Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought time to hold discussion on caste-based census. Reportedly, Soren has also invited Opposition BJP in the state to join the delegation to meet the Prime Minister.
“A nine-member delegation, headed by me, would like to meet you to discuss our demand for caste-based census. We request you to kindly allot us a time to meet,” Soren said in the letter.
WHAT’S CASTE CENSUS
Caste census means inclusion of caste-wise tabulation of India’s population in the Census exercise held one in ten years.
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The earlier caste-based census was conducted 90 years ago during the British era in 1931 and the country has followed the same since then.
Opposition Demands Caste-based Census
The issue of caste census has become a key political point with a wide section of parties, including NDA constituent JD-U, pressing for it.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, a votary of caste-based census, on Monday said several political parties in other states have started raising the same demand for caste enumeration of the country’s population and the Prime Minister has to make a decision on it. He also dismissed speculations that such a census, in which details of Other Backward Class (OBC) people will be taken besides those of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, will lead to social tension. “We recently met PM Modi over the issue. Leaders of all political parties of Bihar are of the view that caste-based census should be conducted in the country as it will benefit everyone. He listened to everyone’s opinion very carefully. Now he has to make a decision,” Kumar had said.
On August 23, a delegation from Bihar, headed by Nitish Kumar, met Prime Minister Modi in support of a nationwide caste-based census. The 10-party delegation was also joined by RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav and leaders from other parties. A number of parties of Uttar Pradesh – Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress, Anupriya Patel’s Apna Dal, Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Sanjay Nishad’s Nishad Party and Babu Singh Kushwaha’s Jan Adhikar Party – have raised such a demand ahead of assembly elections due next year in various states including UP. Several political parties of Maharashtra and Odisha have also sought caste-based census which is scheduled to be held this year.
Moreover, Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi recently constituted a committee to examine the caste census issue with former Union Minister Veerappa Moily as its head. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Salman Khurshid, Mohan Prakash, RPN Singh, PL Punia, and Kuldeep Bishnoi, will be the members of the panel, an official statement reads.
The committee will study matters related to the Caste census, and present its report to the Congress leadership, the statement said.
Centre’s Response
The Centre has already said that it is not in favour of caste-based census in the country. “The raw caste data collected during Socio-Economic Caste Census in 2011 is with Registrar General of India but no proposal to release the data as many technical problems noticed in it by RGI and the data has also become very old and is not usable,” said the Centre in Rajya Sabha.
The Census 2021 exercise, when carried out, will enumerate only those SCs and STs that were notified through the constitutional orders of 1950, the government had informed Parliament. Union minister Nityanand Rai had said this in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on whether the government is planning to undertake a caste census along with the General Decennial Census 2021.
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