New Delhi: The Union government has revealed in parliament that it has not shared data from the last Socio-Economic Caste Census, conducted 12 years ago, with the commission under former Delhi high court Chief Justice G. Rohini, which is tasked with the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes.
Responding to an unstarred question on March 14 by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham’s Namakkal MP A.K.P. Chinraj on whether the government had shared caste data from the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census with the Justice G. Rohini led commission, the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, A. Narayanaswamy, said, “No, Sir. No such request has been received from Justice G. Rohini-led Commission.”
The Justice Rohini commission was formed by the President under Article 340 of the constitution in October 2017. It was initially given 12 weeks to slot the nearly 3,000 caste groups that make up India’s OBCs into various categories. Since 2017, the commission has received no fewer than 14 extensions, the latest of which came in January this year.
The Commission’s work is considered necessary to ensure that deserving OBC groups are not underrepresented on the list. In 2018, it had been reported by The Indian Express that out of the jobs and educational positions reserved for OBCs at the Central level, 97% had gone to people from less than a quarter of all OBC sub-castes and 938 OBC sub-castes – which make up 37% of the total number – had no representation at all in the reserved seats.
The Lok Sabha response by the government comes as clamour for a caste census grows. The last census – intended to take place every decade – was in 2011. Experts and activists have, numerous times, highlighted the necessity for a caste census as the first step for ensuring social justice.
The 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census was done under the Ministry of Rural Development, then headed by Jairam Ramesh, under the Manmohan Singh government, through door-to-door exercises across the country. That was the last time that such an exercise was done.
In September 2021, the Union government, now under Narendra Modi, ruled out another Socio-Economic Caste Census saying that it was was unfeasible, “administratively difficult and cumbersome”. The Union government said this in response to a writ petition by the Maharashtra government seeking directions to the Union government to collect data on the Backward Class of Citizens (BCC) of rural India during the enumeration of the 2021 census.
In that affidavit filed with the Supreme Court, the Union government also alleged that caste enumeration in the Socio-Economic and Caste Census of 2011 was “fraught with mistakes and inaccuracies”.