform policymakers in how to best devise programs. It can point to issues for social entrepreneurs to solve.
It is too early to assess the survey on this parameter. The information we have thus far is minimal – the recent report merely tells us of the number of people in 217 different castes, and their share in the state’s population. It gives us little insight into the lives of these people.
The Bihar Government claims that it has also compiled details of each caste across 17 different socio-economic pointers. This data, when available, will add many layers of depth to what we currently know of caste in Bihar. Going beyond mere demographics, it shall tell us the story of how different groups have fared over the last century, and whether what we had learnt of them in 1931 still holds true. Going ahead, it shall help us think of them more intelligently.
All of this is only possible, however, once the Government releases all survey data. Until then, we can only speculate idly about the importance of a caste survey.
Bigger fish to fry
Caste is an important part of Indian life. It is the organising principle by which many of us live. For better or for worse, the fates of many tied to their caste. This is not a benign institution. It has left deep scars on the Indian psyche, depressing the opportunities available to many to make a good life for themselves.
Yet, it would be a disservice to Bihar if all of this merely ended with a return to Mandal-Kamandal politics. Certainly, caste injustices have left old, festering wounds in our society. Politics is the only viable means to address these grievances. But if this contest remains, as it was thirty years ago, a fight over scraps from Government largesse - public sector jobs and university seats - then it threatens to paper over a much wider failure of the state.
If Bihar were a country, with its population of over 130 million, it would be the 10th most populous country in the world. With a per capita GDP of $607, it would also be the 11th poorest country in the world. Person for person, it is the poorest state in India. It is marked by a glaring absence of governance. Its health system is broken. Its educational system is in shambles. Its people pour out into the rest of the country seeking employment, any employment at all - leading desperate, humiliating lives because their home state is so bereft of opportunity.
If the only political innovation to come out of the state was one of two leaders, stalwarts of a movement that was active thirty years ago, returning to old demands, it would be a tragedy. Bihar deserves better.
Pranav Agarwal is currently a student of the GCPP (Advanced Public Policy) Programme.