Bihar: All-party meet on caste census today

PATNA: The all-party meeting convened by CM Nitish Kumar on Wednesday to discuss ways and means of conducting caste census in the state is expected to be a brain-storming one, as the issues like caste, sub-castes and the cases of people without their identifiable caste names will crop up.
Education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said the political parties which have their elected representatives in the state assembly have been invited to participate in the meeting on how to conduct caste census in the state.
The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the CM secretariat, implying that the CM and leader of opposition in the assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, as well as deputy CMs Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi, will be among the prominent participants. The government has sent invitations to the legislature party leaders of the respective political parties in the state assembly to deliberate on the issue.
For the sake of record, BJP, JD(U) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) from the ruling NDA combine and RJD, CPI(ML), CPI and CPM from the grand alliance, as well as the Congress and AIMIM are the political parties with representation in the House.
Choudhary said there is unanimity among all the parties on holding the caste census in the state, as the state legislature had unanimously adopted a resolution twice in 2019 and 2020 in its favour.
Accordingly, the state government had requested the Centre to hold caste census along with the 2021 general census. Later, an all-party delegation led by Nitish also met PM Narendra Modi in Delhi to press the matter. However, subsequently, the Centre maintained that the caste census cannot be held with the general census (2021), as all the preparations had been made and the format to be used for the purpose cannot be changed.
“However, the Centre said the states can hold their caste census,” Choudhary said.
Indications are that a few political parties, like the CPI(ML), have already done their homework as to the issues they will raise at the meeting. The last caste census had been done in 1931.
“How will the sub-castes in a particular caste figure in the caste census? Then, the Seemanchal region (comprising Purnia, Kishanganj, Katihar and Araria districts) has a separate category of Muslims, called Suryapuri Muslim, which is an overarching name of the category, but no castes among them have been identified, despite the fact that their number is around 1 crore. They use caste names arbitrarily, depending on the choice of individuals and groups. Furthermore, how will the Dalits among them be identified?” CPI(ML) state secretary Kunal said, adding that CPI(ML) legislature party leader Mahboob Alam will raise such issues.