The Union Government has finally yielded to the demands of various pressure groups for conducting a caste census side by side with the next normal census operation (2021) as and when it is held. The latest announcement about the next census (The Statesman, May 1) is the outcome of these demands. Announcing the government decision and Cabinet nod on conducting the next census, the Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said that this shall be the first caste census in independent India.

Two notable unusual aspects regarding the time of this announcement are a) there is hardly one month left for the Bihar Assembly elections ~ and incidentally, Bihar happens to be the first state to conduct a caste-based survey in the country, and b) it took the government more than seven years’ time to finalise what it announced in 2018. Earlier, in 2021, the government categorically reported to the Supreme Court that conducting a caste census is an administratively difficult process as it is prone to errors. Depending on this plea of the Union government, the Apex Court dismissed a petition filed by the Maharashtra Government on giving direction to the government to conduct a caste census.

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Conducting a census at eve – ry ten-year interval is a constitu – tional obligation of the Government of India, which helps not only in updating the country’s baseline data system in almost all spheres but also helps the government in taking appropriate policy decisions. The 17th Census, which was supposed to be conducted in the year 2021 initially, was kept in abeyance due to the precarious situation prevailing in the country generated by the spread of Covid-19. But even thereafter, the government did not appear keen to conduct Census 2021. In this context, we may note that there were as many as 233 countries that were supposed to go for a census immediately after 2020, of which 143 countries have completed the census operation, including the People’s Republic of China.

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Those which could not yet resume the process have their own internal problems, such as Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, etc. However, India, despite having no such problems, delayed the census, and even in the present declaration, the government has not spelled out any definite time frame for commencing the next census operation. In the absence of census data, people are today using the........

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