Despite the growing demand for collection of caste-wise data during the ongoing Census exercise, the Union government has decided there will be no change in the way the population is being enumerated. At the same time, it is ready to discuss and consider other ways of generating a more accurate statistical picture of the caste composition of Indian society, highly placed sources told The Hindu on Tuesday.
With a number of national and regional parties demanding that the current census be modified to include caste, the Cabinet discussed the matter in order to firm up the government's position before Wednesday's discussion in Parliament. But though the status quo is to prevail, the meeting saw sharp divisions between Ministers arguing for and against change. According to sources, there were three distinct positions: those opposed to any collection of caste data, those opposed to the use of the census but not to some other statistical or survey method, and those in favour of including caste in the census.
The Census of India, which was first conducted synchronously in 1881, collected universal caste-wise population data until 1931. Though the census continues to count the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, the Other Backward Classes have not been enumerated for 80 years, prompting some parties to argue that their share of the population — and, thus, to the reservation pie — might be higher than what the Mandal Commission extrapolated from decades-old census data.
At Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, whose Ministry oversees the census, argued against the demand to include caste. He said the enumerators lacked the sociological sensitivity to record and classify the population on the basis of caste and sub-caste. According to sources, he suggested that the backward classes commissions at the State and Central levels be better placed to conduct a detailed survey. Others not inclined towards a caste census were Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal.
The meeting ended with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pointing to the need for more discussion in government and within the UPA constituents.
Opposition parties, including the BJP, the SP, the RJD, the JD(U) and the CPI, have been demanding that since reservation and other benefits were given to people on the basis of caste, the government should reintroduce caste in the census.
Keywords: Central Govt, caste census, population, Mandal Commission, Parliament, Union Cabinet
It will be much better if 'Caste' and 'Religion' is removed,leave aside the census sheets, from all Government records.
when will our politicians realize that reservations has not helped the people who really deserve it.
Empowering the people with Education (which is the best weapon to tackle poverty, illiteracy and social backwardness)is the real way ahead.
Many ministers speak FOR Reservation because otherwise the very existence of their parties would be questioned!!
And, these days, no minister would risk his seat and power for the sake of betterment of downtrodden!!
If the government doesn't want to govern on real data, i guess this country is gonna play to the whims of the neta's who can play numbers as they wish in leaving the real progress to this boisterous largely selfish and self centered lot.
All this is a colossal waste of energy.Reservation was meant to be in force for a few years only, but now for the sake of vote bank politics politicians want to perpetuate reservation. The lack of merit in people getting jobs or admissions is telling on our progress as a Nation.It can be seen every day in the kind of illogical decisions we find.Our progress is only in areas where there is no reservation.Thanks to reservations the quality of IIM and IIT graduates will go down seriously. In A P and Tamil Nadu the large scale increase in seats in Engineering colleges has lowered the standard of engineers and a large number of them are job less.They ultimately take up jobs where they are paid as less as peons.
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