Euphemisms, however artfully deployed, cannot mask the truth: the BJP-led government at the Centre has capitulated to the growing demand for a caste-based census. What was once dismissed as divisive and regressive is now being actively pursued under the weight of electoral necessity. This political volte-face is not rooted in ideological change but in a pragmatic understanding of ground realities — especially in caste-fractured states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where elections are won not on nationalistic rhetoric but on the arithmetic of social justice. The demand for a caste census has existed for decades, with support cutting across regional and ideological lines. Ironically, both the BJP and the Congress resisted it for a long time. The Congress, under political compulsion, eventually yielded and conducted a Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in 2011, along with the decennial census. However, by the time the data was ready, a new government led by Narendra Modi was in power. Rather than making the SECC findings public, the government chose silence — not offering any explanation for its reticence.

This deliberate suppression was not born out of administrative oversight but political calculation. The data, had it been released, would have revealed a more accurate picture of the caste composition of India — a picture that could upset the carefully balanced coalition of castes and communities that the BJP had sought to engineer.........

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