The Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to throw the sticky question whether caste should be included in census enumeration back at the government, virtually leaving the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance free to interpret its answer whichever way it wants.
The subject was discussed at some length at a BJP core committee meeting here on Friday, before Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj responded to the government's query made in a letter from Pranab Mukherjee, heading the Group of Ministers on this issue.
Ms. Swaraj, in her reply said: “We agree that caste should be canvassed in such a manner and at such stage that it does not affect the integrity of the headcount (census).”
She prefixed this operative part of her response with the remark that “the BJP has already clarified its stand in the Lok Sabha. The party reiterates that caste can be canvassed in the ongoing census/ national population register exercise.”
It seems from Ms. Swaraj's response that the party's answer to the question on a caste census is both “yes” and “no.”
“Yes,” but only if it does not disturb the integrity of the headcount, and “no” if it does.
This answer is expected to resolve the problem the BJP faced after its pro-caste census stand in the Lok Sabha was strongly criticised by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which opposes caste census of any kind, but was, at a pinch, willing to go along with an all-caste census as against an Other Backward Classes-specific exercise.
For the record, Ms. Swaraj said her party stood by the position it took in the Lok Sabha — which was strongly in favour of a caste census, and specifically a census that would count the OBCs.
But this was quickly negated by the following sentence in her response which said this ought to be done only at such a stage that it did not affect the integrity of the headcount.
With the government having stated that it feared that a column on caste in the census questionnaire would affect the integrity of the headcount, the BJP stand will leave the door wide open for it to interpret the main Opposition's response whichever way it wants.
Earlier, after the core committee meeting, general secretary Ananth Kumar said it was the primary responsibility of the main ruling party, the Congress, to make its stand clear on the issue but it had not done so. Nor did the UPA make its views known on this sensitive subject.
‘Instead of telling us what the Congress and UPA's views were and then asking us directly whether we were for or against a caste census, Mr. Mukherjee's letter to Ms. Swaraj asking for the BJP's opinion was quite vague,” Mr. Kumar said.
The two questions asked by Mr. Mukherjee were: “Whether ‘caste' should be canvassed in the ongoing Census/ NPR [National Population register] exercise? If the answer to this is in the affirmative, whether your party agrees that the caste of the respondent (i.e. the person from whom information is sought) should be canvassed is such a manner and at such stage that it does not affect the integrity of the headcount (census)?”
Since the government's question itself suggested that the integrity of the headcount could suffer as a result of a caste column, the BJP has latched on to that in order to avoid providing a firm response either way.
